Pocket shorts

I recently noticed that most of my shorts were made from pants leftovers instead of purpose-bought materials. I pondered whether this was why I was so frequently unhappy with the results, decided yes probably, and then turned around and made another scrap pair. But at least this fabric is summer-weight for a change! And they’re definitely getting worn, even if it’s because I’m short on shorts.

“Sure, but where’s the rest of them?” you might, with some justice, be wondering. Well!! It seemed like a good idea to modify the Peppermint pocket skirt to be a pair of shorts. The front and back are cut on the fold, and I thought it would be as simple as adding crotch hooks from another pattern, or from my brain. I chose another pattern. In general, my brain was not the MVP of this project.

I used a TNT pattern (discontinued – Afternoon Fern shorts), lined up the center front corner at the top edge of the skirt piece with the top corner of the short’s crotch seam, traced the curve, measured a 4.75” inseam straight down, and connected it with a perpendicular line to the side seam. That determined the length of the side panel, as well. I thought those almost 5 inches would give me some wiggle room, and the new front piece looked reasonable, so I repeated this for the back. I’ll talk more about the side panels later, but if right now you’re yelling “DON’T GO IN THERE, HE’S GOT A KNIFE” I’ve got bad news: *I* have a knife (scissors) and I used them to cut these pieces out of my extremely limited scrap fabric.

When I lined up the pattern piece corners I forgot to account for the short’s waistband height and the skirt’s grown-on, folded waistband, which meant my rise was a good 2.5” – 3” inches shorter than I thought, with an eventual elastic waist that would be fighting to reach my narrowest point if it had to give me an atomic wedgie to do so. Nooo.

It was too late by the time I noticed, which meant the only way to lengthen the rise was to shorten the inseam. In the end I deepened the curve by 1.5”, leaving me with about 3 inches of inseam. I wouldn’t have planned to make these quite so brief, but on the other hand, if I had calculated the rise correctly the pieces would never have fit on my scraps. It’s a poser.

I also forgot to consider the folded waistband when raising the pocket edge, but I did that entirely by eye and I was fine with a range of positions. Instead of cutting three pieces as in the original pattern – back of skirt pocket panel, pocket lining, front of skirt pocket panel – I cut the lining/front with a fold at the pocket edge. This wouldn’t be very fabric-efficient with the longer skirt but it was fine for short shorts. I also removed the excess from the pocket opening. I cut the new pocket pieces as shown below (this isn’t the purest form of calculation, but it was very easy):

Predictable and yet surprising to me, the pocket still gapes open because unlike the waistband it’s not cinched! So even though I removed the “droop” from the opening it’s still, practically speaking, wider than the available space.

But I like that perky edge.

Pocket notwithstanding, I followed the Peppermint order of operations. I sewed each leg separately and then joined along the crotch seam. Here I discovered another of my mistakes; the original skirt was cut on the fold, but I failed to add seam allowance. This was survivable because of the elastic waist. I actually lost more width by forgetting to account for the shaping along the waistband allowance – I had to change the angle of the upper part of the crotch seam to shape the waistband allowance correctly. Here’s how I should have converted the skirt front and back panels to include a crotch seam:

All my mistakes were own-goals. Luckily the fabric was accommodating, leftover rayon/linen from this dress. It was light enough to sew baby hems and try to scratch back any length I could. I had just barely any scraps of the scraps, only enough to cut a strip for a faux drawstring bow. Before folding the waistband, I interfaced a patch at its center, then sewed a pair of neighboring buttonholes and threaded my tie in one and right out the other. Unfortunately while baking Professor Boyfriend’s birthday cake I dropped chocolate batter on the tie (and just the tie???) and it stained irreparably, so I replaced it with this scrap of grosgrain ribbon and hand-sewed it along the center front seam so it wouldn’t fall out in the wash.

Hopefully those ribbon ends will fray nicely.

Separate from my mistakes, I have opinions. The biggie: if I make another pair of shorts like this, I’ll just do it with rectangles. The skirt-like flair is very comfortable to wear, but when paired with a skimpy inseam, it’s unwise/indiscreet to bend over. Another few inches still wouldn’t be enough to make me confident and I don’t like long shorts. That said, these are excellent for wearing around the house for chores (lots) or sleeping (less), and fine for a quick errand on a hot day, provided I don’t need anything from a low shelf.

If my tale of minor disaster turns you off making these changes yourself, there’s always the Matchy Matchy Chore shorts. $14 seems a bit steep for a 101 drafting project (mean?!!) but I am not here to blame people for wanting to give their noggins a day off. I am evidence that if you don’t, it will just take one!

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Pattern: Peppermint pocket skirt

Pattern cost: NA

Size: 16; added crotch extensions to make shorts; made side panel pockets same width as side panels; forgot to add center seam allowance; forgot to account for integrated waistband in crotch curve; lowered crotch curve 1 1/2″ after the fact and reshaped upper curve to accommodate waist facing turnover

Supplies: scraps of linen blend, from stash; thread from stash; elastic, Sewfisticated, $0.99

Total time: 3.25 hours

Total cost: $0.99