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. 

 

 

Jalie Clara leggings review

 These were recommended to me by a friend who raved about the absence of a front seam.  I didn't understand what she was talking about!  I thought the Megan Nielsen Virginia leggings are the most advanced and perfect pattern, with only an inseam...but this pattern has you cut the the ENTIRE pair of leggings in one piece on the fold.  It's almost like Japanese patterns in 3-D origami ingenuity.  However as you see from my pictures - it means that you can't choose your pattern placement. 

I have some athletic knit from Blended thread (here).  What to do with it?  Obviously I had to figure out what the hype was about with these leggings.  

I started with some swimsuit fabric since it's so forgiving.  The first time you make these it takes a solid read of the instructions to understand exactly what's going on. Every instruction, classic Jalie, has its place...the gusset initially seems like it's gonna be really complicated but in reality it's not.  I also have just discovered the 3 step zig zag and so I used it every chance I could. It's so pretty!! (You only stitch down the gusset but that does seem like a good spot to reinforce.)

 

I made size S and was happy with the fit, that's per the size chart and in general is the size I make in Jalie patterns.  I moved on from my first pair to the beautiful athletic knit, cropped it 1" above the crop lines at the hem, and paid some attention to which waistband piece I wanted on the outside.  It took half the width of a 1m long piece of fabric.  Not bad!  Also it took less than an hour to make these.  WELL under an hour.  Excluding the time I wasted while avoiding the coverstitch machine.  The coverseaming went just fine.  

 

And some close ups to better see the gusset - sorry these are a bit fuzzy: 

 

I love these, and totally agree with my friend.  I don't necessarily care about front seams but the details like elastic in the waistband mean these feel really secure.  They are a compressive fit according to my friend Tessa - who sized up and was happy with her fit - but I find that my usual size didn't feel super compressive.  I think if you are on the fence about sizing, consider your fabric and size up if it's a very firm athletic knit.  I have been happy with the leggings I made from the Virginia pattern, but I just made my own yoga style waistband without any elastic in it and it's more prone to slipping down.  The Virginias are also very baggy below the calf on me, which I blamed on my swimsuit fabric...but no bagginess in these Claras. 

Virginia legging experiment in stretch suede

Last year sometime, I discovered Stouls, who are in France and make washable suede clothing. The quality is exquisite and the prices are sphincter-tightening, especially when a relatively weak currency like the kiwidollar is involved.

In the States there is better access so while I was there, I took the opportunity to investigate.  I determined that although they are great quality, they are made with the assumption that you are about 185 cm tall.  And the fit is nothing spectacular.

Well, I can make leggings.

Thus began another sewing odyssey.  A lot of time was spent thinking, for instance, what would I do with the waistband?  Would it require special management?  Could I get away without using elastic? How to sew it together?  I assumed that overlocking would be impossible. 

I bought some stretch suede from the Fabric Store, managing to score it on a day there was huge sale on.  I bought 3 skins. My leather legging cost: 200 dollars.  Stouls leather leggings: 1500 dollars.  I reckon I'm winning here.  

I made a practice pair from some black fleece that had similar stretch characteristics.  High waist, size XS.  They were amazing!  In fact they were so great that a friend begged me for them and I gave them to her.  They confirmed the fit, and I just used a piece of the fleece for the waistband.  I cut about 3" off it to make it tight enough. With the high waist that was perfect.  They were a little tight on my calves, and I reckoned 3" too long.

Another investigation: I washed a piece of my beautiful blue stretch suede.  It seemed to do ok, confirming that they could be washed in an emergency, but I wasn't sure if the stretch was just a bit lazy after that.  So better not to wash them. 

To prep the pattern, I cut off 3" of the bottom of the legs, and I used that same length of waistband that worked on the fleece pants.  I traced all my pattern pieces and then started chopping the piece up until it fit on my skins.  I ended up with a lower leg piece, a horizontal seam, and two thigh pieces with a vertical seam.  I cut the waistband in 2 pieces.

This suede is pretty thin, so after only minimal hesitation I went for it and used the overlocker.  Absolute success. I overlocked the crotch seam, inseam and the waistband, but just straight stitched the pieces together on the sides, and also straight stitched the lower calves onto the upper legs.  Some topstitching was involved to help strengthen those seams, and I topstitched the back crotch to add stability.  I found that the topstitching decreases the tension on the seam, which obviously is a good thing on stretch leather trousers as who wants the butt seam to fall apart?

Added pockets.  I measured them to be the size I wanted, where I wanted.

When I tried these on I discovered an interesting technical feature of stretch suede.  What stretch it has widthwise ends up shortening the fabric lengthwise.  So the fixes that I borrowed due to the fit of fleece leggings were not helpful - the leggings are much shorter and the crotch height is much lower.  The waistband, because the stretch is horizontal, was too loose. I ended up fixing this by opening up the back seam and adding in some elastic. I hadn't wanted elastic but now I'm really glad for it as it makes the pants feel more secure.  They feel a bit tighter than the practice pair but overall I'm happy with the fit. 

So the best thing about doing it yourself is that you can add pockets!  I have pockets!  They are so stretchy that I should have reinforced the pocket tops by folding them over, otherwise they are great, and of course the right size for my phone (left pocket) and my car keys (right pocket).

Verdict: some learning and a huge amount of thinking for an awesome result.  I'm so proud of my suede pants and I think I'll get a lot of wear out of them before the weather gets too warm.  I finally feel like a fashion success when I'm strolling around town after surfing!