Here's what you do need.
- An awesome pattern designed for knits (I love the printable .pdf ones personally)
- A sewing machine and basic knowledge of how to use it
- A ball point needle
- A walking foot for your machine, you can find these cheap on amazon, the generic ones fit most machines!
- Other notions and cutting supplies you should have on hand already.
Getting started with a pattern. Today I am making the Brindille and Twig Pocket Shorts.
If you have never sewn with a pdf pattern before here are a few tips. If you're an old pro skip ahead.
- Always always always make sure you uncheck all of the options when printing. You should be printing at 100% not fitting to page or anything else like that.
- Confirm you printed correctly by measuring the square scale image to be sure it is the correct size.
- Follow your patterns instructions for cutting and taping the pattern together.
- Select your size and cut out your pieces. I love patterns like this that display each size as a different looking dashed line as opposed to those who use different colors. I am cheap and always print black & white so those are a nuisance for me!
Now on to the fun stuff, picking your fabrics!
These are the two I chose for this pair of shorts the green will make the pocket contrast and the drawstring and the dinos will be the main part of the shorts.
Using pattern weights, if you have them if not they are super easy to make, cut out your fabric pieces according to the pattern directions. Some pieces may say cut two facing, or cut one with pattern facing up and one with pattern facing down. Thats a lot of cutting, I like to fold my fabric over right sides together and cut both pieces at once which will give you the two pieces you need with one cut.
(cutting two facing)
You should now have something like this.
Now make sure you have your walking foot attached and your ballpoint needle in your machine, I did not use my walking foot for these because I couldn't find it but trust me it will make your life immensely easier! On your machine you want to select a stretch stitch, if you have it go with the overcasting stitch pictured below, lucky number 13 on my Janome. If you don't have this one in particular a regular zig zag will work or check your machines manual for a list of stretch stitches.
Here is what the overcasting stitch looks like when assembling the pockets.
Continue using your selected stitch to construct the remainder of your garments seams. When you've done that you should have something like this! Now all we need to do is hem the bottoms and add the drawstring.
For hemming you will want to use a slightly different stitch or the beauty of knits is you can leave it raw because knit will not fray. I chose to hem this pair so you will need to turn your piece inside out and iron up the hem 3/4 of an inch.
Now choose a regular zig zag stitch, if you're feeling fancy you can play with other decorative stitches on your machine but I chose a wide zig zag for this pair and it turned out great!
Add your drawstring, which can be made with a 1" strip of whatever knit you are using to match the project. Just cut your strip and thread it through the waist band (you'll have to make two small slits in the top layer of the band only) using a bodkin or safety pin. Now sit back and enjoy your awesome creation! Slap it on your little model and take some pics to share with us. Thanks for reading and I hope you can use some of the information you learned here to expand your sewing skills