My First Post

Right now I’m on a fitness clothes sewing jag. I’ve decided to run in a 5K race next summer. It’s next summer, not this summer, because I need a whole year to get in shape!

My goal is to be in the race and cross the finish line. I might walk all or part of it, but I’ll do it with one full year’s worth of training to be my own personal best. Whatever that creates for me, I’ll celebrate it after I cross the finish line. I hope to lose a few pounds in the process, but it would only take 20 pounds for me to be extremely happy. I’m really not that motivated to be thin, just thinner. I don’t want to stay disproportionally "hippy." My disproportionate hips interfere with my sewing happiness.

This is me in my favorite green exercise pants, which I bought.

When my family joined the YMCA, I bought three pairs of work-out pants. I ended up hating two of them. One pair shrunk, and I just couldn’t get used to the short length. I tried to think "capris, capris," but it just didn’t work for me. The other pair was heavy fleece, and I found myself always pulling out the green pair and passing up the fleece pair. I hate to be hot, and the green pair is made of a thinner cotton interlock.

When I decided to get in shape for the 5K, I knew I needed work out clothes. I needed to eliminate one more excuse not to work out, and not having a clean set of work out clothes that I like is a great excuse! Works every time. Rather than get frustrated with purchased pants again, I decided to copy my green pants. It worked well. I did not take pictures as I went along, since I was only just beginning to think about a sewing blog, but I will on future projects.

















Here I am in my first pair of black yoga pants.


I used a poly/cotton blend from Joann’s. I copied the pattern by putting the green pants on my cutting/ironing table.















It’s a buffet table that I made an ironing board cover for. I only use it to iron large cuts of fabric before I cut out. For ironing everything else, I use my regular ironing board. I poked pins through the fabric along the seam lines. Then I took off the ironing board cover and placed the tracing paper on the table. I drew lines along the pin holes, then added very generous seam allowances. The legs looked very crooked. I was stumped, as the green pants looked straight and I poked my holes very carefully, but I trusted my instincts and straightened up the legs to look like all those pants tissues I’ve used. Turned out to be a good gut instinct. The legs on the finished pants are very straight.

The first pair were a bit big. Since I have a history of sadly growing out of my favorite clothes, I tend to over compensate and make things too big. I’d still rather end up with something too big than too small. The casing was also way too big for my ¾ inch elastic. On the pattern, I took in about four inches and measured the casing and bought 1 ¼ inch elastic for the next pair.

I originally planned two white stripes for the second pair, but after I sewed on the first stripe, I was worried that the second stripe would show any slight crookedness and that I should leave well enough alone. Then I realized that I think I have enough black fabric and trim left over to make a third black pair. We’ll see.




















I used a stiff interfacing inside the hem before I used a ball point 4 mm double needle. One the second pair I forgot to use the interfacing. It looked so much worse that I removed the stitching and redid it with the interfacing. So far both have washed nicely and maintained a neat look.

They have one fitting problem. The center crease rolls in when I sit down. This is a problem with all my pants I make. I’m not sure what to do about this, but I am continuing my exploration of pants making, and I will be dealing with this more aggressively in the future.

The photo looks grey, but they are black. I couldn't figure out how to make the photo come out black!




Then I went out and bought the brown poly/cotton interlock. The brown fabric has been washed and dried twice. I bought 2 5/8 yards each time and they all shrunk to 2 3/8 yards. The brown is waiting to be cut out. This time I bought the matching rib knit trim and two inch elastic. I’ll need to modify the pattern a bit.

For the brown pair I’ve realized that I need to add a loop to hold my YMCA locker key. I use a large safety pin to pin my locker key to my pants while I work out. The first day at the gym in my new pants, I panicked as I realized that I had a sharp point pin for knit pants. I paused in horror as only a sewer with multiple sets of clearly labeled pins would do.



I quickly envisioned a loop sewn into the waistband seam in the next pair, jammed the pin in the fabric, and thought, "Guess I’ll have to make some new ones."