knipmode shorts

I went to Target this morning, and they had a bunch of very cute just-above-the-knee shorts. It reminded me that I needed new khaki shorts, since I pretty well trashed the two I had last year digging around on the farm. So I tried on about 10 pairs, and - go figure- none fit. They were mostly cut for women with nowhere near the hip-waist difference I have. The idea of a nice pair of khaki slant pocket shorts got into my head though, though, and I had a vague memory of having seen a similar pattern in one of the Knipmodes that I had. When I came home I dug it out... July 2008, #11:




I traced a size 38, and enlisted my mom's help with the center back seam. I kept putting them on inside out, and she'd pin the center back seam, and I'd baste, and we'd try again. For some reason when I first did a sway back adjustment, it had made a weird pooch effect lower down, hence all the tries to fix it. We eventually got something that was OK.

The fly front drove me nuts, due entirely to my own stupidity. Let's see... it started off ok with hand basting the zipper in. But I managed to catch the fly shield in the second zipper seam (D'oh!) and had to unstitch that. Then I got a weird bump sewing over the zipper when doing the topstitching. It was just way fiddly today for some reason!

For the waistband facing, I used the trick I've read about on many blogs of sewing the interfacing to the facing- right sides together- then flipping it to the wrong side and ironing it down. It worked wonderfully, and then I just tacked down the facing at the side and center back seams.

Here's a not-great photo of them on me, out on the deck. (The blouse is from Nordstrom from my last trip to Seattle. I'm in awe of the pattern matching on the center front, even with a covered button placket!)




Anyway, now that we've sort of figured out the center back seam- I think I might track down some more ripstop from JoAnns if they still have some and make a pair with some cargo pockets and possibly a back pocket or two.

I finally got the vintage pattern photos off my camera, so here's a peek at one of them. This is a size 8, so I'll have to wait a bit to make it for Kate, but it's so adorable that I had to buy it. It's from the 1950s.