Years ago, my husband, never a one for shorts, decided that if I made them, he would wear them. I was Miss Seamstress in those days, and had been making the children’s clothes and mine for some time. This wasn’t a strange request.

The strange request was to make them out of heavy denim, using elastic for the waist. With pockets please.

Oh, heck. I can do that easy.

I laid out his old jeans, the long kind, and made the pattern on old grocery bags. Threw in a couple of side pockets, as requested. And bought the heaviest elastic and denim I could. Pin and cut, everything was ready. In just a few minutes, honey, I’ll have your new shorts—to order.

Pockets went in without a problem. Side and crotch seams sewn up, easy.

Then came the waistband. Cut a length of cloth, oh, say four inches wide and about two inches or so longer that the sewn up pants. Measure and fit the band around the top of the pants, matching your ends so they overlap the back pants seam, then sew a matching seam in the waistband. Sew the band and the pants together matching the outer parts so the band will fold over to the inside and hide the new seam.

I know how good I am at explaining this. But it does work. And I did it. I sewed that pair of pants to its waistband good and tight. That waistband would last forever.

Now comes the fun part. That was just the first waistband seam. I still had to put the elastic in, and sew the whole mess together. Or alternatively, fold over and sew the band on, leaving a hole for the elastic to thread through, and finish it up with a little more sewing. The snag was—the elastic was very heavy duty stuff. Common sense dictated that I deal with the elastic first, then the waistband.

After measuring my dear spouse’s midline (not an unpleasant undertaking…) I sewed up the ends of the elastic. Next step, fold over the waistband, with the already-sewn elastic inside and just stretch and pull and get it right.

I am good, aren’t I?

Although, the elastic was strong enough to yank a mountain off its foundation, it wasn’t strong enough to de-stretch the waistband. The elastic remained stretched.

To top that, the needle I was using had other ideas about the strength of the fabric (very thick at this point) and its own ability to withstand torture. Snap!

A quick search of my collection of supplies produced another equally “strong” needle. It too objected. Hmmm… those were the needles that are built for denim.

This was proving problematical. A tad of head-scratching was called for. In the meantime, I could show Peter the progress I’d made.

Proudly, I stomped upstairs, “Hey, Peter! Look at these.” I held up the pants and turned them around for his perusal.

“Nice,” he muttered. I put the shorts on over my own. I’m smaller then he is.

“See, they even have pockets,” I said, as I stuck my left hand in the left pocket. Nice and roomy.

I stuck my right hand in the right pocket. It slid around to the back!

Peter is still waiting for his shorts.