The Breakfast Club Wardrobe, Part 8: Shorts!

Over the weekend, I finished the shorts I made as a wearable muslin for my pattern alterations.  Let’s check out the finished product.

The Construction

I didn’t take any shortcuts in the construction, unless you count my use of the serger to finish seams instead of binding.  I’m really pleased with the way they turned out, construction-wise.

(Click/tap on any photos for a larger view).

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Hems

The shorts turned out way too long, cut at the suggested line on the pattern.  I had to cut off nearly 4 inches before hemming them.

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I did a standard hem, rather than the fancy cuffs seeing as how I didn’t do any pretty binding on the seams.

Pockets

The back pockets have topstitching with the last bit of a spool of purple Gutermann topstitching thread. The right pocket looks a little jankier than the left, because it’s the bobbin thread on the outside.  I was too lazy to get the stitch lines marked on the outside, and also to play with the tension to try to even up the stitches. Nobody except me will notice.

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Front pocket detail.

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Inside, showing the pocketing and finishing. The pocketing is the very last bit of my Estes Skateboarding fabric I bought ages ago for practice.

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Waistband

Belt loop detail.

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Fly and Zipper

I’m really pleased with the way the zipper fly turned out.  There’s only a tiny pucker at the bottom of the fly opening.

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The Fit

I apologize for the quality of the photos; I had to use the self-timer to take these photos and so the focus is a little dicey.

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Everything looks fine up until this shot. Not only are there wrinkle lines below the seat, there’s also some strange pooling of fabric on the yoke and the just above the pocket, especially on the lefthand side.

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Here’s an extremely less flattering closeup taken indoors, with flash (the camera’s decision) to make it look even worse.

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I’m not sure what to think about this; the pattern certainly turns out in twill fabric way different than it did with polyester suiting.

I think I want to modify the pattern to take out the excess fabric in the seat, but I’m just not ready to take on that task now.  So I’m switching gears and getting started on the shirts.  They’ve been ready to go for a while; I’ve just been fixating on getting the pants ready to go and I think I need a break from it.

Next Time

I started cutting fabric for the shirts last night.  More about them next time.

4 thoughts on “The Breakfast Club Wardrobe, Part 8: Shorts!

  1. Josie

    Hi Michael,

    Thanks for posting. Don’t be so hard on yourself. So, the pockets could have been better. I am impressed with the whole project. In my humble opinion,if you choose to take “excess” fabric on the seat, you may want to consider the total effect. In general men have less “meat” at the seat, so a little room can’t hurt the total look. Unless, the tight pants look is what you are going for.
    One question, can you tell me how did you accomplished the belt loop detail at the top. Did you use a vertical small zigzag to tack the belt loop to the waist band?
    Thanks

    Have a great evening

    1. mportuesisf Post author

      Josie,

      Thanks so much for your support! I’m not necessarily after the tight pants look, but this pattern is intended to be a slim fit. I have some RTW pants that are also slim-fit, and I’m okay with the look. But the amount of fitting work is starting to make me wonder if I should have chosen a different pattern. Vogue 8940 also has a nice contemporary-looking pair of pants and it’s also in my pattern stash.

      I think I’m going to concentrate on eliminating the pooling in the yoke and above the pocket, and not worry too much about the wrinkle lines below the seat.

      As for the belt loop attachments, I set the machine for a narrow width, short length zigzag stitch. I stitched over the folded belt loop once forward, once in reverse. My machine has an automatic bar-tack feature, but it requires the buttonhole foot. With this many layers of fabric the machine does have feeding issues and I can’t trust it to automatically do the job.

  2. Joe

    Hang in there Mike, these shorts turned out really good. I know what it’s like to have to make a pattern several times until you get the fit just like you want. I.E. my pattern for the KWIK Sew Shorts. Once you do though, your good to go to make several pair. By the way, you did a great job on the fly-zip!

    1. mportuesisf Post author

      Thanks, Joe, for the encouragement. I definitely don’t want to invest the effort to make three more pairs of pants with a less-than-ideal fit, and I do plan to see this project through. But each pattern alteration is a leap of faith that my changes will work for the better, not worse! I think I need a short break before the next leap.

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