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Hello!

Welcome back to another Make Thrift Buy, the
show where YOU send in items you’ve seen

on the internet, that are either mass-produced
suuuuper expensive – or just plain weird

– and then I do my best to recreate them.

A lot of you really liked me taking on the…
problematic…

WISH app last episode, so today I’m back
to tackle another wish item.

POW POW POW!

SO I had a bunch of that silky material left
over from making the top from the previous

episode, and if you recall I wanted to make
shorts out of that leftover material – and

the shorts I wanted to make are also an item
from WISH , which is listed on the app as

a 2-piece set – sorry, not 2-piece set,
“Sexy Women Pajamas Mini Tank Crop Tops

Shorts Set Sleepwear Nightmare”.

Nightmare?

Nightwear.

It is a nightmare.

Yeah that.

ANYWAY – it sells for just $6.

Worryingly cheap.

Especially because…

I’ve made shorts before.

They’re not the easiest things to make.

And this two piece set being sold for only
$6 worries me a lot because it means that the person

or people making them are getting paid next-to-nothing,
when you also factor in materials cost, the

cost of transporting those materials, and
that the company, obviously, will be making

a profit as well.

[sigh]

SO let’s try make this one for ourselves.

Let’s begin!

Alright, so quickly recapping LAST episode,
I got this Black Slip from a thrift store

and turned it into a top.

Last episode I said that it cost $2 – buuuut
I accidentally got that wrong – it was only

50 cents, which I only remembered when I re-watched
the video, where I bought it.

And I didn’t wanna get any angry tweets
if anyone DID happen to notice, so I’m mentioning

that here…

OKAY!

So I wanted to make use of this bottom part
of the slip by turning into SHORTS!

To turn this into shorts, the basic pattern
that I’m going to be using is one that I’ve

already made, when I made shorts for another
video.

And to see how I made that pattern, let’s
go back to the past, shall we?

[harp noise, indicating the passage of time]

“To make this pattern, I copied a pair of
high-waisted shorts that I already owned,

and that fit me really well.

To copy these shorts, I folded the shorts
in half at the front, traced around them onto

paper with about an inch seam allowance all
around, folded them in half the other way,

and then traced around the back in the same
way, then cut these pieces out.

This gave me a front and a back piece.

You’ll notice that the back piece has a
longer bit HERE which gives you more room

for your BUTT.”

[harp noise, indicating the passage of time]
Annika: [mimics the harp]

(Yes I’m a dork.)

BACK TO THE PRESENT.

So I pulled those pattern pieces out again,
and I’m not going to add any pockets because

I definitely don’t have enough fabric, so
the pocket pieces are going away.

So I laid out the front and back pattern pieces,
just to get an idea of how much fabric the

shorts will require.

Hmmm – and I wasn't super sure if I was
going to have enough fabric at this point.

Because this fabric used to be the bottom
of a dress, it’s in a loop, so I cut it

open down one of the seams, so I could open
it into ONE layer, to get a better idea of

how much fabric I had.

I then traced my OLD pattern out again onto
another piece of paper, but I modified it

a little – I did this because my last shorts
were FITTED and required a zipper, whereas

I don’t want a zipper for this pair, I’ll
be doing an elastic waistband instead – and

because of that, I’m going to have to make
the waist at least big enough for the shorts

to go up over my hips, because if I don’t
I won’t be able to get the shorts on! (and

I’ve done this before).

So, I did increase the waist about an inch
(which is 2.5 cm) on both the front and back,

and I also “squared” up the edges of the
pattern HERE, turning the outside corner into

a 90-degree-angle, so that I would use my
fabric more efficiently… ‘coz as you saw

before – there’s not a lot of it!

And then…

I played some tetris with my pattern pieces
and the fabric.

It was then that I realised, if I used THIS
pattern as it is, I was only going to get

about three-quarters of a pair of shorts from
out of the fabric.

Butttttt… then I remembered that the old
pattern had included an extra 1 inch allowance

for darts – so I could get rid of that,
because the new shorts aren’t going to be

fitted, AND I also realised that my satiny-fabric
is… quite stretchy.

Which also means I can reduce the width.

Because of that, I was able to to reduce the
sides of both the front and back patterns

by about 1 and a half inches each, which I
did by folding them inwards, 1 and a half

inch, like this.

And now...THE PATTERN PIECES FIT!

HALLELUJAH!

Because I've done this the shorts aren’t
going to be as “flowy” as I would have

liked, but fingers crossed this will still
work – the waist is still about 5 inches

bigger than my natural waistline measurement
(which is fine because I'm going to be elasticating

the waist - I want it to be bigger).

But because it’s stretchy I should be able
to pull them over my hips.

Wish me luck.

So using these pattern pieces, first I cut
out my back pieces, by placing the pattern

on the fabric’s fold, which I did to minimise
fabric waste…and I cut around it.

Here's my back pieces.

I then cut this in half straight down the
middle to give me two back pieces.

I then also tried to do the same thing with
the front pieces BUT…

I ran out of fabric.

I just didn’t quite have enough to cover
the crotch piece.

But – do you see all this extra fabric up
here?

It’s not going to be as pretty, but I’m
going to use that, and attach it on to the

fabric where I need it.

So I cut off that extra fabric… and sewed
it on down here.

In order to get a nice, clean seam, I pinned
it on to the main fabric right-sides-together,

and I sewed it on like THIS.

Now - this fabric, being satin, was also a bit
of a nightmare to work with.

Satins and silky fabrics are difficult, and
when I sewed it using no stabaliser of any

kind, the stitching looked preeeetty janky.

So to fix this – and I ended up doing this
for ALL seams in this project, every single

edge that I was going to sew on – I placed
a piece of one-sided fusible interfacing down

the edge that I'm going to be sewing on, and
then I put a heat-proof cloth over the top,

(mine is silk organza, but you could use an
old t-shirt) and then I ironed it down, sticking

the interfacing to the edge of the fabric.

And when I sewed this together it gave me
MUCH nicer looking stitches and seams.

ALRIGHT – I was then able to use this to
cut out 2 of my front pieces, again I cut

it out with the edge placed on the fold, in
order to save fabric.

And I also cut my front and back pieces straight
down the middle to give myself 2 symmetrical

front pieces.

To construct the shorts, first I needed to
sew each front piece right-sides together,

and each back piece right-sides together,
both all the way down this curvy edge.

Once I’d done that, I cut away the extra
seam allowance so that the interfacing wouldn’t

make the seams all stiff-feeling.

And then I also pressed these seams with my
iron.

….. [sigh] and at this point I remembered
that I had interfacing that I should've been

using instead of the white one, because it
not only matched the colour of my fabric but

it was a bit stretchy too.

So I should have been using right from the
start – the white interfacing, although

you're not going to be able to see it on the
outside of the finished shorts, it won't look

so great from the inside…

Here’s a tip from me.

If you’re following this tutorial yourself
please use interfacing that matches the colour

AND stretchiness of your fabric.

Do as I say, not as I do.

ANYWAY, I’ll be using this black by interfacing
on all the edges and seams, from here on out.

So the next step is to place the front and
back pieces right-sides together, on top of

each other.

And there’s not really any better way to
say this…

I “spread the crotch” of the front piece
out like this.

And I placed the back piece on top of it,
right-sides together...spread out the crotch

as well. [giggles]

Basically I matched up the front and back
"crotches".

I held the two pieces of fabric together with
these sewing clips, and then I sewed the crotch

together like this.

The next step is to sew the front and back
pieces together at the sides.

So, I matched up the sides, of the front and
back piece – I’m adding interfacing first,

just like I have for all the seams before
sewing – and then I sewed them together

like this.

By the way, I am using these clips rather
than pins, because I'm working with a delicate

fabric and didn't want to poke a lot of holes
through it.

Now that they’re basically shorts, it’s
time for the moment of truth, do they fit

over my hips?

YES!

Thank goodness I was able to easily get them
on.

Thank you, fabric, for having some stretch.

So the next step is going to be adding elastic
around the waist, to hold them up.

First I needed to make a casing for the elastic.

So, after applying some more interfacing to
the top of the shorts, and with the shorts

inside-out, I folded the top of the shorts
down just a bit more than the width of the

elastic that I’m going to be using.

And then I sewed almost all the way around
the casing at the top of the shorts, leaving

a small gap to insert the elastic through.

So...while I was sewing this my sewing machine
was being very naughty because my fabric was

both slippery and stretchy and it didn’t
enjoy this at all, even with the interfacing

on the fabric, but it started behaving when
I switched to using a walking foot attachment,

and by going around the casing FIRST with
a straight stitch, and following it up with

a zig zag stitch.

Then I measured this piece of elastic around
my waist, around where the shorts are going

to sit, and I pulled the elastic a little
bit tight so the shorts will stay up, but

not too tight that it’s uncomfortable, and
then chopped it to this length – adding

half an inch to the length before cutting,
so that I can sew the elastic into a loop

after it’s inserted into the shorts.

Putting a safety pin into one end of the elastic,
I pushed it through the gap in the casing,

around the waist, and I threaded the elastic
all the way around the casing til it came

out the other end, and I removed the safety
pin, and sewed the ends of the elastic closed.

And finally, I sewed over that little gap
in the casing.

And with that, I am done!

SO – how did I go?

[cute old-timey music]

I have to be honest, I didn’t expect these
to look as nice as they do, after I had to

make those pattern pieces… a lot smaller
to fit on the fabric.

So, I’m really happy with how they turned
out!

They’re absolutely perfect to wear as…
actually quite luxurious-looking summer pyjamas.

My conclusion is:

[scissor sound, zipping sound]

Now, this is definitely a harder project than
the previous episode, the top, you'll need

some sewing experience to try this, buuuut,
shorts are really not that difficult to make.

And if you’re a beginning sewer, or struggling
with shorts, I would recommend using the FREE

downloadable Madeleine bloomers by Colette
– it’ll help you wrap your head around

shorts-and-pants-making and help you feel
more confident about trying out your own patterns!

So in the end, I was able to make both this
silky top and shorts out of just one thrifted

slip, and this was the total fabric waste
at the end:

Pretty good, right?

And these scraps will be going right into
my scrap box to be used in other projects.

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It’ll help a LOT. annikavictoria.com

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