Pants and shorts aren’t difficult to sew from a technical perspective.  Sometimes they are super fast and easy!  But the difficult thing can be getting the fit that you want.  For this reason I rarely sew myself pants or shorts, other than pyjama style pants.  Let alone sewing jeans!  However, there are plenty of sewists out there that do a superb job of fitting pants to themselves, so inspired by them I decided to stop being lazy and give Kwik Sew 3854 a go to make myself a pair of summer shorts.

This is view B, which has absolutely nothing in common with view A other than they are both shorts.  I’ve tucked my top in so that you can see the waistband and how they fit.  I made these in size Medium, but have taken them in a little through the side seams and the crotch seam.  I needed the Medium for my waist, but probably the Small for the rest of me.

Looking at the back there are a few wrinkles that could be addressed. There are small darts in the back for shaping – I could probably extend them down a little.  There is actually plenty of room in these around my bottom, not that you can tell that accurately from the above photo.  They’re not pull lines from being too small, but wrinkles where the shorts are a different shape to the bottom underneath them.

The front pockets aren’t very deep and could be sewn down a little further.  The buttons are functional and have to be – the front unbuttons so that you can get the shorts on and off!  The gorgeous buttons came from Material Obsession.  The crotch length is fairly low, and I would adjust that to raise it if/when I made another pair.  As it is, the deeper crotch helps the shorts to fit over my tummy.

The shorts are quite wearable despite being technically being a muslin/toile – actually, I wore them yesterday. The fabric is cotton drill from stash, and they wore very well. Comfortable, plenty of wearing ease, and because I wear my top untucked you couldn’t see any fitting issues. I’m inspired to sew more pants – actually, I’ve almost finished my first muslin/toile of a pair of Elle pants! Just the hem to go! I recommend Kwik Sew 3854 for anyone looking for a stylish shorts pattern. It’s not difficult to sew, and there is plenty of room for alteration. Size down rather than up if you are between sizes though – there is loads of ease – especially if you use a stretch woven rather than a non-stretch woven.  I think that it would suit a variety of body shapes, and you can easily adjust the length to suit yourself (mine as as per the pattern).