Pattern Review: McCalls 5857 Take Two - Linen Shorts

I hope you had a nice weekend! It was a great weekend here. I taught a class on welt pockets Saturday morning. Saturday afternoon was pretty lazy, and we spent time just hanging out. Tomorrow is my wedding anniversary. We've been married half my life. Wow. That time has flown! We took the boys out to dinner last night to celebrate. Today was the boys' piano recital, and they both did great. And I got to finish my second pair of shorts!

This time I made them from a wonderful linen from Gorgeous Fabrics. I washed and dried it to soften it up and pre-wrinkle it. I made Version D this time: the longer, non-cuffed version.

Because I was working with a midweight linen that is a medium weave, I decided to stabilize the pocket opening. To do that, I simply basted a selvage from some silk chiffon in my stash along the edge of the pocket.

I also used lighter beige thread for contrast. You can see it on the pocket topstitching:

And on the hem:

Other than adding the stay on the pocket, I didn't make any changes. I still have stitches in my leg, so no pictures of me in the shorts for a while. But this is a great pattern that I would recommend for a wardrobe staple.

Did I mention that tomorrow is my wedding anniversary? Well, mark your calendars. We're going to do something fun to celebrate (Facebook Peeps already got the alert). So keep an eye out on your email. And as always,

Happy sewing!