shorts made from smaller shorts, trouser legs and a skirt
Dearest Needlework Monday Friends,
We’re packing again, this time with a sewing machine – my oldest wee blue Brother one from 1960 – for our land in Molise. This is the first time I’m taking sewing stuffs to our new sovereign homestead, and it is an exciting but trepidating prospect; I’m prepping for the big wine (and cultural) festival beginning in a week. I’ll do my pop-up clothing expo in my old stable downstairs in the Arthouse – not as an official participator in the festival, but my usual improvised spontaneity.
So some clothing needs labels sewn in, I’d like to begin at least another couple of simple summer dresses/ skirts/ shorts, and I’m finishing off a couple of more complex garments; one being this pair of fabulous, very-wide shorts.
I had the original red and white striped pair, which were small and neat; I love this style, but they’d only fit the slimmest of bodies… and I wanted to add some contrasting fabrics to them, to build them out into a more interesting short.
It seemed uber-simple at first, but ended up involving tons of hours of double-sewing seams, searching for a complimentary fabric, and struggling to keep everything symmetrical… And I loved it! It was very relaxing to chill sewing, after our intense days beginning our homestead adventure. And a delight to return to our running water and working kitchen here for a few days… I could rest into the construction of this garment in the most delicious way.
I adore the final effect, also; these are short trews that would fit a variety of sizes – and they ended up (at least, to me!) to feel rather elegant and jolly. And I really like making things which are adjustable: this waist band is where I opened up the hem of the old turquoise and white trousers, that I cut up for the side flares of the new shorts… I tried elastic at first (too runkly), but then came across this great velvet-y turqoise ribbon, which complemented perfectly the turquoise sides.
Not being sure if I’d be able to salvage enough fabric from the turquoise trews, I wondered how to edge the new shorts; settling on a wide band of the turquoise, and then finding yet another fabric which I thought would add a whole other dimension to the piece.
The border at the bottom came originally from a sweet, 1950s style, fittted and flared dress. I’d already cut off the wide skirt from it, so had this nice beginning of a lower band for the shorts. In the end each leg required a whole other section to be cut from the skirt though, and thus a fair bit of checking for how the final effect would be. I do all this intuitively, as usual – and it comes out fairly well! I know it’ll get more refined as I develop – so I’m trying to appreciate the more raw and living style that I have in my experimental period!
Because they're so huge, the shorts don’t sit so well on my dress form! They had to be pinned onto the hips: they are taken in by pinning on both sides, so this makes the final look a tad clunky here – pah! I know that they will be very cute on the right person though, as they have a nice ‘fall’ to them – the fabrics all move together very beautifully. What do you think? I like the idea of developing this kind of model – maybe for trousers too, and skirts? - as I love that we could have a favourite special garment that changes shape as we might, throughout a lifetime...
Looking very much forward to showing everything again next week; a few larger women have asked me in the past whether or not I’ll be making bigger clothing sizes :-) and it feels very good to have a wider range of sizes growing 🤗
We’ll be in Guardia again for the final three days of Vinalia, which lies Monday to Sunday this year (it’s always the 4th to the 10th of August). The festival gets extremely loud and frenetic - and late! - so more than a couple of nights without the usual rural ambience is just not an option!
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