Pattern Hack – Making Lined Gym Shorts plus a Free Pattern

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Have you seen gym shorts that have two layers?  Usually a light knit underlayer and then a stretchy mesh kind of top layer?  Well, I decided that it can’t be that hard to make them without buying a special pattern.  Guess what?  I was right!  My boys have both been wanting new gym shorts – the kind with just elastic, no tie waists.

I ordered some fabric from Amazon (yes, they really do sell everything!).  It was a little thin so it was perfect for my experiment.  I’m using the Tupelo shorts pattern by Sew Like My Mom which is free, by the way, and comes in sizes 12M – 16!

This is my wannabe ninja putting his shorts to the test.

For the first pair, I used a double layer of the orange.  I folded the fabric the “wrong” way because I wanted the fold to be at the hem of the shorts.  Instead of folding the fabric with the selvages together (so it’s half the width), I folded the fabric and kept the selvages on either side (so it’s half the length).

Keep the pieces folded and treat each one as one piece.  If it helps, you can baste the raw edges together.  Sew the center front seam and the center back seam.  You will be sewing through 4 layers of fabric.

Then clip the inseam together and sew that as well.

Because there is no need to hem them, you will need to tuck in the tails from serging.

Thread the tail into a large eye needle and pull it into the serger stitches.

Now it won’t be visible from the right side.

Next, attach the waistband per the instructions in the pattern.  Just remember that you will be sewing through 4 layers of fabric rather than three.  Also, because my fabric doesn’t have very good stretch/recovery, I used 1.5″ elastic.  I measured it to fit my son’s waist, zigzagged the ends together and put it in the waistband before attaching it.

Because the hem was cut on the fold, there’s no need for hemming!  If you wanted it to look hemmed, you could sew a line of stitching around the bottom 1/4″ from the fold, use your twin needle, or zigzag (one of my current favorite ways to hem sports type clothing).

The neon orange is one of his favorite colors (actually, any neon is good with him).

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