Man Sewing: Jedediah Shorts

One of my resolutions for this year was to do more unselfish sewing, because until I clear out my wardrobe (long overdue) I don’t have a lot of room/need for more clothes for me! That won’t stop me, of course, but its nice to break things up a bit. I’ve been promising to make Monsieur some clothes for months (probably about 12 of them…whoops), and as summer arrived we realised he didn’t really have any shorts. As I had just had success with the Maritime Shorts pattern, I felt brave enough to tackle the Jedediah Pants/shorts pattern from Thread Theory.

I was apprehensive about sewing a garment for someone else which required tailored fitting, but I suppose men are probably more simple to fit than women! Luckily the shorts fit pretty well straight out of the packet, they just needed some adjustment around the hips and knees. Monsieur has pretty muscular legs (from spending all of his spare time running up Wellingtons many hills), and we were initially a bit concerned that the legs would be too slim on him, especially towards the knee. I cut out the size 30, which was what his measurements indicated, and then added an inch to each of the outer leg seams at the hem, tapering to nothing further up the leg.

Once I had the legs sewn together and could try them on him, I realised that they were a bit big around his bum, making them balloon out around his hips (jodhpur-like was how he described them). Because I already had the pockets in, I wasn’t sure how I’d fix it without major deconstruction, but I unpicked the side seams to below the pockets, and trimmed about 5/8″ off the back, tapering down the leg to meet the original line. It was a bit of a quick and nasty fix, but it worked like a dream! They fit pretty well, at least as well as any of the RTW shorts he’s tried in similar styles. For once I’ve remembered to take proper notes about what changes I made, so the next pair should be pretty simple.

And there will be a next pair! He’s worn these ones every day since I finished them, and has requested a pair of the trousers as well. The shorts are made of a nice cotton, I think its a drill (maybe??) from the Fabric Store, the same stuff I used for my Maritime Shorts but in another colour way. It was quite hard to photograph, it looks much brighter in the beach pictures than in real life, but not as dull as the flat photos…I used scraps from my Christmas Flora for the pockets, which looks pretty nifty. The slash pocket construction was pretty interesting, with the facings being sewn to each edge of the single pocket piece, which was then folded in half when it was attached to the shorts. I found the size of the pockets a bit surprising, they don’t go nearly as far across the front of the trousers as the ones on my Maritime shorts. Given that Monsieur (and most blokes, I imagine) have significantly bigger hands than me, and actually keeps stuff in his pockets, I would have expected them to be bigger! They’re big enough for his phone and wallet though, so I guess thats ok.

I’m pretty happy with my sewing on these, there are lots of nice touches included in the pattern which make them look very professional. The topstitching on the pockets and the flat felled seams make a difference! I’ve never done flat felled seams before, and for the most part they worked very well. Unfortunately, there is a small section near the centre seam on the yoke where the topstitching obviously didn’t quite catch the folded fabric, and the edge has pulled out of the seam. Hopefully it shouldn’t be catastrophic to the structural integrity of the shorts, but it looks a bit rough. I’m sad I didn’t catch it until I was too far through the construction to want to unpick everything to fix it…

I’m also obsessed with my bar tacks, they look so cool!

(this photo is probably the closest to the actual colour of the shorts)

And I’m pretty chuffed with the fly, too.

Best of all, he really likes them. He’s even worn them to work, though I’m not sure they’re quite within the dress code (he insists there isn’t one, so ok…)! I might try and get some similar fabric in grey, or some more of the khaki colour I used for mine (then we’ll have to coordinate outfits so we’re never matching, I’m not being half of one of those couples!)