Garments

Dress Up Party – Pattern Review – Jalie 3351

DressUpParty
This post is part of Dress Up Party. For contest rules, full details, and schedule, please click here!
Today’s post is from Winnie of Scruffy Badger Time.

Dress up party!
Jalie 3351- aka active shorts!

Hello!  Thrilled to have been invited to take part in this excellent month of pattern reviews! I’m Scruffy Badger (blog at Scruffybadgertime) & am a self confessed sewing obsessive –  as long as it is clothing.  Sewing curtains, blinds & cushion covers is for me a necessity rather than a joy.  But when it comes to making outfits for an occasion, or for work, or for a holiday, or any other reason (even just every day living 😉  ) – that’s what makes my eyes light up.  And there is nothing I like sewing more than knits, with my overlocker being one of the best investments I’ve ever made.  And when combined with running, the other thing I like to do in my me time, let’s say I have quite a bit of me-made active wear.

I am always looking out for things to make for running in.  Getting the right kind of technical fabric is always the hardest part, so when I see it, I snap it up & have a mini stash.  But patterns.  My two favorite sources are Fehr Trade and Jalie.  I have made the Jalie running skort a few times & have been so impressed with it that I recently invested in Jalie 3351, described as ‘swim shorts’ as they have integral undies.

shorts

Having made them up I can see they would be excellent as swim shorts!  But that was not why I bought the pattern.  I was first intrigued when Dawn, from Two on Two Off, a prolific sewist, blogger & amazing runner shared her version that she made for running.  I tucked this away, with interest, but no commitment at that point.  And months later Maria from How Good is That made some swim shorts using the same pattern.

jalie

When I looked it up I found it was available as a pdf download & went for it.   In the UK you can get Jalie patterns from Habithat & the turnaround is very speedy!  Here’s the pattern if you are buying in UK.  Hardcopy Jalie patterns come as massive sheets of proper printed paper with an extremely wide range of sizes on them – from tiny tots through to grown up adults – from 20” waist to 44” waist.  The pattern pieces are nested & need tracing off.  The pdf is the same.  The difference between the pdf and the printed pattern (apart from the obvious labour involved in printing out & taping!) is that the instructions are more accessible in the pdf- printed on pages, as opposed to the printed pattern where the instructions are printed within the pattern pieces on these huge pieces of paper.  You need to deploy clever folding to make it manageable by the time comes to make your pattern up.   But the instructions are good, don’t worry about that!

shorts 1

OK, that’s the general pattern thoughts over.  What about these shorts?  Well I made them up using my remainder of tropical reef fabric from Funki Fabrics which would be totally suitable for using for swim shorts as well (in fact that’s what Maria used, above).   This fabric is not however strictly speaking “ wicking or breathable”, ie is not designed to draw sweat away from the body out to the exterior of the fabric where the moisture can evaporate more easily, thereby making it more  comfortable to wear while exercising.)   Which I think would matter if your legs were covered in the fabric on a warm day, but I forsee it being less of a problem, even on warmer days, when so much of my legs are actually out.  We shall of course see!  No days warm enough here yet to try out.   I made them without the integral undies – just shorts.  They have a side panel constructed very much like the skort (2796) to create a side pocket & interesting shaped hem.

shorts 2

What was really odd to me was the way the waistband was sewn.  I still can’t get my head around it to explain it in any way useful, but it looks really neat on the outside.

shorts3

I am not 100% sure that I got it right….it looks as if there is excess on the inside, but it is very comfy to wear.  Dawn explains it much better than me & hers look like the facing is not baggy on the inside.

shorts 4

Now the wearing. They are SHORT!  I have to confess that the public at large did not get to see this much of my spring legs wobbling around on my run-  I wore inner lycra shorts underneath & felt more decent 🙂

shorts 5

But it has to be said, I do really love running in shorts & these are no exception.  I like the pattern.  I love that I have fishes on them & that if I want, I can use them at the beach too….

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2 thoughts on “Dress Up Party – Pattern Review – Jalie 3351

  1. Sarah Jane says:

    Love your running shorts! As always, Winnie, your sewing almost inspires me to take up running, just so I can have an excuse to make cute exercise wear. (Unfortunately my current theory on running – I only run if I am chasing something or something is chasing me – seems to be holding fast…)

    1. scruffybadger says:

      Haha!! Thank you Sarah Jane! I think I’d be lost if I wasn’t making running gear, actually – I am hooked !!

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