Add Length to Your Shorts

So I have green and blue shorts that I bought from Old Navy last summer. However, it would make me feel much more at ease if they were a little bit longer. The curse of being tall is that nothing is made for long legs. I decided to take measures into my own hands.

These are my shorts. I was planning on adding 2 inches, but it ended up only being about 1. In the end, it actually was perfect. Had they been longer, it would have looked funny draping far over my knees.

I began with picking coordinating fabric for both my green and blue shorts. I toyed with the idea of choosing a totally different color, but ended up with one close to the same. I want to be able to wear a cute shirt and not have the focus on the color over my knees.

I want to cover up the seam on the bottom of my shorts with my coordinating fabric. I measured the distance between the bottom of my shorts and the seam (just under 2 inches), added 1 inch for seam hems, and added one inch for extra length.

I cut these 4 inch wide pieces 19 inches long to fit my shorts. How I calculated this: I measured the width of my shorts at the seam. They are 9 3/8 inches. I doubled that and added 1/4 inch for the seam. This gives me 19 inches. It seems like I should have done 1/2 inch for seam allowance. I usually do just under 1/4 inch seam and I wanted this to fit snugly together without any puckering.
After cutting I ironed my bottom hem.

After ironing, sew your hem and then with right sides facing, sew your strip into a circle.

Once in a circle, pin right sides together, just barely covering the seam line, so your 1/4 inch seam will cover it up. By covering it up your shorts will have a more professional look, rather than an "add on" look.
Sew and unpin as you go. Iron the creases apart and the bottom hem. Once finished, flip your finished cuff right side out.
The finished blue shorts.
And the finished green shorts. I love them both!

2 comments:

  1. Those turned out so cute! i love the idea. I always seem to have a hard time finding shorts that are long enough too. They are always a bit too short. Great idea and awesome tutorial too!
    Jenn

    ReplyDelete
  2. LOL!! I wore those shorts today! And I bought the blue ones too!! Love your idea!!

    ReplyDelete

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