I needed a pair of quick-dry shorts so I ordered a pair of the famous Patagonia Baggies. I would have been fine paying $55 for sweatshop-free shorts from a sustainable B Corp, BUT–the elastic waist wasn’t enclosed on the inside (good for quick drying, but I wanted to wear these hiking too and I thought that would get irritating)–and the pockets weren’t deep enough for my phone. (This is a problem in nearly every pair of active bottoms I have. How hard is it, women’s clothing designers?!)

I looked at the Patagonia shorts, and thought, “Wait, I could make the Emerson Shorts…leave out the pleats…deepen the pockets…this might work!” I found some nylon supplex at The Rain Shed and for about $12 I had some DIY Patagonia.

The smart thing to do would have been to measure how deep the pleats were and add that exact amount to the waistband, but I just guessed and added about an inch and it worked out ok. I deepened the pockets by 1.5″ and made a second drop-in pocket inside the right main pocket to corral my phone while hiking (shown here in the next project). And to keep my shorts up with a phone in the pocket, I added an interior drawstring. (I also made my regular Emerson mod of adding about 3/8″ to the front crotch curve.)

The nylon supplex I found isn’t stretchy and matte like the Patagonia fabric, but it’s light and comfortable and really does dry quickly. Overall I’m really happy with these, and not just because they were cheap–they’re functional and exactly what I wanted and they performed really well on a 4-mile hike:

Val-der-i, val-der-a…