Hey, I figured I’d try the next step, shorts, after successfully(?!) completing both Bruce & Umbra underwear. Shale Shorts is new & looks super simple (thanks, Jonathan!), so I thought I’d try that next with my super cheap $2.99/yd flannel fabric.
When generating the patter from the design, I got a couple flags (a Warning and an Info) when I use my (questionable) measurement settings, so I thought I’d ask if these are just “your body is somewhat out of the average” or more like “no human could possibly look like this! Stop what you’re doing!” sort of thing?
Info: Leg circumference: The leg holes in this pattern have a circumference of 30.75", which is 34% more than your upper leg circumference measurement of 23".
Warn: Waist larger than hips: This pattern assumes that your waist is smaller than your hips. If you have a larger waist than hips, the waistband may slip easily and you may need to do manual changes to the pattern to fit your body.
I have a beer belly, so my waist is larger than my hips. But if it’s making the leg holes too big, maybe this is the wrong pattern for me?
In any case, I’m really just trying this to see if I can create shorts that approximate my lower body, before I invest in more fabric & time in sewing a more complicated pattern. I don’t really care if they fall down, I just want to know if (a) I can get into them, and (b) they’re not like 6 inches too big.
Oh, and one more thing. I’m in the Draft Pattern screen/menu, and on each pattern piece, below the name of the design, it prints things like “plugin-annotations: cut,2,plugin-annotations-mirrored”, etc.
This looks like field names or metadata that isn’t being looked up properly.
Based on a quick check of the pattern, it looks like the width is determined by the seat circumference only. As long as your waist circumference is smaller than your seat circumference, you should be able to get into the shorts, but they may have a tendency to slide down. Also, they won’t be fitted in the hip area.
Do swim trunks with an elastic waist work for you? If so, these shorts ought to work as well.
For the legs, any straight-leg pants will have this kind of difference in circumference. You could always try to taper down the width and see how that looks. (Baste, don’t cut off any seam allowance yet, try it on.)
This is just an information so you can judge how wide the legs will be. It’s not a problem at all to have the shorts legs wider than your real legs. This percentage should just not be negative.
If this warning applies to you also depends on your waistband position. Assuming your seat measurement is larger than your hips measurement, it should still be fine if the waistband is below the hips level. But it will probably slip if you put it above the hips level unless you use very sticky fabric or very strong elastic or something.
I’ll go ahead & make these shorts and see what happens. I’m still a noobie enough that I really have no idea what a normal pant leg diameter is. I guess I’ll find out.
The funny thing about sewing, and perhaps one of its few downsides, is you really have to take an unjaded view/acceptance of your body as is
Someone in another thread mentioned that the FreeSewing.eu website was updated to version 4.9. So I re-loaded my Shale Shorts pattern, and all the text appears correctly (“Cut 2 on fold”, etc.).
I was worried I might have to redraft it, so it’s great that everything got automatically updated. Thanks again. I printed & assembled the pattern and am cutting out fabric now…
So far it’s going well: I have the shell of the shorts/pajamas done (haven’t started the waistband yet) and they fit! They also closely match a couple of pairs of woven shorts I already own. phew!
A couple minor questions about the incredibly detailed & easy to follow instructions:
At the end of Step 7, it says “fold both paths…”; I assume that’s pieces or parts or sides or halves?
Step 8 says “The pattern gives you an estimate for how much elastic you probably need…” but I couldn’t find that anywhere. Is that a measurement/number listed somewhere, or do you just mean that the back waistband’s length gives you an outer limit as to the elastic’s length?
I’m pleased as punch for how they came out so far.
One more thing. Step 9 seems confusing to me. Allow me, if you will, to rewrite it a little bit to add some detail that I think might help, and to point to something that may be missing. Here goes (words inserted or replaced are in bold):
Fold the back waistband along the fold line so the elastic is sandwiched inside the outer fabric, and the good side is outside.
Place the front waistband good-sides-together on the back waistband, aligning the left & right raw edges. (The outside front piece (the one with the interfacing) should be against the good side of the back (the one without the elastic)).
Using regular seam allowance, [*] so the seam for the elastic you did in the previous step is inside the seam allowance.
Repeat for the right aligned raw edges to form a waistband loop.
Unfold the waistband good sides outside.[**]
[*] – do what here, exactly? It feels like a verb is missing. Are we supposed to sew the left aligned raw edges? That’s what it looks like the diagram is showing. The diagram also shows the top right corner peeled back with a dashed line: is that showing the elastic we sewed in Step 8? That makes sense.
But then the diagram shows the curved (front waistband) bottom with a dashed line, and that can’t be sewn because we have to turn the waistband right-side out, right? Or am I misunderstanding that?
[**]–If I understand this correctly, the front waistband is turned good sides out, and the back waistband is also–they’re separated by vertical seams, right? Just want to make sure I understand this.
Sorry if I seem dense, but all this garment sewing inside out and in 3 dimensions often confuses a beginner like me! Thanks.
I get 4 flags, but I get “Waist larger than hips” instead of “Elastic Estimate”. I wonder if that confuses the algorithm? Or maybe I have to generate a new Shale pattern (I’m still using the pattern I generated from software version 4.8)?
For now, I think I can wing it and estimate the elastic for this first pair of pajamas. I should finish the project today , and I’ll post a showcase if I don’t screw it up
You’re absolutely right, the software can only generate an elastic estimate if the waist is smaller than the hips measurement. Else the calculation we use doesn’t work right. maybe i can look at that later.
But for now, I guess you can more or less wing it. Or pin a length of the elastic to the front waistband parts (or something else that isn’t stretchy and has the same length) and see how that feels when you wear it at waistband height.
Thanks.
, and I’ll post a showcase if I don’t screw it up 