Casual Linen Shorts w/ an Accidental Paperbag Waist

Hello and Happy Monday! Hope you had a wonderful weekend full of sunshine! I sure did -- can you tell? This golden sunset helps me look more sunkissed than I really am, but I did spend some time pool- and lake-side this weekend! I also spent plenty of time sewing machine-side.

Here are some linen shorts I made! The pattern was self-made, and I knew I wanted them to be pull-on, so I made them pretty loose. I wanted something super comfy for the heat we are (hopefully) about to have, and this linen is a perfect complement to the fit.  

 They have patch pockets in back, front pockets, front pleats, and double needle topstitch detail. I serged the inseams/outseams and rise, and then topstitched down for a faux-flat felled look. Funny story, I actually killed three partial spools of thread with all the topstitching on these shorts. Don't ask me why I had three partial spools of tan thread! I planned to just have a drawstring waist, but these shorts had other ideas. Somehow, they accidentally became paperbag waisted.

"Somehow" meaning, I wasn't thinking when I topstitched the top edge of the waistband above the drawcord channel. I had set two lines of stitching before I tried them on and realized I was headed for a ruffled mess: the stitching made the top edge stand away from the body like there was a wire in it! I dug around for some elastic, and set that in the waistband below the stitching to help mitigate the disaster, but it was only about 1" high elastic for a 2" waistband. This, of course, does not help prevent the ruffled mess--it just makes for smaller ruffles. In retrospect, I should have gotten wider elastic, picked out the top stitching, and set the elastic at the very top of the waistband. But that would have required patience (and the dreaded seam ripper), and honestly, I have neither! I just wanted to finish these shorts.

In the end, I can live with the waistband because my shirt will cover most of it, most of the time. Once I threaded the drawstring through, I decided I halfway liked the waistband, even! These only took a handful of hours, and the elastic waist meant fitting was simple. Should there be a next time for this pattern, I will make several corrections, but for some easy-breezy summer shorts, I'm happy with how these turned out!