Pattern Difficulties

I hit a wall using Simplicity Pattern 4340, c. late 1950s I think.

I'm making the shorts from the pattern. I was breezing through the pattern when I got to the waistband. I got through the first sentence of step 11 in photo of instructions below, but then the trouble began.



Part 1 of pattern step 11: Sew right side of band to wrong side of shorts. You can see the visible part of the band, away from the shorts is marked W for wrong, meaning the right side of the band is toward the shorts, the right side of the shorts. And I've matched up the notches on the band and shorts. So far so good.


Part 2: Fold band in half lengthwise right sides together. I'm showing the inside of the fold where I marked with an R indicating right side.

Photo below shows fabric folded down - folded in half, right sides together, again so far so good. And I stitched ends of the waistband.


This next part shows how the waistband looks when the shorts are turned right side out (seeing right side or outside out, because you can no longer see dart seams), we are looking at the outside back, to try to correlate to illustration in instructions. It doesn't look like the illustration in step 11 of the pattern instructions, but not sure how I could have done anything differently. Hum.


At the end of the instructions to stitch the ends, it says to turn. I assume that means turn the waistband end out so the end shows the finished edge (can't see seam). Then instructions say to turn under seam allowance (5/8") on raw edge of band. Okay, so in photo below, you can see the edge of the turned under band comes just to the top of the raw top edge of the shorts. So now what do I do? Now the train has fully jumped the track and I'm stuck. If I pull the band edge down over the top edge seam allowance of shorts, the very end of the waistband is askew. Drat.