Completed project: Espresso leggings

Let me start this post off with a rant...  In the sewing blogosphere, I've seen a lot of sewists refer to a finished garment as a "make". I'm guessing that this is supposed to be whimsical or cutesy or something? This term is like a nails on a chalkboard to me--I cringe every time that I read it.  (No offense to anyone who loves to use this term, of course.) The inner grammar policewoman in me can't help but scream, "make" is a verb, not a noun. You "make" a skirt; a skirt is not a "make". Okay, I'll step down off of my soapbox now and tell you a bit about my latest "make", er, finished project.

Test pair of leggings - gray mystery fabric

I finished my first "good" pair of Espresso leggings from Cake patterns. In a previous post, I described how to use the template included in the pattern to draft your pattern piece. After drafting, I was able to cut and sew up my first "test" pair in about 40-45 minutes. For the test pair, I used a piece of heathered gray jersey that had been sitting in my stash for years. This fabric was leftover from another project and probably didn't have the ideal amount of stretch for this pattern (not much lycra and little to no vertical stretch).

In retrospect, this wasn't the best fabric choice for a test pair of leggings. I chose it because I wanted a pair of leggings in a dark charcoal gray color, and the fabric itself is very soft. I think that this pattern (and leggings in general) work better when you have a generous amount of lycra in the fabric mix.

I wore my test pair for a day and decided that the front rise was too high (1"), back rise was too short (1.5"), and that I needed more room in the calves, so I curved that outward by 1/2" on each side. I applied these changes to my pattern piece. Here is the original piece vs. the altered piece:

original pattern piece

altered pattern piece

For the second pair, I used a really awesome textured "active wear knit" that I purchased from Rose City Textiles when we visited Portland in October:

kitty photo bomb!

The fit is better with the second pair, but since the second fabric has more vertical stretch, I should have removed some length in some places (the front rise is still too long with these). I love this fabric, though, and learned that I probably want to stick to activewear knits (or at least knits with a lot of lycra) for future Espresso versions. (I do have a lovely piece of chocolate brown knit from the same visit to Rose City Textiles that will be used for another pair of leggings.)

While I will always be wearing these under a dress or long tunic, I'm posting pictures of the fit for the curious. Keep in mind that I'm only 5'2" and usually wear a size 18 in pants in RTW:

Espresso leggings - fit in front

Espresso leggings - fit in back

Overall, I'm very happy with this pattern--it was well worth the $8 or so that I paid when pre-ordering the pattern. These only take about 40 minutes to sew up, so you could conceivably make a pair of custom leggings to wear under every dress or skirt that you sew without adding much total time to your project.

Espresso leggings: Drafting via connect-the-dots!

Yesterday was Day 2 of the Cake Patterns 30-minutes-a-day sewalong for the Red Velvet dress pattern. (More on the sewalong in upcoming posts.) Because the sewalong instructions for Day 2 weren't posted until after I had wound things down for the night, I decided to use my "30 minutes" for the day to get started on the Espresso Leggings pattern.

 

The Espresso leggings are part of the Red Velvet collection, which is a layering wardrobe built around the Red Velvet dress. The leggings are unique in that the pattern provides a template that you use to draft your own custom pattern. The results that I've seen online so far for this pattern have been very impressive.

If you're like me, you might be scratching your head a bit and wondering how complicated or difficult this would be.  I'm happy to report that drafting the leggings is pretty simple:

1. As instructed, take seven different lower body measurements (a mix of length and circumference) measurements using a tape measure.
2. Record your measurements on the chart provided in the instructions.
3. On the pattern drafting grid, find and mark the circles that correspond the intersection of your measurements. (e.g. an ankle circumference of 8" on a 26" inseam, a knee circumference of 14" located 11" below the crotch point, etc.)
   
   The following photo shows the grid, although the individual measurements are a bit difficult to make out in this pic:
   
   
4. Connect the dots between the filled in circles. Steph provides a crotch curve template for the front and back curves.
5. Trace off and cut out your finished pattern piece. (Yup, only one piece, since leggings have no side seam):
   
   

Here's the pattern piece placed on my test fabric to see the shape better:

Yes, my legs really are that short (I'm 5'2") and yes, my ankles really are that small compared to my thighs and the rest of my legs.

 

I love that these leggings only take one yard of jersey fabric (that's a 60-ish inch wide jersey folded in half in the pic above). There's also only 3 seams + waistband + ankle hems, so I should think that these should sew up in a snap. For the record, it took me 40 minutes to draft, trace, and cut these out, starting from the time that I opened the envelope.

I'll post again and comment on fit, etc, once I get them sewn up.