Thurlow Reveal

I've wanted this pattern for a long time.  I was very excited to get started on it and get to the completed shorts.  I was still hopeful when I made the muslin that these would be the best shorts ever!  Well, they are finished.  And too big.  The waistband is like 2.5 inches too big.  I still like them a lot.  I have plans to remake them in a much smaller waist size.

Fabric: 1.5 yards of 54" wide, brown  (taupe) flannel twill.  Bought the end of May for $6 from fashionfabricsclub.com; Dreamy, soft and lightweight.  I feel like I'm wearing nothing when these shorts are on!  Though I'm not sure the lightness works for these shorts - there is too much draping and not enough stiffness; it wrinkles easily too.  Love the fabric though.

Time to sew: 6 hours; but I broke it up over 5 days because it was too much straight through time for my body to handle.

Instructions: short and to the point.  I didn't follow them but instead went with the amazing sew-along posts by Lauren over at Lladybird.com.  If you are sewing these Thurlows, you want to follow her posts.  Wow!  They are step-by-step with excellent pictures.  She made sewing these a breeze and not one time was I lost or head-scratching, even with the welt pockets.

Adjustments:
I have a 29" waist and 42" hip.  I sewed a size 10 but took off 1/4" on each side of front and back pants, to take 1" off the waist total.
I found that I kept having bagginess under the rear end and I just couldn't live with it.  So I finally found a bit of info in the Threads Fitting for Every Figure book. See below picture.

This is what I did to get rid of that poofy part. It was something about full hip, thinner leg... I didn't' read about any of the info, just did the adjustment according to the picture :D

IN THE FOLLOWING PICS I'M HOLDING THE WAISTBAND TIGHT EITHER FRONT OR BACK SO THEY STAY UP ON ME :-)

Notes:

• The pattern doesn't state what weight of interfacing to use (I guess it's up to our discretion?)
• I find it easier to understitch seams, then trim and grade them - personal preference. 
• Step #15 I don't like to sew the side, square corner of the waistband until after I attach it to the pants.  I feel this gives me more of a straight line up from the zipper to the waistband end. (not the triangle waistband piece, the square one)
• Step #18 I wish it would have told me to sew the inside button onto the lining of the waistband before sewing the lining down onto the waistband.  I dislike hand sewing!
• Step #21 doesn't tell you how much to press up and hem for the shorts.  I just folded 1/4" up and then 1", for a 1" hem.  
• The cuffs didn't look right on me so I didn't' turn them up. 

Oh, and I had such a hard time tracing this pattern because it was a very light dashed line.  So I put my pattern piece on top of my tracing paper, then used a sharpie to outline the pattern and wa-lah! It showed up underneath.  The ink bled through the pattern paper -didn't ruin it - and transferred the lines to my tracing paper. * I would strongly suggest putting an extra layer under the tracing paper (I used some freezer paper) because my table didn't appreciate the black marks that bled through the pattern paper and tracing paper onto the table. *

So expect to see this pop up again sometime on the blog.

~ Happy Sewing! ~ Kristin ~