Kirsty Creates

I have bought and returned more pairs of cotton leggings than I can count. I just can’t find any that are right for me but hadn’t thought to make my own until now! I had a pair of Mint Velvet leggings that had faded and had a small hole in them, so I decided to unpick them and use the pieces to make a pattern to try to make my own 😬.
The Mint Velvet pair were made from a high percentage of cotton, which is what I wanted for breathability, but they did grow baggy after they were worn and I was forever hoisting them up.

Unpicking

I unpicked all the overlocking stitches to release the waistband and separate the front and back pieces of one leg.

Pattern Pieces

This then gave me pieces that I drew around using a pencil and pattern paper to create my pattern.

I added a 1.5 cm / 5/8″ seam allowance around the outside of each pattern piece and wrote on each one which part of the garment the piece was, the seam allowance and how many to cut for future reference.

Fabric

I used a dark grey cotton jersey fabric with a decent amount of stretch, that I bought a lot of from Dunelm in the sale a couple of years ago. It was good quality and very cheap and I’ve used it to make wearable toiles for many knit fabric items I’ve made but been unsure of fit or style. As I’ve got used to understanding how to sew with knits it’s been so handy to have some “low stakes” fabric and I’ve actually ended up with a few decent items almost by mistake!

Construction

The grey fabric felt like it had more stretch and better recovery than the Mint Velvet fabric, so I started out with a large zig zag stitch in a contrast colour for easy removal and decided to go with a 1cm / 3/8″ seam allowance initially. This ended up being too narrow so I ended up with the 1.5cm / 5/8″ allowance anyway! I think my dislike for unpicking, (especially after unpicking all of that overlocking) gave me fear of getting it wrong 😂

I used my Tilly and the Buttons Jaimie Pyjamas instructions for reference to construct the leggings. My steps were:

• Laid the front legs over the back, right sides together and sewed down each side.
• Turned one leg right side out and left one wrong side out, put the wrong side leg inside the right side leg and sewed the front and back crotch seams together.
• Tried the leggings on for fit on the legs and overlocked the seams so far.
• Made the waistband by overlocking the two pieces along the short edges, right sides together, then folded down the middle length wise to make one waistband piece. Attached this to the top of the leg pieces using the overlocker, marking and matching quarters around the top of each piece.
• Hemmed the legs using my twin needle to try to make them look professional ❤️

Time

The unpicking of the Mint Velvet leggings took so long and my neck was aching after looking down for so long! I had to keep telling myself this could be very worth it if it went well, it was a horrible job 😵 Making the pattern pieces was pretty quick in comparison and I did both of these jobs on a weekend afternoon.

Constructing the leggings was really quick, made longer by the initial trial and error with the seam allowance, but I think that was a good plan first time around. The hemming took a while because I hadn’t successfully used my twin needle before so had to do some reading up on tension and have a bit of practice on scraps first! Overall construction took another half a day in all.

Verdict

I’m really happy with these leggings ☺️ The front and back leg lengths were very different and I had to even them up, so I’ll need to adjust my pattern for next time.

I’ll definitely make more of these, I find them a staple, especially in Winter, and it’s been a great learning curve for cloning clothes and given me the confidence to try it with some more worn out favourites. I’m very happy with the fit so I’m going to invest in some “nicer” fabric and make black and navy pairs next 😁 🎉