 Hi you guys it's Lindsay here and if you have been following inside to him on Instagram or Twitter then you know I've been obsessed with making shorts lately. I have always had an issue getting shorts that fit well from ready-to-wear stores so naturally making my own makes sense however getting the perfect pattern for shorts isn't always cut and dry either so I decided I was going to take one pattern and I was going to make it perfect and so the perfect shorts and so after I had done probably like seven muslins I was ready to purchase fabric and at that point I realized I had a whole other issue on my hands and that was finding the perfect fabric for shorts because you need something that doesn't have any stretch but is the right weight for a short I mean you wouldn't want to use a thin quilting cotton or any other thin woven because that would just not work for shorts you need something with some heft to it so I did what anyone does and they go to the local stores couldn't find anything went online couldn't find much of anything and so I was sort of at a loss I had gone on to some of my favorite ready-to-wear stores websites and found out that most of the shorts they sell have like two or three percent stretch in them and that was discouraging because I knew that that wasn't what I was looking for I think that they they make their shorts and those fabrics because of the sizing and they want to try and help make the sizes fit as many people as possible so that stretch gives them a little bit of leeway but also that ends up just being a baggy short at the end of the day you know all that wear that the short takes you know with the crotch and everything else it just ends up looking not so great at the end of the day so back to non stretch woven again so what I ended up doing was I went to fashion fabrics club and I did find a twill that I really liked the problem mostly that I had with buying or looking online was that either the fabric wasn't um like the right weight it was either too light like a quilting cotton or it was too heavy like a drapery fabric um and if I found one that was the right weight I just didn't think it was cute and at the end of the day I still want to have really cute shorts that fit really well and wear really well so I was able to find one um good shorts fabric from fashion fabrics club that I'll talk about in a second but I knew I wanted to make more of them if I'd spent all this time on figuring out the shorts pattern I knew I would want to make multiples of them here in South Carolina you can wear shorts really anywhere to the nicest restaurants to work even some if your work is really casual or even business casual you can get away with shorts um so I knew I would be able to wear multiples of them so I went on instagram um style maker fabrics actually had commented on one of my muslin pictures and so I just asked her hey can you help me do you have anything in your store that would be good and I was shocked she sent me she was like my personal shopper she just went into her basement and started pulling out all of these fabrics that would be great for bottom weight um or shorts fabric um she sent me so many options I had to really narrow it down and resist from buying all of them um so I'm going to cover those three that she gave that she suggested to me the ones that I actually purchased um from her as well so first things first um the I think most common type of shorts fabric you're going to find is probably a twill um a twill fabric is one that is weaved in a certain way when you look at it has like a diagonal weave to it if you look really closely um and that's what I ended up getting from fashion fabrics club it's actually one that is printed with a print on it um to look like an ecat dot um but it's not actually ecat you can see on the wrong side it's totally printed totally died um but I did think this was a really cute print and I know that twill is a good midweight fabric for shorts it's a little crunchy now because I haven't pre-washed this one yet but um it does have a softer side on the other side it'll I should have washed it before I did this but it'll be interesting to see how it washes up I think a lot of that waxiness from the right side will kind of go away but you can definitely see the diagonal weave in there and you can tell there's absolutely no stretch going on and you can kind of get an idea for the drape and structure that a twill that a twill has so I thought this one was really cute cotton twill I think is a good option for shorts fabric you're going to have a hard time finding one without any stretch in it and you're going to have a hard time finding one that's cute um but I will leave a link for this one down below if you want to buy this one we can be shorts twins not a problem with me at all okay now to the style maker fabrics selection so she has twills as well um but she also has brushed twill and so that is what this is um and brushed twill on the opposite side has like almost like a fuzzy furry feel to it I mean it's very very soft um this one has already been pre-washed so you can kind of get a better idea for the drape I've actually already made shorts out of these two so they're all this is just a scrub it's all cut up but you can see um on the right side it is a little bit like slubby like it has like a little bit of picks and pulls in it which is okay it just gives it some texture you know I don't mind that at all it's just the the type of twill that it is but um again you can kind of get an idea for the drape and how structured it is but again it is a non-stretch woven fabric this isn't going anywhere um as I wore the shorts that I made they did relax a little bit but not nearly as much as what you would find with like a little but two or three percent stretch in them and I just thought this color was gorgeous she has a ton of other colors too um I had pulled it up here this one is called cerise I think cerise but she also has like a jade a citronelle golden rod cayenne natural cappuccino hazelnut she has a ton so um you'll have to go on her website and see I think most of the brush twills are 11.99 a yard which I mean for shorts you need like maybe a yard and a half at most this pattern that I called for was a yard and a quarter and I still had some leftover I had all this leftover to be exact um so I mean $15 shorts that fit perfectly I that's not a problem for me at all which is probably why I decided to buy the next fabric because this one is a little bit crazier but I'm so happy I splurged and got it I was a little unsure as to really what it was or what I was going to be getting but I love the print so much that I knew I would be able to use it for something else if it didn't work for shorts and it is a Japanese cotton dobby and again um dobby just refers to the way that it's woven dobby you can tell from looking at it because it has almost a very distinct geographic geometric design to it there's almost like squares woven into the fabric again it gives it kind of like a slubby texture like the twilded um and then this one is a printed version with really cute flowers that are like different shades of teal and blue and green and seafoam and things like that so this one is um I would say lighter for sure than the twill but not by much it's also thinner maybe that's more of what it is thinner than the twill um but it has like really great drape to it that you can see there but it's still very structured completely non-stretch um let's see what her website says about it um beautiful texture and structure without a lot of weight that's exactly what it is texture and structure with without a lot of weight so these are going to be thinner shorts which is okay so long as they are structured still thinner can be better you know just to deal with the hot temperature sometimes you don't want a really thick fabric but even if you didn't want to make shorts with this this is going to make a beautiful a-line skirt it would be a beautiful fit and flare dress I mean this Japanese cotton dobby is really really nice and I wish my grandmother was still around because the selvedge actually has Japanese printing on it and I would love to know what it says I'm sure it's just the manufacturer or whatever but um it's still really cool I'll actually probably save this selvedge to make something out of it I don't know what I just think it's really neat to have those characters on there considering it's part of my heritage but um so the Japanese cotton dobby on her site it comes in 44 inch width so you have to keep that in mind when you're um when you're buying this it's going to be narrower so you're going to need more than you would for a 60 inch width fabric and it's $21.99 a yard which I know is a if you think about it like that it is a lot but if you think about going into Ann Taylor or any of those stores and buying shorts you're easily going to pay that I mean yes you can wait till they're on clearance and get them for dirt cheap or whatever but I think then investing in good quality fabrics that are going to hold up and also having a pattern that you know is going to fit you really well it's okay to splurge on a $22 a yard fabric in my opinion especially when you balance it out like you know high and low end I don't know this is just girl math really I'm just trying to justify $22 a yard fabric but it is really gorgeous and I'm totally happy with it no buyers or more whatsoever so she also recommended a suiting now suiting is a generic term that can mean all kinds of things the suiting can have wool in them they can have cotton in them they can have synthetic fibers in them so not all suiting is created equal you can't just go online and type in suiting and buy whatever pops up you really need to pay attention to the kind of weight of suiting that it is and the material that is used to make it will often determine that so this is a mini hounds tooth suiting it's navy and white it's kind of it's a very dark navy so almost reads black she does have a black and white version of this as well but this is cotton polyester or I'm sorry it's polyester rayon poly rayon suiting so what that is going to produce is a this feels more like the twill um but it has a lot of structure and it is for sure a mid weight fabric um it's kind of dizzying now that I'm now that I'm looking at it up close from far away though I think that it's going to kind of read as like a light blue which is what I really liked about it on the website um anyway so it has a lot of structure it does have some weight to it but it doesn't have any texture to it like the twill or the or the dobby does um it's hard to discern a right side from a wrong side because of the way that it's woven it's not printed it's woven this way so um so yeah it's really good quality it feels like um very smooth to the hand and just I think it's going to make the perfect shorts I think these will this this fabric in particular I think would also make really great cigarette pants because it has that structure that you need I think the dobby would be too light and I actually think that the the brushed twill would be too heavy um but this one would make perfect perfect cigarette pants you know there's ones that really taper to the ankle um so if you're looking at something like that I would consider this suiting from a style maker fabrics and this one is just $12.99 a yard so totally reasonable again very affordable shorts that I'm going to be making with this okay so those are four different fabrics that you could use for any bottom bottom half pattern that you're that you're using I picked all these specifically for shorts um but you could easily make you know structured pants with them cigarette pants like I already mentioned um or even like an a-line skirt or something like that but these are my picks for um shorts fabric I will have four new pairs of shorts that you will be able to check out very soon um there are a lot of really great shorts patterns out there of course the big four has their versions they probably have multiple versions you could easily go on their websites and search for those the indy shorts patterns that we really love are the collet iris shorts the grain line maritime shorts um the scallop shorts scallop shorts by pattern runway and the headburn shorts by uh pattern emporium so headburn shorts iris shorts maritime shorts and the scallop shorts are four really good indy shorts patterns that would work well for these non stretch wovens um so be sure to check those out I'll leave links down below where you can kind of check out those styles there's also a new uh shorts pattern coming to market very soon possibly at the end of this month it's the tri-town chinos and those were the ones that kind of inspired this whole project of mine um they are by alina uh design and co and they are your kind of traditional relaxed fit kind of everyday walking short um and I really love them so be on the lookout for the chi-town chinos from alina and um sure we'll share something about that on instagram as well so if you don't follow us be sure to follow us we are at inside the hem but before I go one other really bit of exciting news I hope you're still sticking with me I've been really really rambling in this video for some reason um style maker fabrics has a coupon code that I want to share with you guys she set up um for us it is summer one six I believe let me double check yes summer one six and that will get you five dollars off a purchase of twenty five dollars or more so if you're going to make shorts you buy a couple yards of one of these fabrics and you get five dollars off um she has flat rate shipping it comes super fast I want to say I ordered it on saturday and it was here on tuesday or something like that she had a fantastic job helping me with these shorts I never ever would have picked um these maybe the twills I would have but I would have been a little bit like I don't know what I'm gonna get so um yeah she's just super super helpful and I couldn't thank her enough so go um be sure to check out her website check out these fabrics that I found um and use summer 16 to save five dollars off of your next purchase so until next time I will see you guys bye