New Winter Shorts

Since I have been regularly sewing for almost six years now, I have managed to replace most of my previous RTW wardrobe by me-made stuff. This is also a reason why the Me-Made-May movement no longer makes much sense for me.

One of the last remnants in my wardrobe was a pair of brown winter shorts from Uniqlo. I bought XS, the smallest size available in Europe, but Uniqlo's sizes are just huge. The shorts were always too big for me, so I wore them more on the hips rather than on the waist. I am not sure it really did me justice, but they were extremely comfy and warm so I kept wearing them.

However, I knew that sooner or later I would sew a replacement pair for them, with better fit.

I wanted a similar thing, but with some better shaping around the waist. Then one day, when browsing sewing blogs, I found the Deer&Doe Chataigne shorts and I knew this was what I wanted. Their shorts are nicely fitted and look great pretty much on anybody I have seen on the net.
So far so good for the inspiration. I must say I did not buy the Chataigne pattern because I am not a great fan of indie patterns in general.

I grew up with Burda - they do simple, as well as rather sophisticated designs, the technical part is always perfect and as for the instructions ... well, I am just used to that and most of the time I do not read them anyhow. Btw - the instructions are pretty good on their individual patterns!
I discovered (and still like) the Big4 for the uniqueness, but they are way too expensive in Europe, so I only buy them rarely.
So Indies.... I fully understand that many people like buying the nice envelope, read perfectly written instructions and pay 15-25 eur for a pattern, while I prefer tracing my Burda or pdf, add seam allowances and just sew it. It is just not worth anymore once you are not a beginner.
Also, since I always need to make fitting adjustments, I prefer staying with sizes I know and can do without sewing always a proper muslin. Anytime I try a different brand, I have to readjust to their models.

So in the end, I just looked at the Chataigne shorts and figured I could hack some Burda pattern - Burda 106-04/2016 looked rather close, I just narrowed the legs part and only did two folds (and when looking at the pictures, I could have done even less).

Sewing is was just a walk in the rose garden. I had a remnant of grey striped wool, so I pai a lot of attention to stripe matching which worked like magic., interfaced the waist properly and did a perfect invisible zip. The wool is little bit scratchy, so I lined the shorts with some silver poly/silk.

The result is just as expected so kuddos for:
- using up remnants from the stash
- hacking Burda
- stripe matching