KCWC kick-off: shorts

After a not-so-great start to KCWC where I felt uninspired and couldn't get one of my original ideas to work, today I decided on the spur of the moment to make something not on my wish list but practical. So the other project was temporarily shelved and I cut out and sewed these shorts for my girls while the littlies played in the back yard with worms from the garden (as they do!) and their water play toys.

This afternoon the girls' gymnastics classes resumed for the term and they desperately needed some new shorts. So I got out the pattern I'd used for leggings from Meg McElwee's lovely book Growing up sew liberated and altered it to give the legs a bit more room.

I used stash fabric for the big girl shorts, a cute orange and grey fine striped knitted fabric, adding a yoga-style thick band and a ribbon for decoration. For my little girl I repurposed a thrifted t-shirt (she squeeled when she saw the rainbows :-) with a longer leg length (re-using the original hem of the t-shirt), a folded and elasticised waistband and decorative ribbon.


Though I like sewing with stretch fabrics I never feel super confident that the garments will last the distance. My old machine is great in every other way, but as it doesn't have a stretch or zig zag option the stitch doesn't always work out well, and I was a bit nervous that a seam would split during their class! But these pics were taken after the class, and they held together thank goodness, but I did find some broken stitches :-( I'll have to go and do a bit of finishing on them so they don't fall apart soon!

OK, now hopefully those other projects in my head will turn out over the next few days, hmmm... How are you going? Sewing like a demon or feeling out of inspiration?

PS. Those tummies so need a raspberry ;-)