Make shorts from bed sheet scraps

One of my favorite blogs is MADE. Dana makes beautiful and professional-looking clothes and other things. Her photographs are gorgeous and her tutorials and very detailed and easy to follow. I’ve already written about how to make your own leggings or pants pattern, but when I saw her shorts pattern for kids from 12 months to 10 years, I bought it right away. It’s worth a lot more than the $6 that it costs, I assure you, and you can use it to sew other people adorable gifts. But even without buying the pattern you can check out her whole series of instructions on how to sew them with all sorts of variations.

Before leaving on vacation in July, I whipped up 2 pairs of shorts and 2 pairs of pants for my little boy using this pattern, but by refashioning upcycled materials. Today I’ll show you the first pair of shorts I made with the scraps from a duvet cover (seen above to the right)  that I’d used to make a portable pillow bed.  Then the next couple of times I’ll give a step-by-step tutorial on how I sewed another pair of shorts from a t-shirt (which isn’t in the photo above), keeping the original hem, and then how I created long pants from a button-down shirt and the scraps of another bed sheet using the shorts pattern.

This pair of shorts was pretty easy to put together, exactly as per Dana’s instructions for shorts with pockets. The only difference was that I cut out my pieces from upcycled fabric. My son, who in July had just turned 2 1/2 and been potty trained (I’ll write another time about the cool underwear I sewed him!), is tall and very thin, even more so without a cloth diaper. So I used size 2 and the elastic length indicated for 18 months and it worked out perfectly for him.

I had fun, as Dana suggested, playing with contrast fabric (from the same duvet cover) pockets. I tried putting the patterned fabric both outside and inside, but in the end I preferred the more subtle detail of the contrast edge just barely visible.

These shorts are really comfy and perfect for the summer and days at the sea (the photo above is after having gone down the steepest part of a high dune in Piscinas in Sardinia and with a Mensch T’s t-shirt given him for his second birthday by Sheri). Of course, it is a little late in the season here in Italy for shorts, as the temperature starts going down, but for those of you in the southern hemisphere it’s a great time to start getting your summer wardrobe organized. So go check out that useful pattern, gather some upcycled fabrics (or new ones, if you prefer) and get started, or hold on for the next couple of posts with new ideas!

A few notes, just because:

1. In the first photo you can see another way to use our upcycled puzzle mat bulletin board: sticking newly sewn garments on for photoshoots!
2. I am not paid by Dana or anyone else; I honestly think that pattern is awesome.
3. That thing Nicky is holding in the photo above is my light reflector, the type that can be folded up into a smaller circle (otherwise known as an “elephant diaphragm,” one of the very few things I remember from one of my video production internships done years ago.) That is a cut on my boy’s cheek, not a fly like it seems, the evidence of one of the thousand everyday bumps and bangs. And yes, when he wants to paint his toenails with his sister and mamma, I do it, despite other people criticizing and/or making fun of him. (I love this Instagram photo of mine of our toes!)