I thought these might be an improvement on the teeny-tiny strawberry shorts, but they’re not.
They’re bunchy between the legs, the satin bias tape is stiff and horrible, and the elastic’s all rolled up inside the casing. Very disappointing. I was hoping that these would work in the organic cottons, which are a similar weight to quilting cotton, but now I’m not sure.
However, I remain hopeful that if I actually decide to be brave enough to try these out in a lighter fabric, I should get a better impression of what they’re actually going to be like. Next time I might add a seam down the front and back, so I can cut them on the bias. I think that would look pretty in a nice washed silk dupion.
I definitely want to make these from woven fabrics, and I really want them to be floaty and pretty, not stiff like cotton boxer shorts. What I really want is to make them out of silk, but because silk is expensive I have a mental block about using it to make prototype garments, many of which are going to be unwearable.
Thankfully a friend of a friend gave us the name of a shop in London that sells silks from £2.50 a metre – if you don’t mind buying ten metres at a time. So even after you add in the cost of getting to London, that’s still most definitely a bargain!
I think it might be time to splash out on some more appropriate fabric, so that I can make as many prototypes as I need to without worrying about the cost.