More Denim - Shorts and Capris

I’ve finished my shorts. This is Burda Style 05-2010-135. A Burda pattern? Yeah, I’m stunned too!

I felt the shorts needed a pocket on the back, so I printed one from the BurdaStyle Ellen #9305 pants pattern. It is a free download. Can’t speak for the rest of the Ellen pants, but the pocket design works.

Burda Style 05-2010-135

The belt loops were skipped and the leg was shortened by one inch, but you will be pleased to see that I kept the in-seam pockets. Long-time readers surely recognize this pocket lining fabric. Not much of it is left, unfortunately.

My Capris have been completed, too. Well, I call them Capris. Feel free to label them as whatever pant variant you wish. For the pattern, I used Burda Style 01-2010-136. And, because winter is over, I folded the legs of this jeans pattern up several inches before cutting the denim. The contoured waist sure doesn't look like the one on the line drawing, does it?



Burda Style 01-2010-136



The only angst, other than breaking a few needles from out of control topstitching, occurred when removing a damaged rivet. Three applications of Fray Check and all is well; a new rivet covers the wound. Granted, I'm much more confident with the hammer than when I first started attaching rivets, but there just has to be a better way of getting them on right the first time.

For the pocket embroidery, I traced the bird from Ottobre Woman 02-2007-14 onto water-soluble stabilizer (Sulky Solvy) with a fine-tipped Sharpie. Then I laid the stabilizer on top of a large scrap and machine embroidered using the Bernina's triple straight stitch. The stabilizer came away cleanly with a few pulls.  It wasn’t necessary to rinse - it just peeled away. I’ve had the stabilizer forever and I couldn’t make a good argument for saving it any longer. Sewing a bird on a pocket is reason enough, right?

Even though I didn’t read, and therefore didn’t follow, the Burda instructions for the Capris/jeans, I did go along with the pocket placement lines on the pattern. Next time I'll guess. 

Pocket placement notwithstanding, I really liked how well both of these patterns went together. It was annoying to tackle the wacky pattern sheets, but once I got past that, everything matched up. I can't complain...