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From my pajama dress pants muslin pattern, I removed the curvature from the hip to waist to make it go straight up on the pattern for these tennis shorts. I also chopped off the leg lengths, obviously. But imagine that! Dress pants turned to tennis shorts!

I used the dress pants pattern because I needed pockets on these shorts. I have to play with tennis balls in my pockets so that’s why the extra buffer from hip to waist.

Beyond that, I chose a silky smooth spandex to minimize chafing, but also allow for a stretch as I move about in all kinds of ways in tennis. The stretch also helps with holding those tennis balls in the pockets. The spandex here isn’t meant to be worn tightly like spandex running shorts I’ve made. I plan to be wearing these in a tennis club so I have to adhere to dress code that doesn’t allow for tights and running shorts.

The silky spandex used just “happen” to have shiny foil red dragons on them to make the shorts interesting. That’s why the colours look funny, from reflecting light at different angles off of each dragon on the shorts. I may get a “Red Dragon” nickname out of these shorts yet! lol

I didn’t do a great sewing job on these shorts, admittedly, as can be seen. I made them as a muslin, with enough confidence that I could get things right first time around to wear them for real, so I risked some decent fabric for them. As you can see, they don’t lie well like shorts I have bought made from less slippery materials that look sharp and symmetrical. However, these tennis shorts hang well when worn to look just fine, and they feel superb on the skin with the slippery nature of the spandex. I can’t wait to try them out Wednesday!

I’ll give these shorts a Bronze rating. Got the pattern parts right. Sewing left things to be desired. Fabric is fun, but isn’t that wild or crazy. I also didn’t have enough to commit to matching at the seams. I don’t have a huge amount of this stuff bought in NY, so I figured as long as a few dragons could be seen, that’s plenty good.

Please click here to see other garments I’ve made and fashion related articles I’ve written.