Tuesday 18 August 2009

Jalie Jean Shorts x 2

In July my daughters took part in a dance concert. Usually I do a lot of sewing for their concerts, but this year most costumes were purchased dance wear and t shirts, so all I needed to make were 2 pairs of denim shorts. (I also had to knit 3 green scarves from the nastiest itchy wool that ever came out of Spotlight, but fortunately have almost forgotten this experience)
I used Jalie 968. I made these last year for both daughters, and my older daughter is still wearing her size T jeans, so I started with this size for her shorts.
Unfortunately, although the jeans from 2008 remain well fitting, the shorts were too tight across the backside. I guess the denim in the jeans has stretched out!
Due to this unfortunate fitting problem, I put the first pair on my younger daughter, and was extremely pleased that they fit her nicely so that I did not have to do any adjusting to the completed pair of shorts. For my older daughter I made another pair. I again used size T, but added a wedge to the back and took in the waist a little at the centre back.They now fit nicely. I made a small cuff at the bottom of the shorts so that they would look different from her sister's shorts.

I had to keep the shorts fairly plain, as the costume requirements were plain denim with no embroidery except for plain white or brown topstitching, but I snuck in a little trim whilst keeping to the denim only rule. My older daughter has selvage trim across the back pockets, and my younger daughter has an asymmetrical white topstitching pattern. I was quite pleased with the shorts and they will be very useful as normal clothing this summer, which is not usually the case with dance costumes.

8 comments:

Sew-4-Fun said...

Great shorts! I really like the exra details, eg. the topstitching/trim on the back pockets. They both look very RTW, except much better of course in terms of quality. :)

Gail said...

Wow I am impressed. Your top-stitching is very professional. Lets hope they don't grow out of them too quickly.

gwensews said...

Nice shorts. They look like RTW only better.

Little Hunting Creek said...

Cute shorts! Great idea using the selvage as trim. I may borrow that :)

Patricia said...

They look great.
How wonderful to be able to wear dance costumes for everyday wear!

Anne-Marie said...

I left for three weeks of vacations while your were posting and sewing great, great garments. Woaw ! The dresses, the shorts, all amazing. You are getting more skillful then you already were. Bravo !

Tamara said...

Cute shorts! Love the pockets.

Anonymous said...

You know, you are really a very accomplished seamstress. I love looking at the stuff you produce. Can I ask, do you sew to save money or just because you like to? I ask because I would always *think* about making things but will often cave and buy them, even though I know I could have made them better...