Lace Shorts, Thurlow Style

I have been a little absent from my blog lately for two reasons.  The first is that my projects are backing up and the weather has been less than favourable for photographing summer clothes, to the point that I actually wore boots yesterday.  The second reason is that my most recent project ended in disaster. 

 

I had made a lovely pair of navy blue Thurlow shorts for my daughter in a size 0 because this is what the pattern dictated and my own most recent Thurlows seen here were a size 2 and too big for her.  What I neglected to take into account properly though, was that my size 2 Thurlows are made in stretch cotton and this fabric was a non stretch fabric and therefore too small.  The fabric she had chosen was cheap so I wasn't gutted about the fabric waste, more the time that had gone into said shorts.  To avoid such a disaster happening again, I decided to make a pair that would fit one of us, given that she is a full size smaller than me, and proceeded to draft a size 4.

 

It was while I was shopping in Fabric Vision that my eyes were drawn to a customer who was wearing a rather fabulous looking pair of lace shorts.  A light bulb moment!  I had some fabulous embroidered cotton left over from this dress that I had put aside to make another tardis skirt that I knew would be fantastic as shorts.  It is stable but light and cool and doesn't crush...perfect!

 

With this pair of shorts, I changed very little from the pattern.  I chose to include the welt pockets at the back

 

 

 

but did run the legs in by approximately 2cm on each side because they were too wide for a non cuffed short.

 

 

One thing that is quite normal for me, is to have to run the waist in at the side seams.  For this reason I opted to use the size two waistband because this proved to be the perfect fit with my pink capris.  Because my measurements fall between a size 4 and size 6 in this pattern, I also sewed the side seams to 1cm instead of the required 1.5cm.

 

 

I am pretty happy with the final results, and no, my daughter will not be the recipient of this particular project.  I just may keep these for myself.