Jedediah (Short) Shorts

Have y\’all heard of Chubbies? It\’s a suuuuuuper fratty shorts brand that makes shorts for men that are, depending on your perspective, hilarious/awesome or obnoxious/terrible. The general idea is comfortable, colorful shorts–and when they say colorful, they mean colorful, and when they say short, they mean short: the inseam on them is 5.5 inches. They also have an elastic waist for maximum comfort/beer consumption. If they made a remake of Animal House (please don\’t, Hollywood!) everyone would be wearing Chubbies.

My husband (frat star that he is) lovvvves these shorts. He has a navy pair and a black and white pair (and a red and blue stars and stripes swimsuit) and basically wears one or the other every weekend day. Then they came out with a corduroy version, and I could see his eyes turning into hearts, like a little emoji.

My thought process went:

What would make him forgive me for the all the time spent locked in my sewing room while he trains the dog? Men\’s corduroy fly zipper elastic waist shorts shorts.

What does he love more than anything (that I can sew)? Men\’s corduroy fly zipper elastic waist shorts shorts.

What will make him forget that the needlepoint belt I diligently needlepointed has sat incomplete for literally a year? Men\’s corduroy fly zipper elastic waist shorts shorts.

And then:

Where can I get a pattern for men\’s corduroy fly zipper elastic waist short shorts?

Spoiler: there is not (that I could find) a pattern for men\’s shorts with a fly zip, pockets, and an elastic waist.

So I made one myself. (mic. drop.)

If you want to make some for a man in your life (or yourself, really), here\’s how I did it:

I started with Thread Theory\’s Jedediah pants. I couldn\’t find a tutorial for switching regular pants into elasticated waist pants, but Thread Theory does have a tutorial for swapping out a yoke for a dart: you tape the yoke onto the back pant pattern piece and then slash into it (at ONE point) so that it lays flat again. This slash is then your back dart. Instead of doing this, I slashed into it 3 times, just spreading the excess across the back. That extra room then gets gathered into the elastic, which is just slipped into the waistband.

I stitched them up in this nice grey corduroy. He picked it out, and says he enjoys \”the comfort of corduroy, with the freedom of shorts.\” Anyway, my fly isn\’t perfect (it was my first!) and my flat felling is backwards on the side seams, but my adventures in pattern modification paid off…

I think he likes them.