Unselfish golf shorts

First of all, let me just state that I had absolutely nothing to do with the choice of either the color of the fabric or the topstitching. That's all his fault.

Over my sewing years I have done very little unselfish sewing. Very little. I can't remember how my boyfriend got me talked into making him a pair of shorts, but I'm happy he did.

It took me a while to figure out how I would go about this project, fit-wise. Luckily he has a pair of shorts that fit perfectly, so I used them as reference. I have never copied a pair of pants though, so I felt unsure of how accurate my pattern would be. In order to have something to lean back on, I first traced the pattern for a pair of men's trousers from an old issue of Burda. It's not even worth mentioning which pattern though, because it turned out to be useless. I only used the waistline as a guide when I laid out the existing pair of shorts on top of the tissue paper and then traced around the edges. If I would have made a muslin based on the Burda pants, the fit would have been so far off I would have had no idea how to fix it.

Just to be on the safe side, I still made a muslin out of some old sheets, and it fit almost perfectly. I took it in just a bit at the center back. For the muslin waistband, I cut a straight piece of fabric in desired height and stitched it to the waistline. I then molded the waistband into the right shape at the side seams and center back by using pins. (For all you ladies out there: guys are so much easier to fit clothes on. Seriously. All straight lines, no curves.) Then I used the muslin waistband pieces as pattern pieces by cutting them into the right shape at the sides and back.

The topstitching was surprisingly easy. That might have been because I was mentally prepared for a total meltdown on my part, so when hardly any unpicking was needed, I actually enjoyed it. I mean, really enjoyed it. The construction was straight forward, nothing special, except that I kept repeating to myself to remember to sew the fly to the other side. Didn't even mess up there!

Oh, and then the fabric of course. It was chosen solely based on color, and it's a cotton satin with some elastane. It was nice to work with, although the curved upper edge at the waistband stretched out a bit. Damn you satin weave. The fabric is quite thin, so I can only hope that it will stand the test of time (and golf. Lots of crouching action going on there).

Evidently, the crazier the golf shorts, the better the golfer, so these fit the bill perfectly. And boyfriend is happy, which means that I'm happy.

Funny story: the minute I finished these shorts, I logged on to read my blog feed (of course!). I was clicking my way through some old posts at 'Did you make that?' and found the Sporty Summer Sewathon. I read the text and gradually got more and more excited when I realized that I could enter these shorts into the contest. When I got to the part where it says "Sew crazy golf trousers for you or a loved one", I laughed out loud. So by divine intervention, these butt-hugging-too-turqoise-for-my-eyes-golf shorts are now my entry into the sewathon. Wish me luck!

Have you ever seen a cuter manlier zipper?