UFO: Denim Shorts

If you get the feeling you've heard this story before, you wouldn't be entirely mistaken.

Here's something that I started years ago. On my design, I dated the top corner 23/6. They were meant to be maternity shorts, and seeing as the only time that I was pregnant in June was with my first born, that means that I've had this design hanging around unfinished for 9 1/2 years.

I'm pretty sure that I didn't cut them out until I was pregnant with my daughter, so it's actually more like 6 years since I started on the road to actually making these.

My original vision for these shorts

The idea was that they would sit very low on the hip, and even lower at the front, and the centre front section could expand as I did, with multiple buttons. I built in a pleat behind the pockets, with this section originally intended to be from a stretch fabric.

I didn't get any further than cutting out the fabric at the time, and since I am in desperate need of new shorts, and these were already cut out, I thought I should try and salvage them before moving onto something else.

The brown paper that you see above are the pattern pieces that I changed to make these wearable. I took the back waist up by extending the waistband by 1cm, and brought the front up to match, so at the centre I extended the waistband piece by 3cm or so. They still sit a little low. but there was only enough leftover fabric to cut these new pieces from, so I couldn't change too much. I also cut about 11cm from the length that I had already cut out.

I decided that to break up the monotony of this dark fabric I would do some white topstitching. I used Gutermann topstitiching thread in an off white colour, and used one whole reel (they're only 30m long)!

I don't know what I was thinking when I made this pattern, it was a bit like a jigsaw puzzle to sew them together, and with the double topstitching, it just made it that much harder, especially around the front waistband piece, but I got there in the end without too much drama!

The buttonholes go through two sections of the fronts, but luckily the fabric is thin enough that the buttons don't have an issue going through all the layers.

I only need to undo the buttons on one side to get into these, and I added press studs to make sure that the pleat behind the centre waistband stays in place.

I think they have a bit of a nautical feel to them, and would love to make some kind of top with the same feel, (although I think my stripe top goes some way towards that). No idea what yet, but give me time and I might think of something!