Shorts!

I finished my first pair of shorts! Hooray!
I used this Burda Pattern:

I'm very happy with the result as you can see in the picture below.

 

As usual, I had a lot of problems with the Burda pattern. I don't know what it is with Burda, but each time I give one of their patterns a go, I remember why I cursed my last Burda project.

That means I had to do a lot of adjustments.

Here's the back view: (BTW Do you notice my 'Katniss Braid'? I'm so proud of being able to do that myself! Ha!)

I had to take in the side seams and the inside leg seams. Burda's patterns seem to run larger than other companies. I also lengthened the shorts. Because seriously, who wants to look like Madonna in real life? Obviously, I only realised the shorts were so short when I tried them on, so I had to cut out and sew on a new piece for the cuffs.

My finished waistband was a bit on the small side (3.5cm instead of the promised 4.5cm), so I cut another piece and folded my new waistband on the seam. Does that make sense?

I also did my very first lapped zipper. I wish I had done some research on beforehand and used this method instead of the Burda method. It makes more sense and would probably have turned out a little bit better. (Although I'm not totally unhappy with how my zipper looks now.)

All in all I'm very happy with my new shorts and I love wearing them. They're so comfortable! I used a cotton with some stretch and it suits this pattern perfectly. I was a little worried that this fabric might be a little on the thin side, but that wasn't necessary really. It wrinkles a bit but not too much and feels light and breezy on a hot summer day.

Oh, and did I tell you I used a fab nautical button?

seamRIPper

I'm working on a pair of shorts. I've never made anything remotely resembling shorts before, so this is quite an adventure! 

We're going on holiday soon (camping in Switzerland) so I need a pair of shorts. That speaks for itself. Right? I'm using this pattern form the July issue of Burda Magazine. (The only garment worth making in that whole issue! As you can read here and here.)

You need a tiny zipper for this pattern, so I decided to harvest one from an old pair of my boyfriend's jeans. This was the result:

The zipper had no stop and I pulled that tiny sliding thing off. Anyway, not being one of the faint hearted, I decided to give it another go. I used an old skirt of mine this time and made sure that the zipper had a stop, before getting it out. I hadn't even got halfway through, before this happened:

RIP my trusty seamripper :-(

So, I bought a new one from PRYM:

It's a small one. The shop I bought it from also sells large ones. I figure that they're more difficult to handle. Or am I wrong? Does anyone know what the difference actually is?

And I also bought a small zipper. Fate does not want me to use an old zipper on this project for sure!