How To Make A Sewing Pattern For Shorts

Do you ever struggle to get exactly what you want when you go shopping? Have you ever wanted custom made clothes, tailored specifically to you?

Being a creative person, the beauty is, with a little determination and perseverance-you can create anything, any way you want.

If you’ve ever wondered how to make a pattern for shorts, you’ve come to the right place. Today we’ll go into great detail about how I created my shorts sewing patterns. This can be tweaked to your specific wants. Your imagination is your only limiting factor.

So are you ready to jump in?! Let’s gooo!

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Approximate time to completion: 2 Hours

Days spent working on it: 1 Day

What You’ll Need:

• Paper
  • You can use cardboard, wrapping paper, some shopping bags (the bag does say to recycle…it’s only poetic to actually do so.) Any type of paper should work for this.
• Scissors
• Possibly tape
• Pens
• A ruler – I use one from my rotary mat kit
• Some pants for reference
• Fabric tape measure 
• Oh, and of course you need your cat – *emotional sewing support*

Disclaimer: I am trying to teach myself the Metric System, so I will always try to include both measurements in my tutorials, i.e. centimeters and inches, meters and yards. Though in my everyday sewing life lately I have been using them rather interchangeably, I apologize if I miss including both or switch between the two too often.

Front Shorts Pattern

To start fold the pants that you’re using as a reference in half on the front crotch seam and place on your paper. Make a few hash marks around the important parts of the pants: around the top of the pant, not including the waistband, down the sides and especially the crotch. Make sure your marks follow the actual seam, not where the pants fold.

When you remove the pants from the paper firm out the lines with your ruler.

Make sure the pattern is large enough to fit over your hips and waist first. To do this measure around the fullest part of your butt, or around where the crotch seam hits on the pants you’re currently wearing. Write this down. Then measure around where you want your pants to sit, e.g. your waist or high hip, and write this down as well.

Take your numbers and divide them each by four, my numbers are referenced below: 

Hips: 39÷4= 9.75″ (99÷4=24.75cm)

Waist: 31÷4=7.75″ (79÷4=19.75cm)

To mark this on your pattern, in reference to the picture above, you’ll mark outside the left line on your paper. I would mark where the golden tip of my tape measure hits. You should now have a mark indicating the new length of your waistline and one directly across horizontally from the tip of the crotch seam.

Draw a straight line with your ruler to connect everything and create a new outer seam line, again, this is on the left side of your pattern. It seems I didn’t take a picture of this added line in between drawing the bottom hem, so note that you can see the amount of width we added to this piece two pictures below.

To create the bottom of the shorts, I copied a pair of shorts that I like the bottom of, these are a wider, looser fit than my jeans are, and not as high of a waist, I’m going to try to combine the two styles. Because when you’re the creator, you get to create exactly what you want.

I folded my shorts the same way I did the pants and placed them on top of the paper. The crotch lines will not line up perfect, just line these up as best you can. The only thing we’re copying here is the bottom hem of the shorts, if you want to copy the wider crotch seam and wider leg for a looser fit you can do so as well.

This added a flare to mine, making my bottom hem line 11” (28cm) To bring this up to the original line I drew a diagonal line up by 6.75” (17cm) to connect with my side seam. This is the little triangle in the bottom left corner.

Front Pocket Hole Cutout

You can skip this step if you don’t want front pockets.

Grab your reference pants and measure how deep and wide the pocket hole is. Mine is 2.50” (6.50cm) deep by 3.50″ (9cm) wide. To create the curve on the inner edge, measure in by .75” (2cm) on both edges, connect the lines and then round it out. 

Add .50” (1cm) on all sides, including the curved pocket cutout. To the bottom side you want to add 1.25” (3cm) instead.

Title your piece, such as “Front shorts pattern,” and be sure to note that you’ll need to cut two.

Zipper Fly

Draw two rectangles, 2” (5cm) by 6.75” (17cm). On the first one, title it and note that you you’ll be cutting one, on the fold, the fold should be lengthwise.

On the second one, create a curve on the bottom left corner. Marking in on both sides of the corner at .75” (2cm), connect the two lines and round out the edges.

When you cut your fabric you will want the good side of your fabric to have this curve in the bottom left corner. Essentially, this cardboard is the correct side up. Title this and note that you will be cutting one.

Front Pocket Pattern Pieces

Flip your pants inside out and measure your pocket. Mine was 5.50” (14cm) by 5.50” (14cm). I drew a square and added 1.25” (3cm) to the bottom line. You can make yours as long as you want, however, changing the side and top lines may result in extra fabric you’ll end up cutting off later.

Taking my front pants pattern I lined up the two edges to create a matching curve to that of the front pants piece.

Title it and note that you’ll need to cut two.

Cut out your first piece and trace the curve, adding a mark where the top and side edge connect with the curve. This is going to be the pant piece that will be seen in the pocket hole.

Complete the left corner edge. Add .75” (2cm) around the bottom curve, round out and firm up this line. Note that you’ll need to cut two of this pattern piece. Cut this out.

In a new spot, trace onto your paper the whole first pocket piece you created.

Take the second pocket piece you created and place it over the curve on your paper. Trace the curve, firm out your lines.

Title it and note that you want to cut two.

You should have a total of three pieces for the complete pocket pattern.

Back Shorts Pattern

Doing the same thing that you did with the front, fold your reference pant in half. Make hash marks around the top and side of the pant to create your general outline, not including the waistband.

The back pattern has a longer seam up the middle that tucks further under than the front crotch seam does. We will need to pull the…for lack of a better term…butt crack seam out when you go to create this portion of the pattern, because of this I don’t firm up my pattern lines until I nail down the butt crack seam.

Pulling out this seam, line up the very top where the waistband hits with your hashmark and lay the butt crack seam flat. Make hash marks to the tip of the seam. Don’t bother trying to line up anything else, just focus on the butt crack seam and add in a line where the pant leg sits.

Draw the bottom hem the same way you did on the front, lining up the back booty seam and drawing straight across the bottom. Check your width measurements ensuring you have the same measurements as the front, my waist should be 7.75” (19.75cm), to ensure they fit me, and I matched my new hem length at 11” (28cm). 

Please add an extra 2-3″ (5cm-7.5cm) to the inseam on the butt crack seam. You can see a demonstration of why you should add this in next week’s sewing tutorial, as I didn’t add it, and I always run into this problem of having my back short’s inseam shorter than my front short’s inseam.

Add your seam allowance, .50” (1cm) on all sides, and the 1.25” (3cm) to the bottom hem. Title your piece, and note that you’ll need to cut two.

Before we finish this–and after you’ve added your seam allowance  I decided to add the detailing from the back of my reference pant.

NOTE: We add the seam allowance first to ensure the back pattern’s waist line will match the front pattern piece, even after we cut this triangle out. Adding seam allowance first evens everything out.

To add this detail, measure the triangle on the back of your reference pant at two points and mark your pattern at corresponding points, mine was 2” (5cm) and .75” (2cm).

The wider part should be on the butt crack seam side. Connect these lines straight across the pattern

Add .50” (1cm) to the top, note that you will need to cut two.

Fitting Notes

After you’ve finished making your front and back pattern for shorts, I recommend going back to your pattern and measuring the waist on both pieces. Then multiply that number by two to get your approximate end total.

If this number is way bigger than your waist measurement, minus the seam allowance, consider adding some darts to get a more proper fit.

To add a dart take your total waist measurement and the total waist measurement you got from your pattern pieces. For example:

• Waist: 30″ (76cm)
• Waist on pattern: 34″ (86.50cm)
• Pattern – waist = 4″ (10cm) ÷ 4 (the number of shorts panels) = 1″

The number you get will need to be taken out of your front and back shorts pattern piece. You could just take the full number out of the back panel if you don’t want darts in the front, it’s up to you, you may need to play with it a little when you’re sewing to make sure everything looks right.

When creating a dart I like to find the center of my pattern piece and create the straight line first. Typically your dart in the back is longer than the front and they can have varying overall lengths. I find this channel on YouTube helpful for pattern making if you need more help determining the proper length for your darts.

When making your dart you’ll need to take the number you determined earlier (in my example this is 1″ 3cm)) and divide it on either side of the straight line. i.e. in the picture above, you’d need .50″ (1cm) on either side of the straight line. Then, using your ruler you’ll simply need to create a straight line to the tip of your dart. Repeat on the other pant pattern piece.

If you’re adding a dart to the front pant piece, I recommend thinking about dart placement. You’ll need to work around the front pockets to make sure everything looks nice.

Rear Pocket Pattern

Measure your back pocket from your reference pant.

Then draw a square on your paper, mine measures 5.50” (14cm) by 5.50” (14cm).

Find the center of the square and draw a line straight down the middle. On each of the bottom corners go up by .75” (2cm) and mark it, draw a line connecting the bottom center line with the new corner mark.

Then add 1.25” (3cm) to the top of your pocket pattern and .50” (1cm) around all other sides, including the slanted bottom edges we just created. Title this and note that you will need to cut two.

The Waistband

I never cut out the whole waistband pattern to match the length needed, you can if you want but I find this to be a waste of paper. I create a small reference card so I know what measurement I will need to cut. However, it is best to wait to cut the waistband of your short out until you’re ready to put the waistband on and can measure once more.

To make this, measure the height of the waistband on your reference pant.

Mine is 1.50” (4cm), I create a small rectangle this height by whatever paper space I have available. Add .50” (1cm) to all sides of this. Title it and make a note that you will need to cut two.  Additionally note the length you will need.  To find this I take my waist measurement from earlier and add 2” (5cm) to ensure I have a long enough waistband just in case.

The only pattern piece I didn’t include in this tutorial is for belt loops. For this you will need a strip of fabric 19.75” (50cm) long by 1.25” (3cm) wide. This would be folded in on two sides and cut into five equal pieces.

That’s it, you now have all of your shorts pattern pieces. Congratulations!

This technique can be used to create any type of pattern so long as you have a reference garment and enough imagination to alter to your ideal design.

I hope you found this pattern for shorts helpful. Let me know in the comments if you did or if you have any questions! Check out this post How To Make Shorts to learn how to sew this pattern. Interested in creating other things? Check out our Tutorials Page to get some more inspo!

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