Self Drafted Lounge Shorts with Sewing Tutorial

Hey yall, I want to show yall something that I have been working on over the past week.They are a pair of lounge shorts that I self drafted from a ready made pair. I thrifted the fabric and knew exactly what I wanted to do with it (which is rare because im normally the type that buys the fabric then figures out what it will be later. I recently saw a tutorial on how to draft a pattern from a ready made piece of clothing. I fount the tutorial here; http://www.mellysews.com/2011/08/blazer-pattern-making-tutorial-part-1.html.

My arsenal of course: Rotary cutter ( Like a pizza cutter for cloth, love it so much it saves me a lot of back strain), pins, cloth scissors, and my self healing mat (so awesome), seam ripper and elastic not shown

So first of I pinned a piece of paper and the shorts (folded in half) to my self healing mat and marked the corners and the line of the crotch. Then just connected the dots with my french curve ruler and added about 1.5" to all sides for the seam allowance. It honestly was a breeze maybe because of the simple lines but hey it worked. So after making and cutting out the pattern, I did the normal routine of ironing the fabric and laying it out to be cut. 

But I don't know why I thought I could cut it on the fold (cutting a folded piece of fabric to make one pattern piece to be both sides) and in the middle of sewing the crotch i realized that i had to cut it into 2 pieces.

So I cut both in half as shown in the last picture and continued to sew the crotch together after pressing the front and back seams. I normally do a double seam to make the seams a little bit more stable but when I put them on to test the seam strength the back seam popped some treads (even though they are very loose) so I decided to do a tight zigzag stitch for the crotch and front and back seams to make them more stable.

Then I pressed all the seams flat before I attached the sides together

Then I went on with the side seams trying my best to match the pattern lines,

But oops I started talking to my husband while I was sewing the seam and this happened; I ended up sewing a ripple into the seam.

So after using my trusty ergnomic seam ripper back to work I went. Then it was time for the hem on both legs, it is about 1/4"-1/3"

Finally the casing for the waist band, it was 1" but was not pressed so that's why it doesn't fall on the 1" marker on the machine.

Leaving an open spot at the last seam I got to (the middle) I installed the elastic using the good ole' saftey pin and elastic trick. (For those who dont know what im talking about, you safety pin one side of the elastic and use it to guide/pull the elastic through the casing to meet the other side) Then sewed the elastic down and secured the waistband seam.

Ta Da !

Lounge shorts

(and yes ladies and gents im a BBW)

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