Closet Case Pietra Shorts

As soon as Closet Case Pietra 
Shorts/Pants was released, I knew that it would find its way into my pattern collection.  At the time though, we were in the depths of winter so I just filed the pattern away in my spring wish list.  It was however one of the first patterns to get made up this spring.




I started with the shorts because I wanted to guage the fit and I had read that most people altered these in some form.  I had seen photos of pants with rise issues and my own concerns centred around this and the excessive gathers at the back required to make them pull on.  Not put off though, I forged ahead using a leftover piece of light weight bengaline from my stash.  This fabric nearly found its way to the recycled clothing bin because I just couldn't see myself using it and after several years in the stash it was time to move it on.  I was pleased to find a project for it.  The elastic was from Courteney's stash and was the result of an unsuccessful online shopping experience so it was also good to find a use for this as well.

Courteney claimed this pair before I had even made them up.  She has recently started a new job and the dress code is quite casual.  These shorts are what I would call smart casual so fit the bill perfectly.  

I made quite a few fit adjustments to this pair of shorts.  The fabric had a small amount of stretch, so I was able to run them in quite a bit at the sides.  I also reduced the rise 1cm which proved to be the perfect amount.  With all of the faffing around, this project was quite time consuming for elastic waisted shorts but even though they are elastic waisted, I still wanted the fit to be spot on.

I was pretty happy with how this pair of shorts turned out as was the recipient who now happily wears them to work on hot days.  She has now ordered a second pair.


 Now that I had the fit pretty well nailed, I decided to make a pair for myself in a piece of remnant linen from The Fabric Store.  I bought this 1m piece knowing it had a hole in it.  It wasn't until I got it home that I realised that it was quite peppered with holes.  Not daunted by the challenge though, I did a bit of pattern tetris and managed to squeeze them out.  This did mean that I had to add a piece of remnant fabric to my pocket bags but I managed to hide this so well that you would need to inspect the insides of the shorts pretty carefully to even know it is there.

For this pair, I decided to add an invisible zipper.  I wanted to improve on the fit at the waist seams.  There was just too much fabric at the front waist and the side seam wanted to pull to the back.  Knowing I didn't have any stretch in this fabric and  I have quite a large difference between my waist and hip measurements  a zip seemed the best solution.

Once I had my pants nearly completed, I turned my attention to the hem.  The shorts were just a tad shorter than I like to wear, so I rescued another piece of cotton poplin that I had used to line the pocket bags and cut a length of bias tape.  I added this to my hem and just had the tiniest 1cm fold back in my linen and a further 2cm in the cotton poplin.  A bonus is the hem makes the shorts drape nicely at the hem as well.

I love my new shorts.  So much so, that I might need to look out for a piece of linen to make another pair!