Saturday, 23 September 2017

Deer and Doe Chataigne shorts in Liberty cord

After my first pair of Chataigne shorts I was so excited to make a second pair!  I had this great Liberty fabric and the size 34 had fit really well in a stretchy fabric, other than being a bit short.  So I wanted to make them a touch longer, and thought in the nonstretch fabric a 36 would be perfect.

I had one meter of fabric, minus a bunch of little pieces that were apparently sent as swatches.  So I had to use lining from elsewhere.  I was nervous about ironing the cord but eventually stopped being very cautious about it. I generally tried to make sure I was ironing over two layers so that the pile wouldn't go flat, but it's pincord anyway and I could barely tell the difference when I didn't.

Construction went as before, except for a small caveat - in the meantime between cutting this out and finally making these shorts, about 3 months went by.  Wintery months.  So they never quite got to the top of my list and I only finally put in the effort and made them sometime in August. 












You can tell that I was lazy with ironing, but I was also lazy with the waistband.  They were so great, that I thought I'd hand sew the waistband down like I did on the first pair.  But I had so little time...so eventually I changed my mind and just stitched in the ditch.  This caused the waistband to twist a little and not lie perfectly flat.  It's not a big deal at all when I am wearing them.  Just the standard results of yet another move coming up - rushed sewing.

There was a tiny pleat right at the v front - I marked the front, I did everything right, and still I couldn't get it to come out perfectly!  But the busy fabric saved me as it's pretty invisible in there.  I also forgot to make them much longer so I used hem tape - just used about 2 mm of the hem and then folded the tape inside.

They are great!  I didn't finish them in time to take them on vacation to Australia, unfortunately, but in December when I get to Australia (semi-permanently) they will get lots of use.

However after making this pattern a few times, I think that the pockets are good, but the pleats in the front and the v of the waistband are less than flattering.  The butt bothers me a bit too if I am being picky.  I don't think I'd use these as a best-ever shorts pattern, but they are consistent with Deer & Doe sizing and definitely cute.

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