Working on My Linen Shorts + How I Nearly Burned the House Down

So let me start with the burning the house down part, since it's clearly more newsworthy than a pair of linen shorts.

I'm laying out my linen fabric for cutting late yesterday morning and I smell something burning.  The balcony door was open so I figured it must be coming from outside.  But it lingered, and there was no smell like it outside on the balcony.

Michael was in the bathroom.  I asked him if he smelled anything burning and he said he'd just lit a match (for reasons I won't go into).  But it didn't smell like a match, plus why was I smelling it so strongly in the living room?  We opened the apartment door to see if the smell was in the hallway.  It wasn't.

I returned to cutting my linen, and happened to look over at one of the glass paperweights I use to hold down my pattern pieces.



Remember that trick you learned in summer camp (or scouting), how to start a fire with a magnifying glass?  Well that's what was going on with that glass paperweight.  Only it was starting a fire on my living room rug!





Readers, I know a lot of us live in places with strong sun and we often like to hang decorative glass crystals in our windows or display paperweights or other objects that can act like a prism or magnifying glass.  Please be careful.  I could have left one of those paperweights on the floor and gone out somewhere, and while I was gone the rug could have caught fire.  It's a scary thought. 

In other, less dramatic news, I'm nearly done with my linen shorts.  The color of my linen is sort of a light chartreuse, not sure how it appears on your monitor.



I'm using McCall's 5946, another one of those mid-Seventies John Weitz patterns.  This one makes either mens shorts or a swimsuit, and includes lots of pocket variations.  I made version "A" (below).  The shorts went together nicely.







Originally I'd intended to make long pants, but in a color like this I think I'll get more use out of shorts.  I still have enough left over to make a little jacket.  Not sure I'll get to that this year though.

I made a few changes to the pattern.  The waistband is supposed to have two pieces of elastic in it to take up some of the excess fullness in the back.  Gathers in back is not something I really wanted (especially in this light-colored linen), so I added darts as well as two patch pockets that mirror the ones in front.  Easy peasy. 



I find hemming shorts to be harder even than hemming long pants, I don't know why.  Especially in a very droopy fabric like this linen, it's hard to get them perfectly even.  I did my best.  You'll see them completed and modeled on Wednesday.

In closing, readers, have you ever heard of a glass paperweight causing a house fire?   When we leave for vacation, we're definitely keeping the shades drawn!

Have a great day, everybody!