Just Add Fringing! Glastonbury Shorts.

My favourite makes are the ones that I do whilst killing some time – long car or train journeys are perfect. There’s nothing else nagging at my conscience, there’s no option of doing the vacuuming or putting some washing in instead – it actually makes me feel like I’ve made use of my time to the best of my ability.

The trip to Glastonbury takes four hours from Manchester and as I’ve been busy decorating my living room for the past couple of weeks I haven’t had time to make anything specific for it which I’m pretty disappointed about, so putting the trip to good use to customise my shorts (and write a blog post) has made me feel a little better.

I bought the fringing from Dunelm Mill – it only cost £1.50 per m and I bought 2m. The shorts were from Topshop last summer.

I’ve started using a free makeup bag that I got from Company magazine last month as a mobile sewing kit. Before a journey I pack it with the essentials:
– Scissors
– Needles (in needle holder)
– Pins
– Seam ripper (the most essential item in the kit)
– Thread (in appropriate colour)

Plus any extra bits relevant to the job in hand – in this case the trimming.

First, I unpicked the turn ups from the inner and outer side seams (stitches shown in photo). The shorts have always been a little too short for my liking and this is a good way to add a bit of extra length. If you do this with shorts that are the right length or don’t have turn ups then this wouldn’t be necessary.

Next, starting from the inside leg seam I pinned the trim all the way around one leg hole. I folded about 1cm of the trim underneath to prevent fraying. I then used a running stitch with cream thread to secure the trim to the shorts at regular intervals. I turned under another cm at the end of the trim and secured the two edges together with a few stitches and bound off. I then repeated this for the other leg. The trim is a little fiddly as you don’t want to get any stitches caught in the fringe or tassles but it’s pretty quick to finish once you get the hang of avoiding them.

I then turned the shorts over and allowing for the additional 2cm seam allowance cut two lengths of trim for the top of each pocket, pinned and stitched in the same way as the legs.

Now I have some one of a kind festival shorts! I’m planning on wearing them with a black vest and a tie dye kimono that I bought from ASOS the other day. Will try and get the boyfriend to take a photo and post it later.

I love a productive road trip!