Greenstyle Stride tights x 2 and adventures with sports knits...

 My friend Tessa has been in love with her Greenstyle stride tights for long enough that I thought I should try out the pattern.  I have a lot of leggings, but the ones I've made have been Megan Nielsen Virginia, which I have made many times, but apparently been silent about as no way was this leather pair my first rodeo, and Jalie Clara.  And honestly the secondhand shops keep providing me with such great Lululemon that it's hard to keep in mind my goal of increasing the handmade ratio in my wardrobe.  

So I had a look over this pattern.  Went with size D as I thought a bit smaller would be the better choice. Tessa told me they are true to size.

I have these sports knits I got awhile ago, the patterned fabrics are from Mood, and the contrast are from a shop in the States, but I'm not sure where.  Something with expensive shipping, and I think they are Repreve which is a recycled nylon blend with old PET bottles in it.  

I made the pocket side version, medium rise, capri length for my first attempt.  I initially froze when I realised the yellow is kind of transparent, but decided it's not really anywhere important enough to double layer it.  While sewing these tights my coverstitch machine was still behaving relatively well, though it's gone to the dark side since then.  It's very annoying when a machine you already don't like stops working well.  

Putting these together was quite fun and satisfying once I got past the finicky pocket finishing, but I noticed right away as I sewed the curved panels that the two fabrics went through the feed dogs at VERY different ratios.  I think on one side I had an offset of about 2 inches when I finished, and I was not pulling at the fabrics.  On the other side, I had less. I followed the instructions regarding order of sewing and the backs matched up perfectly.  

I tried them on and discovered that I had the worst leg twist known to man.  They were twisting about 100 degrees, and both in the same direction (I think the twist is to the right).  One leg (probably the one with that big offset) was super skewed and very loose at the hem.  I engineered a fix by overlocking off the hem unevenly (a big chunk of pink and not much yellow) to bring it slightly back out of skew.  This was like a 2" or wider chunk.  It still is very obvious when they are on the floor, and the hems are a bit uneven because of that fabric twist.  However once on my body they are ok.  

 

And once on my body I noticed that the pockets are absurdly low.  They like, aren't within reach of my hands.  The pockets should be right where the side piece widens (according to Lululemon anyway) - so functionally they start where they should end.  Having said this, I took these for a trial run to work in Thames, and wore them on a 12km adventure trail run and I had my phone in that pocket, and it was snug in there the entire time.  So they still work fine. 

I went on with the prettier fabric and this time did the high waist and the crop length, without the pockets.

I changed the order I sewed things in to see if it would fix leg twist - sewing both side seams the same side up.  I also didn't sew the backs together right away, and the result is that they don't line up as well.  Seems that in this case you are *well served* by actually following the instructions!  Imagine!  

The leg twist is slightly less and I didn't need to do any crazy fixes this time.  It's not gone by any means.  Unfortunately, the high waist is totally ridiculous.  I have no waist.  The midrise was high waisted on me.  I should have known better.  So this waistband is at my ribs and it's very tight, I will have to do something about it but I thought I'd wear them a few times first to figure it out.  

 

Both of these pairs of tights are a little bit loose right at the top of the crotch, which is the most important spot for them to be snug.  This makes me think I need to tighten up that area - it's much worse on the black pair so I will almost certainly have to deal with the waist and then see about adjusting them further to improve the fit.  I believe the Jalie Clara were better in this area because of their gusset, so next time I feel like making leggings I might do those again.

 

 This experience has left me very wary of sewing with sports knits.  I didn't expect them to be any different from regular knits, but they are far more slippery and finicky. My experience was not improved because at the same time, I decided to quickly sew a Patterns for Pirates basic tank top with the super curved hem to match my new sportswear.  (Beware of "quick sews?")

 Putting the tank together was easy but then I went to the coverstitch all planning to hem it in one go, without ironing it in place or pinning or any prep, and that was such a bad coverstitch hem that I had to undo it.  I tried to redo the hem, but it's too curved, and actually I just killed it and had to CUT OFF the entire hem and have now zig zagged it which is way uncool. So the PTSD regarding these sports knits is real, but is kind of my fault for thinking I didn't need to prep.  

I don't think the leg twist is a fault of the legging pattern.  I don't think I cut my pieces out off grain.  I think it happens because of that curve across the butt with that stretchy fabric having variable stretch as it crosses the grain.  The way I think you could try to fix it is by basting the pieces together with a sewing machine first, using an exceptionally wide stitch, and going from the hems up.  I'm not tempted to make more of these to see, and although it's frustrating to have resulting clothes that feel "imperfect" they definitely look good on, I've already gotten compliments!  And they work.  Getting away from that RTW perfect mindset is such an ongoing struggle. 

 

 

Bodycon dresses: Givre & Prescott

Suddenly I needed a flaming yellow bodycon dress in my wardrobe.  I also really wanted a skin-coloured dress.  I knew that these probably wouldn't be very flattering, but I wasn't sure whether I would care. 

I've had the Prescott and Givre patterns in my stash and have made Givre as a tank top a few times.  I hadn't bothered making the dress yet but I have a see-through designer dress I stupidly bought recently and in hopes of wearing it often enough to be worth it, I wanted a merino bodycon dress to wear underneath for winter (it came with a slip.)

I started out with the Prescott tank dress, as I was very curious how the bra works. I mean, I mostly could sort of imagine the process, but I've never put in a shelf bra before.  I elected to use my very precious piece of Milk viscose in a body-colour for this, for better or worse...I didn't have much.  I had to line it with something else. 

I made a size 4.  As usual the question of which bust measurement to go by. The high bust matches my bust, and the waist and hip measures are spot on.

I didn't have enough for the back hem so I added on a piece. 

I had to follow the instructions as the construction was a little bit fiddly. It was helpful to be told when to use the sewing machine instead of the overlocker - often because it's not the direction of stretch and will decrease bulk.  Unfortunately the instructions for elastic application were confusing - they say to put it on the right side, but from my way of thinking that's the wrong side.  

I see that there are pull lines on the model and I can see those on me too.  The way it shapes below the bust is kind of loose.  Overall I think I like the shape to the level of the hips, but I don't really like the way the underneath bra and the overlayer interact.  It might be that using super strong elastic wasn't a good idea - I didn't realise as much of the support comes from the fabric of that bra layer, rather than just from the elastic.  

I have the feeling that I might turn this into a tank top to salvage the fabric, which I love.  I'm not actually finding that I want to wear it much.  I left the hem raw because I don't have coverstitch thread in a close match, and because my machine isn't behaving very well lately. If I'm going to turn it into something else, no need to suffer extra...

2. Givre, dress version

This is green merino from Otara in Auckland.  The cheapest place to get merino!  I had a really exact colour in mind and this is exactly what I wanted.  

I did the same as making the tank top: 36 at the bust, 38 everywhere else.  The fit is spot on - perfect amount of room.  Flattering?  I would say absolutely not.  But I might not care.  Maybe I should have fallen into my bodycon lust right after coming back from life in Nepal, when I was anorexic thin for a few months.  I love the feel of this but I'll have to be in the right mood to wear it without something over the middle section.  To wear under other dresses it's perfect.  It was easy to make - really not any different than making a tshirt.

I have some plans towards the Lola tank and dress and maybe making another Mission dress (it's been awhile since I had one in my closet) but other summer sewing is taking over so we will see what happens later in the summer! I'm still holding onto the neon green rib fabric so I'm sure it will show up eventually.

i am Cassiopee, not for the first time

 I finally made this pattern with the recommended fabric. 

Here are the previous iterations in orla kiely and ice dyed fabric.  Size 36.

Rayon that's been in my stash with this fantastic print. I got it at Tessuti Fabrics when I was buying something else. The colour scheme isn't my usual and I thought it would be nice for a change.  

I shortened the dress a few inches, I shortened the sleeves to below the raglan attachment, enough that I thought it wouldn't gape when I raised my arms. 

I always sew down the facings but you know, I never thought about how I could make it a skinnier facing and sew it down closer to the edge.  I thought about that too late and didn't do it.

Pockets harvested from something else on my floor.  

It's really such an easy sew, there's not much to say.

 

 

I wore it that night to dinner.  I am finally happy with this pattern.  A fabric with no body is best suited to this very wide dress.  I see there's a new jersey option, which would be interesting.  It's so wide that I feel like you would need to narrow it to make a nice jersey dress though.  All the online pictures don't make it look as wide as I felt in my previous iterations!