Waverize It! Maritime Shorts

Ok, this is a liiiittle bit different than a normal post, but there’s still a totally rad finished product being shared, so I hope y’all can get excited about this with me 🙂 A couple of months ago, I was asked if I wanted to participate in the Waverize It! campaign, courtesy of Waverly Fabrics and Joann. I was given a piece of fabric, my only guideline being: Waverize It!

I should tell you right now, that fabric they sent me was a total surprise. Upon receiving the package, this was me:

Haha! Just kidding – I actually really like the fabric, although it’s definitely not a color that I wear or decorate with AT ALL. Coupled with the fact that it’s home decor weight, well, that narrowed my options even more. That being said, I am not one to admit defeat, so I racked my brain for a few days. I realized a couple of things:
1. Home decor weight means ~*~BOTTOM WEIGHT~*~
2. Any color can be improved by adding ~*~MORE COLOR~*~

And that was how I ended up with this amazing pair of shorts.

I used the Maritime pattern to make these shorts. I have already discussed making this pattern, so I’m not going to repeat myself – but this pattern is a pretty freaking perfect backdrop for jazz up some otherwise basic shorts.

Oh lord, did I actually use “jazzed” to describe these?

I know they look pretty plain from the front, but then you turn to the side and…

Piping! 🙂

PIPING ON BOTH SIDES, Y’ALL!

To be honest, I didn’t have much of a plan in mind when I started these up. I knew the base fabric, and I knew the pattern I would be using, and that was about it. I decided to pair the green with a solid navy (the same solid navy sateen I used in my lace trench coat) for the pocket lining, and upon realizing just how freakin’good those two fabrics look together, I thought I would add some navy love on the outside as well. I had a lot of ideas floating around while working on these shorts – piping around the pocket edging? Piping at the top of the back pockets? Piping at the waistline? Adding a navy sateen cuff? In the end, I chose to keep things simple with a single line of piping down the side seams, and a little bit of navy top stitching.

I could not be more pleased with the finished piece!
(ps do me a favor and don’t look at my legs in these pictures… I was in the midst of a mosquito attack, hence the furious scratch marks everywhere. I know they look disgusting. Ain’t nothin’ I can do about it now!)

In case you were wondering – I did make my navy shirt, too! Unfortunately, it’s kind of a Monet, though it looks fine in these photos. I will go more into that whole saga later this week with a proper post, but right now I’m still a little bit traumatized.

It’s difficult to see all the topstitching in the pictures, thanks to the lighting, but I used navy around the front and back pocket edges, the front fly, the top of the waistband, along the piping at the side seams, and around the bottom hem.

While figuring out exactly what I would do with my fabric was a little challenging, actually working with it was a total breeze! Waverly makes a nice substantial cotton that sews up like a mid-weight denim – which means it presses well, it doesn’t crazy unravel, and it doesn’t require any special handling to get it to do what you want. I didn’t even have to beef up my machine needle – a universal works fine here.

The fabric selvedge suggested that I dry clean my piece, but honestly? I don’t dry clean anything, like, ever. I can see how dry cleaning may be beneficial if you’re making curtains or whatever, but I wear my clothes hard and I don’t have time to schlep to the dry cleaner every time I inevitably spill something on myself (which is a daily occurrence, ok). Nor do I hand-wash, well, anything. Sooo needless to say, I tossed this bad boy in the washer AND the dryer, pre-cut, and I’m totally thrilled with how it softened up.

I even had a lime green zipper lurking in my stash, how perfect is that?!

The topstitching on the back pockets is my favorite part, too bad you can’t really see it in the photos! Oh well!

If you made it through this post, yay! Now here’s the fun part – to celebrate National Sewing Month and Waverly’s 90th anniversary, Waverly and Jo-Ann Fabrics are hosting a Waverize It! Facebook contest through 9/22. You definitely will want to enter this one – winner takes home a $250 Jo-Ann Fabrics gift card and $1000 in Waverly Fabrics! For more info, you can check it out here (or click below, do what you want!). Good luck, my friends!

I really enjoyed the challenge of making something with a fabric I would not have otherwise chosen – and I’m super happy with how the shorts turned out. I still have a bit left over, so tell me – what would you have done with this Waverly fabric?

~~Disclaimer: I was not financially compensated for this post. I did receive 2 yards of Waverly Fabric to review and keep. All opinions are my own.

Tags: completed, contest, Jo-Ann, maritime shorts, shorts, Waverly