Loose Leaf : Turning Pants into Shorts

a rite of passage

Turning pants into shorts is most likely the first “hack” we all did when learning to sew. I say “hack” in quotations because it feels a bit more like extreme hemming than a hack hack.

You put the pants on, stand in front of the mirror, eyeball the position and mark with a straight pin because we have yet to learn the importance of safety pins. The rockstar of the pin world. Off the body you line up a ruler at that spot and cut only to realize you forgot about the need for seam allowance and don’t understand fully how pant patterns are shaped so end up with an odd vee at the inseam.

Maybe I can use some of the leg I just cut off to make a band so it’s back to the position I was actually wanting it to be. Or maybe I go Daisy Duke wild this summer! The seam allowance part still happens to me from time to time because I just get too excited!

However, given the opportunity to make shorts from square one, there are shapes and math to take into consideration beyond cutting/drawing straight across a leg. This method works for all Daughter Judy pant patterns (Adams, Brier, Coe, Post, Worship).

For this example I’m going to use the Adams Pant.