Kid Shorts! Burda 04-2009-137
I am super excited about this, folks. In fact I was so excited that I forgot that I hadn't blogged it. Ha!
Those of you who know me in real life know that my middle child is incredibly slender. She is about average height for a seven-year-old, but about as big around as your average three- or four-year-old. This makes buying pants tricky for her. Even that buttonhole elastic thing doesn't help, there's always too much fabric ballooning in the other places.
Also, one of my goals is to learn to make my own jeans, but I've never made anything with a fly front before. Somehow all of this added up to making Lucy a pair of shorts using Burda 04-2009-137.
OK, so I know that this isn't the best photo for details, but there's more! I traced the pattern in a size 98 for width and size 122 for length. I did make a muslin out of old sheets:
Here's the muslin without a zipper in the fly. The back fit pretty smoothly over her bum (I do think I had to make those back darts a bit snugger). The waist fits, but there is too much fabric right below. There is a front pleat, so what I tried was taking all of the pleat fabric out entirely:
Here's the muslin with a test fly and one leg cuffed. The red lines show where I removed the excess fabric. It worked! look how much better the shorts look in the front!
Encouraged by this, I dived into making the shorts out of the patchwork madras. Inspired by my new David Coffin Page Trousers book, I extended the side yoke with pocket to make a fly shield and, as I was short on patchwork, I made that piece out of a solid coordinating fabric. I left off the rear pockets.
The pattern wasn't without it's confusions, however. I recall sending off an email to Cidell, Trena, and Steph asking for help interpreting Burda's directions for cutting the waistband. I always second-guess myself when it comes to those rectagular pieces that they give measurements for. So confusing! The other problem came when attaching the waistband - somehow I stretched the shorts and ended up with a waistband that was a smidge too large! Aaack!
I just cut open the inner waistband, ran some wide elastic through it, and stitched the elastic in place (and closed the cut opening with a closely-spaced, wide zig zag. This does show on the front, but only if you are looking for it. And really, what seven-year-old sits still long enough for you to find flaws in her home-made clothes?
What's more exciting is that I am thinking that I could extend the leg length on this pattern and make jeans! Lucy has never had a pair of jeans that fit! Hooray!
Those of you who know me in real life know that my middle child is incredibly slender. She is about average height for a seven-year-old, but about as big around as your average three- or four-year-old. This makes buying pants tricky for her. Even that buttonhole elastic thing doesn't help, there's always too much fabric ballooning in the other places.
Also, one of my goals is to learn to make my own jeans, but I've never made anything with a fly front before. Somehow all of this added up to making Lucy a pair of shorts using Burda 04-2009-137.
OK, so I know that this isn't the best photo for details, but there's more! I traced the pattern in a size 98 for width and size 122 for length. I did make a muslin out of old sheets:
Here's the muslin without a zipper in the fly. The back fit pretty smoothly over her bum (I do think I had to make those back darts a bit snugger). The waist fits, but there is too much fabric right below. There is a front pleat, so what I tried was taking all of the pleat fabric out entirely:
Here's the muslin with a test fly and one leg cuffed. The red lines show where I removed the excess fabric. It worked! look how much better the shorts look in the front!
Encouraged by this, I dived into making the shorts out of the patchwork madras. Inspired by my new David Coffin Page Trousers book, I extended the side yoke with pocket to make a fly shield and, as I was short on patchwork, I made that piece out of a solid coordinating fabric. I left off the rear pockets.
The pattern wasn't without it's confusions, however. I recall sending off an email to Cidell, Trena, and Steph asking for help interpreting Burda's directions for cutting the waistband. I always second-guess myself when it comes to those rectagular pieces that they give measurements for. So confusing! The other problem came when attaching the waistband - somehow I stretched the shorts and ended up with a waistband that was a smidge too large! Aaack!
I just cut open the inner waistband, ran some wide elastic through it, and stitched the elastic in place (and closed the cut opening with a closely-spaced, wide zig zag. This does show on the front, but only if you are looking for it. And really, what seven-year-old sits still long enough for you to find flaws in her home-made clothes?
What's more exciting is that I am thinking that I could extend the leg length on this pattern and make jeans! Lucy has never had a pair of jeans that fit! Hooray!
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