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Completed: Ooh La Yoga Pants

For the past 6 months or so, I’ve been practicing bikram yoga weekly. I’m a Hot Yoga kinda gal – I love the heat (seriously, I could nap in that damn room), and I love how it forces me to focus on breathing and not passing out (otherwise, I’m the kind of yogi who gets BORED AS SHIT about 10 minutes in). While I can only afford to go once a week to this place, it’s really done some amazing things for my mind and spirit – not to mention my flexibility (even at one practice a week!). But this post isn’t about yoga. This post is about my new yoga PANTS.

My Ooh La Yoga Pants, if you will 😉

One thing I’ve never liked about workout wear – yoga gear or otherwise – is anything that involves wearing a shirt. Not because I want to look ~sexy~ while I’m jogging or whatev, but because I just like a breeze on my stomach (I guess). That being said, I’m also in the same camp as a lot of women who don’t necessarily want to be blaring their navel when they go outside. I don’t know why I draw the line at the navel, but it is what it is (I so wish I had the confidence to rock something midriff-baring like my girl Lola. I mean, damn girl!). Things I also hate when I’m working out: long pants, anything baggy (I know it’s supposed to be breezier, but it really just gets in the way), sleeves. This here – cropped pants with a sports bra – is my ideal workout outfit, for my ideal workouts (yoga and running). Honestly, I’d probably be most comfortable in some teensy little shorts, BUT I’m pretty sure no one wants to see asscheek when I bend over, so I compromise with a little bit of leg coverage. Y’ALL ARE WELCOME.

Anyway, my favorite workout leggings pattern is the Ooh La Leggings pattern from Papercut Patterns. They fit quite nicely, with a high waist that covers my belly button (while still allowing some sports bra goodness!). There are interesting seam lines, which mean I have way more exciting pants than anyone else in my class. I’ve made soooo many pairs of these – in both full length and various stages of cropped – and they just rule. I don’t think I’ll ever be the kind of girl who wears crazy leggings as normal out-and-about clothing, but all bets are off when it comes to exercise gear.

I have a few more pairs I’d like to show you, but let’s focus on this one specific pair first. This fabric came all the way from the UK, courtesy of Funki Fabrics. They reached out to me and asked if I’d like to try a piece of fabric, and I cheekily asked for two patterns (the second which you’ll be seeing in a future post!). So here’s the first one – galaxy-leggings!

Funki Fabrics specializes in stretch knits for performance wear – such as exercise gear, swimwear, dance costumes, etc. Think lots of polyester and LOTS of 4 way stretch. I know we all love to hate on poly (well, I love to hate on poly haha), but to be frank – poly is ideal for your sweat gear. It dries quickly and has a good recovery, which is essential if you don’t want to feel like you’re wearing a wet and droopy diaper. I’ve tried making workout gear with cotton and rayon, and polyester is for sure the way to go. The 4 way stretch is also extremely important – you need them to stretch both vertically and horizontally, or else your leggings might end up lower-waisted than you prefer (plus, they’re not very comfortable with just a 2 way stretch!).

If you’re anything like me and find the available options overwhelming (seriously – SO MANY OPTIONS), you might want to consider checking out their new sample sheet, which includes swatches of a bunch of different designs, all printed and ready to ship.

Anyway, the print quality on this stuff is GREAT. Very rich and bright colors that did not fade a bit in the wash (the verdict is still out on multiple washes, as I haven’t reached that point yet, but I will be sure to update if I notice a fade in the future). One thing to keep in mind when ordering (and cutting, for that matter!) is that the fabric is printed with a wide white border on all 4 sides, which reduces the printed width of the fabric. Also, as I mentioned with cutting – be careful that you don’t cut into the white border. I nearly had a disaster where one leg on the underside ended up being half white – whoops! Fortunately, I had enough leftovers to recut, but now my dreams of having a matching bra-and-leggings galaxy set have been shattered 😉

Like I said, this is a great pattern that doesn’t require much tweaking to yogi-fy them. I did shorten the legs for cropped pants (on this particular pair, I added a small cuff because… I dunno, I liked it?), but that’s about it. Oh yeah, I also changed the way the waistband is sewn. The instructions have you fold over and then thread the elastic through, which works, but then you have a hole to close up (not to mention, sometimes the elastic can twist, which sucks). Katie actually clued me in to an easier way to sew the elastic – you close the elastic into a circle first, then sew the elastic to the top of the pants on the wrong side (mark it into quarters and stretch to fit, as you would a knit band), then fold everything once to the inside and topstitch along the edge of the elastic. It’s much easier and you don’t get twisted elastic! For all my other pairs, I topstitched with a twin needle – but for this pair, I tried the zigzag. I like the way it looks 🙂 Like underwear, ha!

Anyway, here are some action shots so you can see how comfy these dang leggings are:

This is the closest thing you’ll get to a yoga post. Sorry! Excuse my dirty foot.

This is less of an ‘action shot’ and more of me ‘falling out of an action shot’ haha.

Anyway, here are the rest of the leggings I made! Same pattern, fabric sourced from various whereabouts~

Up until I made the galaxy leggings, these were my favorites. They’re a great 4 way stretch poly, and they are sooo comfy (and I love the colors!). Fabric was sent to me from Juli.

These are ok – I love the pattern and they are fun to wear, but the cotton percentage and lack of a good 4 way stretch (there’s some stretch vertically, but not as much as there is horizontally) mean they’re not as comfy as the others. Check out that print-matching, though! Can you even SEE the center leg seams?! Neither can I 😛 Fabric is from The Fabric Studio here in Nashville!

These are my least favorite, mostly because they are boring black (and the fabric is sort of weird). I actually topstitched all the seams on these, if you can see it. Fabric is this black solid knit from Mood Fabrics. It’s… ok. Kind of thick (aka kind of hot!) and the cotton/rayon blend means they tend to bag out. They are also strangely shiny, which I sort of like.

Here are all my yoga leggings in all their spandex-y glory.

That’s it! Love me some colorful yoga pants – especially when I MADE THEM MYSELF. I really want to try the Pneuma Tank next (either as a tank – which might solve my I-can’t-have-anything-touch-my-stomach-when-I-sweat problem, or just as a solo sport bra because THOSE STRAPS), but I acknowledge that I’ve also been saying that since it’s release and obviously haven’t gotten around to it yet. I also want to try some of the workout patterns made by Fehr Trade (and, ooh, just noticed that there’s a free pattern for an Armband Pocket! NICE!), but again, haven’t gotten around to it. So many things to make, so little time!

What about you? Do you ever sew your own workout gear? What sort of fabric do you prefer to sweat in? Do you yoga? What’s your favorite pose? Mine is Tree and Camel… ooh, and Eagle. Mostly because it’s called Eagle 😉

Disclaimer: The galaxy print was sent to me free from Funki Fabrics, in exchange for a review. All opinions are my own!

Tags: completed, cotton/poly, funki fabrics, leggings, Mood Fabrics, ooh la leggings, papercut patterns, poly, the fabric studio, workout gear, yoga, yoga pants

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Categories completed projects - new

Completed: Sewaholic Robson, Jr.

21 May

Ever since I made my first trench coat last year (you know… the one in the amazing lace), I’ve been thinking of how to improve on it. Not that the lace coat needed a lot of improving – I mean, not to toot my own horn or anything (toot toot), but it’s pretty brilliant on it’s own. However, I knew there were a few things on the original that could use some updating.

For one, I needed a coat that was a lighter weight. In these transitional spring days (specifically – when I wake up and it’s 50 degrees outside, then suddenly turns 80 by afternoon… I mean, what the fuck, weather?), a lightweight coat is a nice thing to have around. My lace Robson was a little tooo heavy, my Minoru a little too fall-esque (don’t get me wrong, though, I LOVE THAT COAT and I wear it all the time… in the fall) and obviously I can’t wear my big awesome plaid coat right now. Cardigans do work, but I wanted something that would also protect me from the rain (because, let’s be real, wet wool smells like shit).

I knew I wanted to make another Robson – I’ve wanted to make another since, well, right after I finished the first one. It’s just a fun pattern to put together – it’s very detailed, there is a lot of fiddly work involved (with all the bias binding and topstitching), but it comes together sooo well. Plus, it looks super polished and who says I can’t have two trench coats amirite?

I spent several months looking for a good fabric – and to be honest, I initially had my heart set on making a classic tan trench. I’ve always loved the way those look – talk about polished! However, I couldn’t find a good twill fabric – either it had stretch (a personal no-no when it comes to coatmaking), or it was the wrong weight, or the color was off.

This cotton/poly reversible polka dot fabric ended up linked to me via one of Mood Fabric’s sale emails – y’all ever sign up for those? They are, in one word, dangerous. Fabrics for half off! Aiee!! As soon as I saw the fabric and the price ($7 a yard YESSSS), I knew it was meant to be. I bought 3 yards and it ended up on my doorstep a few days later.

Guys. This is basically my DREAM coat. The polka dots make it sooo much more fun than if it had just been a borin ol’ tan coat. I’m so glad I came across this fabric, and that I snapped it up when I did. I admit I was initially afraid it would be a little too lightweight for the structure of a trench – and it is pretty lightweight, it’s not super warm or anything (but, like I said, I don’t need super warmth right now so that’s fine with me!) – but once I got in the facings and the hem, it holds it’s shape pretty well. It has a nice crisp drape and the poly content in the fabric gives it a subtle sheen that I think looks really nice for this sort of garment.

Plus, it’s reversible! Meaning the inside still looks cool as shit, but I didn’t have to line it to make it that way 😀 Yay!

Since I’ve already once talked at length into the making of this coat (well, the lace version… you can see the posts here and here, if you’re curious!), I’ll just go over what I changed for this coat.

I think the biggest/most noticeable change is that it’s much shorter than the pattern is designed to be. I always felt like the lace one was a liiiittle too long on me – and not always the most flattering. The shorter length on the polka dot one is definitely more casual, which I like! To get this one hip length, I actually just put on the lace coat and measured how much to take off to get it where I wanted it, and then added my hem allowance and cut off the bottom of the pattern pieces. I usually use the lengthen/shorten lines (cos, duh, that’s what they’re there for), but I wanted my coat to be slightly more flared and I also felt that the waist length was fine… I just wanted to shorten the length below the waist. I think it worked out pretty well!

I also raised the pockets on my trench – the pockets on the lace one are WAY too low, and I never use them (like, I can barely get my hands in them ahaha). Again, I just put the trench on and measured where I wanted the pockets to hit – I think I raised them close to 2″. They’re about 1″ below the belt looks, which for me was the perfect spot. Now I can actually use my pockets!

One last thing I did was narrow the width of the front storm flaps on this trench – on my lace one, they have a tendency to stick out, and it’s pretty annoying! I wasn’t sure how to fix that, so ultimately I ended up putting on the lace trench (gah, most expensive muslin ever hahaha) and pinning out where there seemed to be excess flap, which I then measured and shaved off the pattern pieces. I think it was something like 1/2″, reduced to nothing – basically, if you look at the pattern piece, it’s where the bottom of the flap curves out by the armhole. After I cut that off, the flaps stay flat like they should.

Other than the above changes, I didn’t do anything else to the pattern. I did size this one down to the 0, so it’s smaller than the lace one (which I’ve lately felt like is a liiiiitle big). Other than that, I made no sizing adjustments and I did not stray from the directions!

I agonized for waaaay longer than I should have over what buttons to use for this coat. Initially, I had picked plain navy buttons – boring! Then I chose some cool cream buttons with a gold ring around the edge, but once they came in, they just looked all sorts of wrong with the coat. Of course, at this point we were pushing deadline, so I didn’t have time to reorder (and THANK GOD Mood returns buttons, because that was like $30 right there haha! More than I spent on the fabric! Whyyy are buttons so expensive?), so I turned to my stash for a solution.

Aren’t they cool, though? I got them from my Mamaw a few years ago – she used to work for a garment factory, and when they ultimately closed down, she came bearing loads of sewing notions. Mostly buttons and huge spools of thread, which my mom and I split. I have several jars of these gold buttons (with two different crests), silver buttons, and leather-wrapped buttons (in brown and black). I think she said they were used on Tommy Hilfiger coats? HA! Thanks for the buttons, I guess, Tommy!

Working with this fabric was pretty easy. I used a Microtex 90/10 needle and tried to be mindful of my pins (since it does like to show pin marks and where you’ve ripped out stitches – although getting it good with the steam iron makes most of the holes disappear). I was a little afraid that the polyester content would make this hard to press, but it played nice with the iron, so that’s good! The only thing that sucked is that it doesn’t ease terribly well, so I have a little bit of puckering at the sleeve caps, oh well!

Since the fabric isn’t too thick (despite being double-faced) and it pressed well, I chose to use the remaining yardage to make bias binding for all the insides. I used the same side I used for the exterior of the coat – I think it gives a nice contrast the wrong side!

Finally (yes, I’m wrapping up here, sorry y’all!), I swapped the tie belt with a gold buckle, to match the buttons. I think it gives the coat a nice final touch, plus, I just love buckles! I shortened the tie drastically and interfaced it for some extra stability.

One thing I want to mention is that I actually waterproofed this bad boy! I used Scotch Gard and, well, just sprayed the everloving shit out of it and left it to dry overnight. I actually finished this coat a couple of weeks ago (the photos were taken the Saturday before Mother’s day), and I’ve been wearing it ever since, due to a random cold snap. I’ve managed to wear it in light drizzle *and* for Bike to Work Day (where there was also a light drizzle), and it’s definitely waterproof! Dunno how well the waterproofing works for torrential downpour or anything like that, but it works for the purposes I intended 🙂 This is my first experience using this stuff, so while I can’t vouch for it in the long-term, I’ll be sure to post an update in a few months 🙂

That’s it! Probably way too long of a post for something I’ve made twice (and already discussed at length), but hopefully this helps some of y’all who may have been on the fence about making this pattern or wanted to make the same changes I did.

Also! Landon took these photos for me – aren’t they nice? We actually shot these in my parent’s back yard, right above the creek that I used to play in as a kid 🙂 That big plot of dirt behind me is actually my dad’s former garden (I say former because he moved everything closer to the house and put it in raised beds), although I think he’s going to plant corn there later this summer. If you think the garden looks huge, it is. It’s fucking gigantic and probably bigger than my house and yes, I’m spoiled with fresh vegetables all summer. Omg I can’t wait for tomato season.

Oh, right, and also – it’s my birthday today! Yay!! I’m 29 – and one year closer to 30 🙂 Think I might treat myself to a new Bernina foot soon, cos, well, I love buying myself presents. Ha!

Bye for now!!

Tags: birthday, coat, completed, cotton, cotton/poly, jacket, Mood Fabrics, Mood Sewing Network, polka dot trench, reversible, Robson, sewaholic, trench