Floral City Gym Shorts

Hey Babes and Boos,

I'm back with another project, that I would like to say was quick and easy, but I ended up making it a little more complicated for myself than I should have. These are my floral City Gym Shorts, the free pattern from Purl Soho.  Thanks Purl!

The pattern itself is crazy simple, two pieces, one for the front, one for the back and then there are instructions to draft the waist band (a triangle, you can do it!) and to make the bias binding.  This is one of the first patterns I made for myself (in my pre-blogging days).  At the time I made them out of high quality quilting cotton with bias binding made out of an old undershirt my hubs was throwing out.  They became well loved pj shorts and I still wear them regularly.  This time I thought I would make them a little nicer so I could wear them out and about. 

The fabric is the most silky smooth rayon challis that has a little flutter when I walk and I added jean-style pockets... because nothing says practical like pockets.  I did a pretty good job pattern matching the pockets, but now in hindsight, I wish I had edged the pockets in the black bias binding as well because you can't even see them unless I stick my hands in them.  Bah!

In addition to the pockets I also took about an inch off the top (below the waist band), because I always fold my other pair down (I'm 5.2" people) and then aaaaaafter sewing on all the bias binding and sewing everything up (seriously, I had sewn everything except the hole in the waistband I used to insert the elastic) I decided I wanted to take an inch off the bottom.  Uuugh.  I was so annoyed at myself, but once I had decided there were too long, I couldn't un-see it. So I undid like a half inch of the side overlap, cut the bias binding, undid it along the bottom, sliced off an inch of the floral fabric, attempting to keep a nice matching curve along both legs, and then reattached the bias binding.

It was a total pain the butt, but now that the ordeal is done, it was worth it for the mental solace.  I never would have been able to un-see the perceived imperfection and isn't sewing all about getting exactly what we want??  I was too annoyed with the process to fix my pattern in the moment, but I did jot down some notes on it.  So hopefully I'll remember to make those changes in the future.  If not... well.. future Kten, if you're reading this, don't frickin' forget!!

I got the fabric at one of my local fabric shops, and I think it was on sale for $2 a yard from $4 if you bought 3 or more yards of rayon. Isn't that crazy??  I love my little corner of the world.  Also this fabric kind of reminds me of the old Lisa Frank franchise I used to be semi obsessed with in middle school.  So can't hate on that either.  :o)

I kind of have a backlog of finished projects, some of which I have taken pictures of, and a lot of which I haven't, so hopefully I'll be back soon with some more posts.  In the meantime, happy sewing  (or other hobbies) folks!!

-Kten