Sunday 21 August 2016

City gym shorts and an off the shoulder tee

 Hello all! Today I have another holiday make to share with you. I wanted some comfier shorts for travel and beach days, had a quick google for patterns and this one by Purl Soho came up. I love binding and curved side seams. The extra detail just makes them that bit more special.
The fabric was a cotton remnant from a skirt that my Mum made once upon a time. There wasn't very much of it at all and I've been hoarding it for quite some time, waiting for the perfect project. It's finally got its time to shine. I think the colours in it are fantastic, and it's such a fun print.
The shorts were pretty quick to sew up, even with the binding. I used a pink linen which was a left over from one of my Minerva makes. It was very satisfying to press into place and topstitch and I'm very proud of the results. The waistband is narrower than specified in the pattern, only because I had a narrower width of elastic to hand which works perfectly fine. There isn't an awful lot of ease in the hips, so I'd probably add a bit more next time but the shorts are still perfectly comfortable to wear.
The top was whipped up from another jersey remnant using the raglan tee pattern from sew you home stretch yet again. See it used for completely different looks here and here. I just folded down the neckline on each pattern piece an inch or two to get the off the shoulder look.
All the seams are zigzagged using my sewing machine. I stretched the elastic slightly when sewing it onto the neckline, turned it over and topstitched. All the hems are raw because I liked the length of everything where it was at. I'm really happy with both the pieces in this outfit and I hope there's still enough summer left in the UK to enjoy wearing them!
Thanks very much for reading and to Edward for taking photos,
Lauren xx