Style Arc Karen Walk Short Review

While most of my August was spent sewing the motorcycle jacket I did manage to squeeze the Karen walk shorts from Style Arc.   They are styled much like a pair of trousers with back welt pockets and front slash pockets.  I thought the knee length would be great, giving me more leg coverage, but photos suggest otherwise.  Doh!  Oh well, it seems at 30 something I'm still finding out what flatters and doesn't flatter my figure.

Despite my blindness to figure flaws I think this is a nice pattern.  Like Thurlow they lots of pockets and a front fly zipper, which makes them practical to wear. Also as a plus my fitting alterations on the size 16 were not that extensive.

Most of the fitting changes were made to the back pant piece to add to the rise.  Added and 1 1/4" to the CB at the top of the pattern, redrew the crotch seam to more of a diagonal line,  added 2 1/4" to the width of the entire leg which also extended the crotch rise.  I tapered the inside leg a bit to compensate for all the extra width that was added. 

Interesting, at least to me, didn't have to drop the crotch at all which is pretty much a standard alteration on me.  However Style Arc seems to now that a size 16 girl needs some more room in the tush area.

Alternations I probably should have done were knock knee adjustment, cutting down the front waist a tad and maybe removing the front dart. 

Having just finished a pair of Thurlows sewing on the Karen walk short was a piece of cake.  Welt pockets go a heck of a lot faster when your skills aren't rusty.  The only confusion was that the pattern seemed to have an extra pocket bag/facing or something.  Tried to figure it out but in the end just didn't cut that pattern piece and made the welt pocket bags the way I usually do.

Final thoughts -  Next year I'll probably pull this pattern out, shorten the leg a tad and be perfectly happy with it. 

Things in progress

Now that the pattern stash contest is over some new pattern purchases were pushed to the top of the sewing list.

Waiting for buttons is the StyleArc Victoria blouse in cotton voile.

My JoAnn's didn't have any decent navy buttons so it looks like some web shopping is in my future.

Also from StyleArc the Karen Walk Shorts in khaki twill.  Everyone needs some khaki bottoms but boy are they boring to sew.

Ran out of thread for these right after my trip to JoAnn's so they're on hold until the next trip.


I'm also thinking about entering the Lined Jacket contest on pattern review. Like to turn this motorcycle jacket pattern from Burda 12/2009...

into one that looks a lot like this fossil jacket.

Just cut out muslin #3 for this design and it seems to be moving in the right direction. We'll see how it goes.