DIY: Contrast shorts
By Jerico VillamontePhilippine Daily Inquirer
Add a little surprise—a pop of color—when you fold your shorts up. Here’s how you do this. Let’s keep those hands busy!
What you need:
- Pair of shorts
- Printed fabric (2 pieces of 4 ½” by 25” printed fabrics)
- Fabric glue or thread and needle
- Ruler
- Scissors
The sewing materials are optional, in case the fabric glue doesn’t work on the printed fabric you’re using. I decided to do stitching because I used satin as my contrast fabric. Ask your mom or househelp to help you in the sewing if you don’t know how to.
GREEN highlights show where the glue/stitches are placed.
Procedure:
FINISHED product
1 Prepare the pair of shorts to be used. Mine is a recycled pair of jeans I decided to crop.
2 Turn the shorts inside out and, using the ruler, measure the length of hem to be folded. The folds of my shorts measured 3 inches. That’s 1½ inch per fold.
A 3-inch fold should be partnered with 4½ inches of printed fabric. My printed fabric measured 4 ½ inches by 25 inches.
3 Prepare the fabric glue or the sewing kit, whichever you are using. Place the tip of the printed fabric on the inseam of your shorts as shown on image 3, and start gluing or sewing. You can simply trace the original stitches of your shorts.
4 When you’re done with the inseam, bring your fabric across to the outseam and start tracing the shorts’ original stitches again.
5 After you’re done with the outseam, bring the fabric around the back of the shorts to meet the inseam you’ve stitched earlier. Trim the excess fabric and trace the original stitches again.
Image 5 shows six small points of stitches on the upper and lower tips on the fabric. I did that so the fabric won’t get loose when the shorts are folded. Make small stitches on the backside, too.
6 Once you’re done with the same procedure on the other leg, your jazzed-up pair of shorts is done. Image 6 shows how it looks like after the gluing/stitching from the inside. Turn it out again, bring the two folds up and—there, now you have an original pair of contrast shorts!
(You can also iron each fold so it is well defined and in place.)
I suggest you use baroque, Aztec or plaid printed fabrics to highlight the contrast. I found my fabric among a bunch of printed scarves in my mom’s closet, so this DIY is not really costly.
You don’t need a lot of money to follow trends; just test your wit, imagination and resourcefulness. Why buy when you can DIY?
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