Clothes transformation: Balloon shorts

I like the look of balloon shorts, but was also sure that they wouldn't be flattering to me.

One day, I bought a pair of shorts at a flea market and the cut tended to bunch up at the hips. I then decided to exaggerate the effect by turning it into balloon shorts.

My inspirations?

Extract from some DIY clothes alteration book (can't recall the title offhand)

Balloon shorts for sale online

1) Take a pair of shorts, preferably longer than your intended length. The pair here was given to me by a_slashie who bought the black version of my khaki pair.

2) Cut the hemline to the length you want less 1 inch. If you want the length of the pants to be X inches/cm, cut the hemline to X-1 inches/cm. You will need at least 1 inch to turn up the hemline.

3) Measure 1/2 inch marks from the seam. I chose to have 3 pleats, which means I marked 6 places of 1/2 inches. Fold the first pleat at the 1 inch mark towards the 1/2 inch closest to the seam. Pin and baste into place. Continue until you get 2 more pleats.

4) After pinning and basting all the pleats, turn up the cut hemline to cover the baste stitches. As the waistline for this shorts was cherry red, I chose to decorate the hemline of the shorts with a similar shade of red. I cut strips of red fabric and machine-sewed it to the hemline.

Finished look

Difficulty level: 2 out of 5
Machine sewing needed: Yes for the hemming