Your First Summer Sewing Project

Anyone else dying in this summer heat? I most definitely am (yeah no AC at our place in case you were wanting to visit)! I think that was the sole reason I decided to sew some comfy shorts and in doing a quick google search I found this cute pattern: https://peppermintmag.com/sewing-school/skye-shorts/

It's cute right?! But wait! Don't get too excited until you see how the actual execution of the pattern went for me. Let's dive in with our ABC's

Acknowledgment

• Pattern source: https://peppermintmag.com/sewing-school/skye-shorts/ I looked around the site for a bit and was pretty impressed with how easy it was to find things and how nice it looked. Plus it wasn't old school or like a cooking site where it's covered in ads.

• Pattern cost: Free with a suggested $2 donation. How awesome is that?! In a world where everyone is trying to look out for only themselves I thought this was a super classy way of doing things and (tbh) I was planning on donating after I finished the shorts, but they didn't turn out very good so.... I think I'll hold off until I figure out what went wrong.

• Pattern Download: Easy to download and get the instructions too. I think there's even a video, but that wasn't readily linked so I didn't watch it.

Breakdown

• Fabric: I used my stash of Rayon from my Anuenue fabric collection. I've been holding on to it for 3 years now and I thought this would be the perfect project to use it for.

• Paper Size: First trouble was with printing the pattern. I could only see A0 and A4 options - no letter options so the pages didn't align perfectly and were cut off a little.

• Printing the Pattern: forgot to open the files in Adobe Acrobat and turn off the layers so I had to sift through all the lines as I was cutting.

• Cutting: All the pieces were easy to cut except for the front waistband part. I don't know why but the curve is really steep, like a steel mixing bowl steep vs a wok steep. This seemed strange to me at the time, but who am I to judge these things so I pressed on.

• Interface: I thought I was being proactive by adding the fusible interface at the beginning only to find out that you have to trim it down for the waistband. Oops - too late to change that by the time I read it.

• Pattern Discrepancies: The front and back waistband didn't match up. The front piece was much longer than the back which threw everything off. I had to cut the front waistband piece smaller. Also - I forgot to mention. My pieces weren't uniform because instead of having you cut a mirror piece (the pattern is cut on a fold) it was the whole piece so the inside and outside pieces did not match.

• Instructions: The instructions were actually really well done with the exception of the last few pages when you have to attach the waistband to the legs. I read it 10 times and then decided to just try my best to figure it out.

• Hemming: Hemming circle like short legs is really hard! I'm sure there's an actual way to do it, but I didn't figure it out today.

• Ironing: Definitely iron everything and lots in between. I think the rayon really needs it in order to lay nicely.

• Time: Took me 5 hours, 2 days, and lots of breaks with the kids and other work related tasks

Conclusion

I was about 3/4ths of the way done when I realized it has all gone horribly wrong which at that point I could have scrapped everything or pressed on, hoping for the best. I did the latter. The final result yielded flow-y, breezy (too breezy), clown shorts.

The clown part was my fault. I don't know why I thought piecing all the fabrics together would look good, but it definitely looked more costume-like than stylish. I think the biggest issue was that the pieces were too big. I probably should have done more piecework.

Okay now let's get to the other parts mentioned. The shorts are flow-y, which are actually quite wonderful (especially in that silky rayon), BUT they're kind of like a circle skirt with a partition in the middle so they were more like a skirt in my opinion than shorts. What I'm trying to get at is that you can still very much feel your thighs touching (if you can even relate) and you can't sit however you want. Those are two huge downsides to any pair of shorts that I own.

The waistband - yikes! Full disclosure it could 100% just be me, but everything about that waistband seemed wrong. The only thing I did like about it was the elastic back. That was appreciated.

Oh I almost forgot - a huge PRO for these shorts were the pockets. Great pockets that lay really nicely.

If I attempt the pattern again I would find a way to raise the in seam and redo that whole front part of the waistband. I don't know how - but I just know not the way they told me to the first time. I would also go with the same fabric since I'm no longer feeling brave in my fabric choices.

I'm really bummed it wasn't a hit, because I put a lot of time and effort into it. I'm also torn because even though it's awful - I still want to wear it everywhere. Is that a creator's problem? If you give this pattern a shot (which I hope you do) will you please let me know how it goes for you?