Thanks to some body size changes, I found myself at the start of this warm season without any shorts that fit. I’ve half heartedly looked for a new pair, but generally ran into a few problems — current fashion seems to be for shorts much shorter than I like to wear, shorts that are a length I like have the same problems as many jeans and are too big in the middle if they fit my thighs, etc. While reflecting on this, I had the thought ‘I wish I had a pair of shorts that fit like my favorite style of jeans do’ which then led to the realization that I could make this happen!
I pulled out my sewing machine and went to work. It was pretty simple. First, I put on the pair of jeans I wanted to alter and marked them where I wanted to cut. I wanted shorts that hit just at the top of my knee when cuffed, so I marked them just below the knee. I took them back off, laid them out on my work bench and cut the legs. I focused more on making sure the legs were the same length than on cutting exactly where I’d marked.
Next, I sewed one seam around the whole cutoff bottom. This should help prevent fraying in the future. Then, I cuffed the pants, ironed the cuff flat, and sewed right on the original seams to keep the cuff in place. I didn’t sew around the whole bottom this time, as I didn’t think that would look good.
And with that, voila, new shorts. It only took me about 20 minutes, and these shorts fit great — they’re the exact length I wanted and they fit well in my middle and my thighs.