I made this pair of Arenite shorts not long after I got back from the Cayman Islands. I wore my first pair nearly every day of the trip, and I was looking forward to trying out some mods for the second pair.

The Chaplain has shared a piece of wisdom from Tobago, “More haste, less speed.” I often think of it when I’m sewing. With so much going on at my house, it often feels like if I don’t rush, I will never finish.

Technique-wise, my slap-dash efforts aren’t always successful, but I do have a good eye for dimensions – I can look at something and know how wide or long it is or if it’s even with something else. That skill can trick me into taking shortcuts that don’t always work out (like when the grain is off on my fabric).

I made this version of Arenite shorts using the pattern pieces I used for my previous Arenite pants and shorts. As I was tracing the pattern onto the fabric, I shortened the hem by an inch from the previous pair of shorts. When I cut the pieces out, I cut 1/8 inch (eyeballing) inside the vertical lines I had traced from the pattern pieces (the side edges of each piece, not including the curve of the rise.)

There’s an Instagram story on Meg McElwee’s Insta showing how to make a trimmer version of the Arenites. I watched it a couple of times back in the spring when I was working on my pants. I got bogged down with all the steps. I had to stay in the Insta app to watch and keep clicking back to re-watch steps if I missed something.

Watching it helped me know what I wanted to do with my shorts to get a slimmer profile, and my hack with slimming the individual pattern pieces width-wise worked well for me. I do want to go back and make a slim version of the pattern following Meg’s instructions – but I am time strapped and maybe a little lazy: it would involve retracing the pattern, and that is so tedious that I’ve put it off.

I had a yard and a half of Stonemountain and Daughter batik rayon to work with, and fitting the shorts onto the fabric was a bit of a squeeze. I had to turn my pocket linings sideways, and the waistband was cut straight across the width of the fabric. The fabric leftover after cutting out the main pieces for the shorts was just enough to fit the waistband.

When I attached the waistband, I used a 1/4 inch seam allowance, which is half of what the instructions call for. Some of my Arenites were just short of being a bit snug at the rise, despite being relaxed fit overall, and I wanted to make sure I had a little more space to play with.

As I expected, the elastic fit into the waistband with some room to spare because of that smaller seam allowance, but it gave me the space I was looking for without making a major adjustment (Read: without doing it the Right Way). The way the waistband is finished with the two seams on the elastic casing is fantastic for covering a multitude of sins.

I finished the crotch seam with a French seam, 1/4 inch wrong sides together and 3/8 right sides together (This was lazy, because I hate trimming seams. The “right” way is to reverse that and trim the 3/8 in.-wrong-sides-together seam before sewing it closed right-sides-together with a 1/4 in. seam).

After doing so many projects with batiks (which look the same on both sides of the fabric) and French seams (which require you to first sew the fabric wrong sides together, the opposite of what you would usually do), I think I’m permanently confused. The step in the Arenite instructions that advise you to lay all your pattern pieces out before putting them together saved me with both these shorts and my previous pair.

Just like my last pair, these shorts were sagging down at the center of each side panel, so after the shorts were finished except for the hem, I trimmed them even before hemming them by folding over a 1/2 inch and pressing, then folding over an inch and sewing with a 3.5 stitch length.

I think we have another winner! I like that these have a summery print without being too bold. I’m pretty sure the next time we go to Tobago they’ll be in heavy rotation. Maybe I should make a chartreuse pair so when I spill chana on them from my doubles, it will just blend in.

After I wrote this, and set my critical gaze on this photo:I’m on my way out the door for Sewing Camp (I’ll be sharing about that later this month).

I realized I couldn’t live with the baggy crotch. I took both Arenite shorts and tucked the front rise seam in, grading out to a half an inch and then back to nothing at the waistband and the crotch. Removing that inch of ease from most of the front seam made a big difference, and I traced the change onto my pattern pieces so that for future pairs, I can get those results from the beginning. The photo at the top of the post was taken after I made that final adjustment.

I have two more ideas for the Arenite pants. I hope to start by making a pair of the pants for Two first in a fun, glittery striped linen blend, as well as a Wiksten shift top for Three out of the same fabric. My closet is full of stuff I’ve made and I know it’s time to start taking orders from the kids again.

In the meantime, I’ll be wearing these shorts until it gets too cold out.

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I was reminded when writing this that I never really shared much from my our trip to Tobago this past winter. I wrote about it, and I took photos, but they never made it onto the blog, partly because the trip felt sacred and private, and also partly because I stayed with my family at an AirBnB for part of the time and every time I think about the trip I’m reminded of the lukewarm review we got. We are a bit loud because there are nine of us. (We were staying in a place that was advertising room for ten.) We also had a 6 a.m. flight and left some things askew on our way out the door. Everything the owner said in the review was true, but she could have messaged me privately about issues rather than publishing the review publicly. I had never gotten anything other than stellar ratings from others online, and it cut deep.

I’m still hoping to share some parts of the trip, maybe in the winter when we all need to pretend we’re someplace warm.