Minerva’s July Make – Deer & Doe Chataigne Shorts

Greetings dear readers!

To those of you that have been in the recent heat wave, when it got hotter than hot, you will understand the need for shorts recently! I don’t wear shorts very often, I don’t love getting my legs out BUT when they are pretty and girly like these – I have to make an exception!! Ladies and maybe a few gentlemen I present to you Deer and Doe Chataigne shorts – the cutest shorts on the block!

Megan aka Pigeon Wishes took this  picture mainly for the blouse (which is Nina Lee Patterns Bloomsbury Blouse in Pigeon Wishes fabric) and sadly it was the only one with the shorts so the rest are by me on a much less sunny day!

Whenever I get to choose my patterns and fabrics for my Minerva blog I fill my screen with tabs and tabs of things I like and I try and shortlist it but this time was SO hard – mainly because of the arrival of Deer & Doe patterns to Minerva’s already amazing collection! They are ALL so beautiful – I want to make every pattern. These shorts though, with their epic high waist and an option of scalloped hems, were far too tempting – especially as my summer choice! Then I had to decide on which fabric to go with them… that choice was also difficult… denim? Cotton? I loved so many ideas but when I thought ‘oooh maybe Chambray’ and discovered they had this gorgeous pinky raspberry shade I was sold!

This fabric is stunning – such a unique colour, very soft and sews up beautifully! I think it really suits this pattern as it has sturdiness to make the details work especially the scallops. Like most chambrays it sure loves to crease but I don’t think that really matters in these shorts and they iron right out again.

You may notice that the scallops are being a bit naughty here – the facing wasn’t quite staying in place so I added a line of top stitching at the top of the hem after these pictures were taken and it’s made all the difference.

The pattern is great – having got used to Deer & Doe perchance for leaving out some info in the instructions I knew to read the whole thing through before even cutting out and that made a massive difference. My main advice with D&D is check through all the points to see if anything needs interfacing as it is only mentioned towards the end! Other than that the instructions are detailed and easy to follow.

I love these pockets! I think every pattern should have pockets – especially summer garments as what is a girl to do when they don’t have a coat to hold their phone, wallet, doggy bags?! These pockets are a lovely detail and really add to the look and feel of the shorts. Alongside that amazing waistband of course! There are pleats at the front too, adding to the shape. There’s an invisible zip hidden in the right side seam too!

The final piece of this puzzle was the scallop hem so I thought I’d let you know how I did it…

I used a tracing wheel and pressed hard to mark the lines from the pattern piece directly onto the fabric

Then I used a fabric pen to draw over these marks.

At the end of the make you pin the facing to the hem and topstitch along the scallop lines…

They take a lot of trimming, clipping the curves and pushing out the edges as much as possible whilst giving them a seriously good press.

So that’s all for my shorts – I freaking LOVE them and hope to get lots more sunny days to wear them!

Thankyou Minerva- you’re the best!! 🙂