Stripey Tights

The Fabric Mart order included some thin synthetic yarn dyed stripe knit, with the intention of making a pair of tights, using the pattern I traced off of a commercially made pair of cut and sewn tights.

I ended up making two pairs, although the second has the crotch extensions pieced, because what was left wasn't quite wide enough to get everything cut. 

There's still no appealing way to photograph tights, so this is what you get.

Since I cut them in opposite directions, each pair has the opposite stripe order, for some nice and barely noticeable variety.

The fabric turned out to have the perfect amount of stretch in the right directions, and fit very nicely at the ankles.   I can't say the same for the other fabric in the order that I intended to be tights. (I'm working on salvaging the fabric.  But not for leg wear.)

I have made silly little striped tights for dolls for years, so it was fun to make some for me.

More tights

I just made three more pairs of tights, using the pattern I made by tracing a commercially-made pair of sewn tights.

The peach and pale pink pairs are made from rib knit, and are slightly baggy, but will be fine for a layer of warmth and worn with additional socks and boots of various styles.

The gray...  Using the exact same pattern as the rib knit versions, the gray ended up being too short.  I have suspicions how that happened (knit fabrics are variable beyond my comprehension), but I'll mostly say it was disappointing, because the fit around the legs was perfect.

After some thought, I picked apart the center seams and sewed extensions on where the crotch should have been, then re-cut the top of the tights.  I also added more height to the top, because it's vital for my comfort that tights go all the way over my bulgy abdomen.  I had to piece that extended height, too, which was an actual benefit, because it allowed me to use up almost all of this fabric (left over from a previous project that left me unenthused.)  So, these tights have a whole bunch of weird seams, but they're up where no-one will ever see, and they didn't seem obtrusive when I tried them on, so it's fine.

Everything is stitched with a narrow zigzag, and finished with serging for extra security.  I still don't trust my serger to sew with two needles without breaking the left needle, but I don't have problems sewing knits on the lockstitch machine (as long as I use good thread.)

So!  Tights!  Sewn tights!

Back to Clothes (kinda)

A local Walmart remodeled, and had marked some of its mill-end precuts down in preparation.  I picked up a roll of a very loose (and very synthetic) off white and teal stripe knit, with pale gold metallic fibers, for 75¢

The only thing I wanted to make from it was cut and sewn tights, and I finally did that.

Badly.

Because it didn't stretch quite as much as my pattern wanted, so I cut the legs off of my first attempt and made a new upper part, with some leg on it, to sew the cut-off legs to.  And the fabric I chose...also was not as stretchy as needed, so I re-cut that part with my leggings pattern.  It's not pretty, but the solid contrast will be hidden by skirts and the legs are no longer too short.

Then I thought I could eke out another pair, making the legs a few inches longer to compensate.  That also did not go well.  I ended up sewing the inseam higher, then sewing that now-short top part to the top part cut off of the first attempt pair.  Also not pretty, also never will be seen.

also still hard to photograph appealingly

Then I sewed the large remaining strip into a tube with cluny lace on the ends to make a scarf.

 

This already has so many picks in it...  It will be months before it's cool enough again to wear the tights or the scarf, so we'll see how long it takes, then, before they all become masses of picks and pulls.  I hope I can get my 75¢ + labor out of them.  At least this fabric is out of the stash now.

Gray Tights Gray Tights

The last visit to the craft thrift store brought some medium lightweight heathered gray four way stretch knit into my life.  I had no idea what I was going to do with it--it just looked too useful to leave behind (optimistically hoping it has a decent amount of cotton.)

A few nights ago, when I was trying to fall asleep, my brain blipped out the realization that this fabric would be perfect for sewn tights.

So that's what I did!  Two pairs, since there was enough fabric, and having multiple pairs of heavy gray tights seemed like a good idea (it was a bit chilly that day.)

I still don't know how to take a flattering photo of sewn tights, but, here they are, for the record

Their construction is straightforward, with the basic shape copied from a commercially-made pair of sewn tights I have--I added height to the center front and back seams, so the elastic can rest on top of my abdomen instead of cutting into it.  I decided to use the lockstitch machine on a narrow zigzag instead of the serger, even though the serger should work perfectly well for this.

I did have a frustrating time when I started zigzagging through all of the layers at the waist elastic, and the bobbin tension went wildly bad--just...incredibly loose on the bottom.  Conventional sewing wisdom says the tension problem source is on the opposite side of where the malformed stitches are, so I changed the top tension, to no effect; re-threaded the top, nothing; switched to a heavier (ballpoint) needle, no change.  I finally took out the bobbin case and saw that the thread had somehow completely worked itself out of the tension assembly.  I re-threaded the bobbin case and everything was fine.

Now that I have added these to my small assortment of cut and sewn tights, good for cool winter days, the temperature is climbing back into the 80s for a few days...until the next cold front sweeps in...

One. More. Time.

 This is the last pair of tights I plan to make at the moment, although I'm sure I'll make more in the future

Nothing new to say about the construction of these

Although the pale color (not sure if I've had pale purple tights before?) did make me wonder if some hypothetical future tights could have designs painted on them before being sewn.  Someday.

Hey guess what I made?

 I'm almost through the stack of fabric I picked out to make tights (and then shirts from the leftovers.)

But not yet.

However, there's not much left to say about the construction of these cut and sewn tights, so here they are

And Again

 Hey hey, another pair of cut and sewn tights made from a Walmart precut 

"Medium weight gray" was indeed something missing from my tights assortment.

As Easy as 1,2,3: 1

 When I found this fabric in the Walmart precut bin, I knew I wanted to make a pair of sewn tights from it.

I cut them out a few days ago and finally sewed them yesterday:

A Simple Project That Just Might Change Everything

 Well.  Maybe that's a bit dramatic.

But what it is is that I've sewn a pair of tights for the first time

And this could be a big thing for me, in terms of my decades long love of tights and in terms of an easy project to do with the variety of weird synthetic super stretchy knits offered by the Walmart mill end precut bins (of which this B&W stripe is one.)