This girl is growing way too fast; Pieces of clothing that were swamping her last summer are now way too small, in fact when we pulled out her summer clothes, there was only 1 pair of shorts from last year that still fit this year...well sort of fit.
OK so L needed new shorts...this is when I did something really silly! I let her chose from my stash what fabric she wanted for her shorts. Of course she chose my favourite piece of new fabric. I picked up this piece of corduroy, in a blue and green geometric print, at the pattern review meetup in Quilters Way, Acton at the beginning of March. I, only begrudgingly, cut into the fabric cause I knew there would be enough left over for a pair of shorts for me too, but then J chimes up - he wants a pair of shorts in this material.....well at least my kids have good taste.
The pattern I used for these shorts was based on the personalised pants pattern that I made earlier for L, but with a few modifications.
I used the pattern pieces for Simplicity 3904 and laid them over the pants pattern pieces and found that L's pattern aligned fairly well with the size 10. I redrew the pattern blending these two patterns together down the length of the legs and cutting the pants off to the length of the simplicity pattern. I then added about 2.5" extra to the top of the pattern to created a folded over waistband to put some elastic in.
The shorts ended up way too long - L wanted them the length shown in the pattern but they ended up being at least 3 inches too long. In the end I cut off 2" turned the edge under about 1 inch, turned it again 1 inch then turned it back on itself to make a cuff and it ended up the right length.
L wanted patch pockets so these were added to the shorts at the end. I just used a left over rectangle of fabric, pleated it in the center 1" either side, turned the edges under twice. Top stitiched across the top and then top stitched them on centered on the side seam of the shorts.
The tank top was a throw together I did at the last minute. As I was putting my fabric away I ran across a couple of free T-shirts that my husband had gotten at one of his conferences that I knew he was never going to wear so I had stashed to be reused as needed. L had said something about wanting more tank tops so I thought I would see what I could do with the T shirts. I chose a neon yellow one, used her existing tank top to create a pattern and managed to cut the entire tank top out of just the back of the existing shirt so I didn't have to worry about avoiding the advertising on the front. I used the bottom of the shirt as the bottom of the tank top to avoiding any finishing there. The side seams and shoulders were serged together then I had to figure out how to finish the arm holes and neckline. I had some left over neon orange from T shirts that I made the kids last year and decided that that would be a good contrasting colour.
I cut the strips to the length of the edges, sewed right sides together using a basting stitch on my regular machine, then folded the orange over twice to encase the raw edges. I used a simple zig zag stitch with yellow thread to stitich it all together. The arm holes ended up a little stretched out but the neckline was pretty good. Certainly good enough for a simple kids tank top.
The only thing I would do different next time is flare the pattern out at the hips - its definitely too snug around L's hips.
These look great! I love the corduroy fabric and really like the shorts pattern you created. The tank looks sharp with the contrast edging.
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