Dress Up Party – Pattern Review – Prefontaine Shorts

This post is part of Dress Up Party. For contest rules, full details, and schedule, please click here!
Today’s post is from me (Sew Sweetness!)

This is the very last garment pattern review for Dress Up Party! It’s been amazing ride…40 garment pattern reviews by some fabulous guest bloggers! In the last month, I’ve made 7 articles of clothing (scarf, skirt, dresses), none of which I’ve blogged about yet, so I had a bunch to choose from. I decided for my Dress Up Party post to use these Prefontaine Shorts that I just finished (pdf pattern by Made with Moxie).

This post is also part of my Assignment: Project Garment blog series, in which I document how I fit and sew my garments.

The Prefontaine Shorts are a casual pair of bias-trimmed shorts that can be made in a variety of different fabrics: quilting cotton, jersey, terry, tons more! They are very versatile, and I also liked the fact that there were few pattern pages to print out in the pdf pattern. I am always looking for an excuse to flaunt my quilting cotton stash, so I made mine with quilting cotton from Tula Pink‘s ‘Moonshine’ fabric line. The pattern uses 1 yard of fabric, and most of my cuts are 1-yard cuts anyway, so it worked out perfectly. I used self-made bias tape (instructions are in the pattern) of a pink solid fabric from Free Spirit. Other than that, the only other supply requirement is 1-1/4″ wide elastic for the waistband.

After taping my pattern pages together, I cut out the templates. There is only the Front, Back, Pocket, and Back Pocket pieces to cut out, so not a lot! I did sew up a muslin; I think with an easier project like this, you might be tempted not to make a muslin, and I was tempted not to either, but it definitely paid off for me.

So here’s the muslin of my Prefontaine Shorts. The front probably looks about right to you, but it is definitely so, so wrong. That crotch area? Yeah, it’s digging into my lady parts. Not good.

And here’s the side view of my muslin. According to the pattern, the front is supposed to overlap the back by 1/2″ (and of course can be adjusted to be more – just ignore that I happen to have my back overlapping the front instead…you get the idea). There is about an extra almost 2″ past that 1/2″ overlap. I attribute this overlap due to the fact that I made the size 0, which is for a 35″ wide hip, but my hip measurement is 34-1/4″. It’s a slight difference, but I didn’t need that extra fabric (and also, I thought that the bigger overlap in fabric wouldn’t feature that side split from front to back as well.

So here’s what I did to fix those 2 fit issues. First, to fix the crotch that was too high, I lowered the seam by 1″ using my French curve ruler (shown in pink pen…my initial thought was to lower it by 1/2″, but I crossed that out and instead lowered it by 1″). Shown in the photo is my back pattern piece, and I did the same to the front pattern piece.

To fix the overlap on the side of the shorts, I took the side seam in on the Back pattern piece by 3/4″, using my French curve ruler to even things out through the curve. I did the same thing with the Front pattern piece.

After I adjusted both the Front and Back pattern pieces, I went right to my fabric. Normally I’d sew a second muslin to check that my changes were correct, but I felt okay about cutting right into the fabric after the first one. And here’s my finished shorts! The crotch area feels so much better, ha.

And here’s the side view with the lovely binding. The binding is attached by sewing the fabric and binding right sides together, then flipping the binding in half and then over again, followed by stitching in the ditch from the right side of the shorts. You bind the right half and the left half of the shorts from front to back in two continuous passes, which I thought was pretty neat (and easy).

I super love these shorts. I used non-roll elastic for the waistband, and they are just the most comfy things ever! I opted not to add the back pockets to the shorts, but after seeing this version by Sewbon, I almost wish I had. I am very happy with my shorts…because I used a pretty fabric, I feel like I can wear them with a nice pair of sandals and still look put together and not sloppy. I was so happy with them that I threw 4 more pieces of fabric into the washing machine last night so I can assembly-line make some more. I can’t wait.

I’m super happy that I made this project. I know it’s not as exciting as some of the dresses you’ve seen during Dress Up Party, but for me these shorts will allow me to wear the heck out of them (as sorry to burst your bubble but I hardly ever wear a dress, even though I make a ton, lol).