Quick summer pants

In my continuing quest to increase the numbers of shorts I own, I bought Butterick 5044 during the last sale.

There's no side seams on these pants - the one pattern piece is the whole leg! The only other pattern piece is the pockets, which are stitched on. I made view B, without the ties/elastic at the hem.

Conveniently, this woven was actually two-sided, so I didn't have a hard time telling the inside from the outside. Sometimes, that can be nearly impossible.

Apparently, I bought two yards of this fabric from JoAnn in September of 2008. I was planning on making a shirt, but that never materialized, and I’d kind of given up on that idea. The fabric had been languishing in my stash for quite some time.

Now, I realize that making up a pair of capris doesn’t exactly give me another pair of pants, but since I was rather “eh” on the fabric, I figured I could consider it a muslin if need be. The shorts would be exactly the same (all the lengths were on that main pattern piece), just… shorter.

(I was in quite the rush this morning, so these pics are not very good. Sorry.)

A decent pair of summer work pants. Fairly comfy, despite the one main flaw.

Seriously, I wasn’t trying to look displeased in this next picture. The self-timer must have gone off before I could smile.

Tiny problem with this pattern - the tummy area is HUGE! Maybe you can't tell from this picture, but if I pull the crotch up to a decent place, the waistband is above my natural waistline. Unfortunately, the pattern has you sew the pockets on before anything else, so I couldn't exactly lower the waistband without having to remove my pockets, and that was more work than I was willing to go for.

I was concerned about the elastic waist, but I think it looks OK. You can’t tell unless I tuck my shirt in, which looks ridiculous, so I won’t be doing that.

I don’t think you can see them very well in the above picture, but the pattern on the pockets matched up perfectly with the pant legs, and I didn’t do that on purpose. I mean, I didn’t purposefully cut out the pocket to match it up. I totally put the pocket exactly where I was directed to, and the stripes all matched up. It was kind of surreal. I tried taking a picture this morning, but I was already wearing the pants, which made it awkward, and the pictures turned out blurry.

Back view - not exactly flattering, but they don't look silly either. I think with back pockets, this would make a very useable pattern, once I lower the waistband by about 6 inches.

I’m quite pleased with the end result.  They are the perfect length for capris, and the pockets are a good size. I think if I move the waist down, and give more room for the elastic (the pockets were sewn on just a bit too high for the casing to be the proper width for 3/4″ elastic, which was annoying), this would make a great shorts pattern. Super easy, as long as you think it through before sewing (I accidentally sewed the two legs together at first, because you have to sew the back to the front on regular pants… once I did it the right way, stitching up each inner leg seam before putting one inside the other and doing the crotch seam, it worked out fine).

The pattern says fast & easy – they were definitely that, though mine took longer than they should have since the casing wasn’t really wide enough. The only thing this pattern is missing is a side vent, which wouldn’t be possible since there’s no outside leg seam. The legs are wide enough that you don’t need a vent, but I like that style element. Can’t have everything.

I think if I found the time, I could make up about half a dozen pairs of shorts in an afternoon, which would be awesome. The three pair that I have are going to get worn out, especially the one pair that actually fits (unlike the other two, which are a tiny bit tight, which is not what I want out of my shorts – I want comfortable, and elastic waistbands definitely fit that bill). I’d have to play around with that pocket a bit – it might be too big to put on shorts. There is another pocket style, which would be acceptable. I’m sure I have a butt pocket in one of my other patterns somewhere that I can borrow to add to this. That would make me very happy.