Slight Tights Alteration

Some of the sewn tights I made--this pair and one of these pairs--I wore so much that the heels wore out.  Instead of darning them when the holes first appeared, I let them go until the holes were undeniable, and decided to cut them off just above the highest hole and finish the edges, turning them into leggings.  I also decided to cut off the toe areas and do the same to the tights made from what turned out to be very baggy rib knits.

It took a while between deciding to do this and finally doing this, but the project suddenly became very attractive as a way to procrastinate figuring out what to do with the last fabric from that big  Fabric Mart order.  I'm wearing the gray now-leggings today, and they're perfectly functional leggings.  Yay.

Silver Shine Leggings

For the last few months, Fabric Mart has had a selection of medium weight synthetic knits with metallic foiled designs.  The listings say they're "from the same manufacturer that creates leotards for Team USA Gymnastics."  If so, I'd still guess these particular fabrics have been dead stock for a very long time, because they have a distinct air of Early 2000s Cheese to them that I of course found irresistible.

I ordered three different prints when they were $2 per yard, then went back for a fourth when they were briefly reduced to $1 per yard.

One of them I wanted to make into leggings, but I knew not only that they wouldn't be stretchy enough to use my regular tights pattern (which is another possible hint at the fabrics' age, from back before spandex started infusing everything), but, even if it would work, the print was too strongly geometric to use with that no-side-seam pattern.  I decided to try the tights part of Simplicity 8042, which I had only made once before, and six years ago, and very disapointingly.

I was determined to make them work, and, after a lot of pinching and sewing and pinning and sewing and sewing again to make things less angular, I got where I wanted.

 They are aggressively shiny.

Then again

OK, yeah, I thought I was done with all the "make tights, then figure out what to make from the rest of the fabric" projects.

But.

The fabric left over from the very first pair of  tights I made was still around, taunting me.  I didn't want to put it back in the stash, but I didn't particularly want to use it for anything I could think if offhand, either.

When I had first picked it up at Walmart, I figured I'd make leggings from it.  And, even though the tights were a great success, I still kinda wanted a pair of leggings made from it.  Did I have enough of that fabric left to make a pair of mid-calf leggings?

Yes!

But!

Not how I initially expected.

Since this fabric has a decent amount of vertical stretch, this worked out just fine. I'm wearing them today, no problems!

I did use the old no side seam leggings pattern I made from a 1970s leggings pattern (that not only had side seams, but also a zipper, because 1970s stretch knit technology was nowhere near what we have now), and that's why the stripes are doing that at the inseam.  It looks fine on, and I mean that with a lot more enthusiasm than my usual declarations of "it's fine."

I made the hems with bands of the same fabric cut in the direction if greater stretch, and the fit is nice'n'smooth.  Finishing knits with ribbing/bands is just the best, y'know?

Jeggings...ish

 So, a while ago, I thrifted about a yard of a knit that looks like denim.  Of course I immediately planned to make leggings, necessarily slightly cropped due to the length of the yardage.  Since I ended up really liking the cropped length of the gray leggings I made that weren't the right kind of stretchy, I was perfectly OK with the idea of these being a bit short.

And because this leggings pattern has no side seams, I was able to throw 'em together fast after finishing the dress in the last post

Yeah, leggings always look terrible on the hanger like this.  What matters here is that I am recording A Thing I Did.

Quick alteration

 Made these leggings years ago, outgrew the waist a few years after that, finally added a ribbing/elastic band last week, posting it here as a record of Things Sewn

will resist wearing it with the previous dress to reduce Star Trek vibes.

More layering pieces: Black & Spiderweb Edition

I used the same old hacked pattern that made the leggings about a month ago, but, since the knit this time is four-way stretch, the fit is very different.

They look just as unimpressive in the hanger, though

 I did deviate a bit and used bands to finish the hems, and that turned out nicely

They are excessively long, unlike the gray pair, which are calf-length.  Both are good.

Like the gray pair, these were made from a mill end precut from Walmart.  This precut was only 2 yards, so there definitely wasn't as much to play around with after cutting out the leggings.  I was determined to eke out a long-sleeved shirt to use for layering, and it didn't take too much finagling to do that, ending up with this

Grayyyyyyyy

The return (somewhat) of cooler weather + PMS made me say "Heyyy, I wanna sew some mori kei layers to wear under the dresses I've been sewing."  The PMS also conspired to make me ignore the fact that I dislike sewing thin synthetic knits and so decide to purchase a 4-yard-for-$4 dark gray thin synthetic knit precut at Walmart.

The first thing I wanted to try sewing from that knit was a pair of leggings, using the leggings pattern I cobbled together years ago from an old copy of Simplicity 9721 that I haven't owned for years.  Considering how much disappointment came from the last time I tried a different leggings pattern, and also considering that there were four yards of 56" fabric to experiment with, I figured I should at least try it, since the last pair of leggings I had made with it are things I still wear. (And I seem to have made them before starting this blog.)  Now, though, those were made with a 4-way stretch, and extending the waistline up by 5" created enough room to comfortably encompass all of my diastasis recti bulge mom belly.  The dark gray thin synthetic is only a 2-way stretch,and the 5" extra made it enough to go aaaaabooouuut halfway up the bulge, and also not quite all the way to the ankles

Yes, that's a picture of them hanging awkwardly on a hanger, which doesn't exactly illustrate the fit issues.  I'm wearing them now and my ankles are a bit cold.  The waist band doesn't seem like it's going to be an issue, in terms of comfort.  The main thing will be to see how bad the knee and posterior fabric growth will be by the end of the day, since 2-way stretch just doesn't have the recover that 4-way has.

Still, I considered that pair of leggings enough of a success to go ahead and try to use up all the rest of the fabric in another project, the success of which is still TBD