Is this not awesome fabric for swimming trunks?
I picked it up on pre-order last year, and she has it in stock again on her retail site (click on the picture of it to go to the listing). Since she had it in stock again, it gave me the impetus to finally get this sewed up!
The biggest hurdle in all of this is finding a boardshort pattern that has the mesh insert. Hardly any of them have it. I ended up going with the Jalie boardshort pattern. I was going to draft an insert (which I did), but I ended up not adding it in. The fly is real and is velcro. I asked the dude if he was alright not having it, and he said it was fine. I told him if he needed it later, I could figure something out.
He fit in the size U in their weird sizing scale. I also kind of hate that they don’t always have layered patterns. I thought I heard that some were layered, but none that I have purchased have been. It is really hard to follow some of the lines in cutting it out. The do have nice thorough patterns, though. The main seams are all triple stitched.
Unfortunately I didn’t have any contrasting fabric, so I ended up taping the side panel together and just using the main fabric for all of it.
I did use a too small pair for the facings and key pocket. I wouldn’t have had enough of it for any of the panels.
I also stole the tie tabs with the grommets from another pair of shorts. I left the remaining shorts intact so I could at least give them away. They were Mario Kart or something like that. I think he is done with the character prints on his swimming trunks now. 😉
I also put in the card pocket, though not sure it is quite functional. It needs to be a little wider, I think. I didn’t have grommets, so I just did a circle with a satin stitch for the water release.
Overall, I am very happy with how these turned out and he was pretty thrilled, too. I have another print with space images on it, but I want to find some contrasting boardshort fabric before making another pair.
Sorry for the cell phone pictures…it’s been busy here, and I didn’t quite have time to get some nicer pictures.
