My Cold Gear PB Jam Leggings

Thanks so much to everyone for your support with my new patterns! I have actually been doing a bit of non-exercise sewing over New Year’s (which I’ll show you later this week), but first I wanted to show off one of the pairs of PB Jam Leggings I made during the development of the pattern.

This pair was made from two different green colours of Under Armor Cold Gear fabric that were gifted to me by Cidell a while back. Last winter I made a pair of Ooh La Leggings in the forest green Cold Gear and they were seriously the warmest leggings I’ve ever worn, even keeping me warmer than heavy coats on my upper body! I knew I’d need at least one more pair to get me through this winter, so I alternated leftovers of the forest green for the swirl and back knee pieces with the sage green Cold Gear for the main body pieces.

Here you can see that hidden back pocket in action – it can easily store an iPhone 5 or bigger, plus a gel (shown here with Gu Peanut Butter, but their Salted Caramel is also splendid!) or keys, The waistband keeps it all contained and from bouncing around while you move, too. For this pair, since the Cold Gear is quite thick, I actually used a thinner lycra for the pocket piece, and this worked really well!

The Knot-Maste Yoga Set – hem band view

Last week you got to meet our latest athlete model and Knot-Maste Yoga Set covergirl, Kate, and hear all about how practising yoga after being diagnosed with a chronic illness absolutely transformed her life (if you missed it, go back and read it now, seriously…).

The samples Kate wore for her photoshoot show only half the options available in this extremely versatile sewing pattern, though, so today I’m going to share with you the other options, modelled by yours truly.

Baltimore & DC

Last week we flew over to the States for a week – not in Pennsylvania where I grew up (no offence, but I’m kinda sick of visiting there!), but to Baltimore, with a day in DC at the end. We got a lot of strange looks from British friends when we said where we were going – “Baltimore? Really? Why??”, and we’ve been mounting our own Baltimore Tourism crusade since we got back, because it was fantastic!

The reason we were over was because James was speaking at a prestigious tech conference, but I took the opportunity to meet up with loads of friends and family, including the chance to finally meet some fellow sewing bloggers!

I’ve been speaking to Cidell & Trena for at least five years now I reckon, and even weirder is that I already knew their voices from their earlier sewing podcasts (please bring them back!), and there was zero awkwardness when we met up for dinner! It really was like we’d known each other for years, which I suppose we have!


(Note: Jack’s Bistro did not pay us for their product placement!)

Cidell puts me to shame – she posted about our meeting like the same day!! I was also very excited to get more of the Under Armour Cold Gear fabric she’d previously sent, because during the last few months I’d been doing laundry twice a week in order to wear my Cold Gear leggings on both my Tuesday night runs and my Saturday long runs because they’re seriously the warmest leggings I own. Next winter I’ll be much better prepared now!

But they weren’t the only sewists I met – I’d also planned a run with Kathy in Patterson Park near my cousin’s house in Baltimore, which she’s already posted about here!

We both wore running gear we made ourselves – she’s wearing McCalls 6435 adapted for running as her top and the Jalie sports skirt lengthened into leggings, and I’m wearing my disco top and my new self-drafted leggings with that fishnet insertion from Tissu in the front thighs and back calves, which you can see a bit better here:

Happy 2013!

As is traditional, I like to take the first of a new year to take the opportunity to look back on what I’ve sewn in the previous year. So without further ado, here’s a visual reminder of 2012!


Click the image to see it better, or right-click here to see it in a new tab to get a better look!

Tip: If you’d like to skim back through the posts for the above projects, you can click Gallery in the upper left menu, which will only show you finished projects, without all the magazine reviews and in-progress reports getting in the way!

By a mere glance at the collage, it looks like I’ve sewn less this year than in past years, but really I just became more efficient with my photoshoots and so most of the photos contain more than one garment! That, and there were a few that weren’t properly documented, oops.

The Year in Stats

In terms of pattern companies used this year, I made: 11 Burda magazine (more on that in January as I finish up my Year of Burda), 6 Papercut Patterns, 5 Jalie, 4 Pattern Magic, around 4 self-drafted, 2 Manequim magazine, 2 Young Image/My Image magazine, 2 Pattern ~ Scissors ~ Cloth, and one each from: Lekala, Simplicity, Vogue, So… Zoe, Christine Jonson, Wiksten, and KnipMode (oh how the once-mighty have fallen!).

By my count, I made: 19 Tops, 15 pairs of Trousers, 4 Dresses, 4 Skirts, 3 Coats/Jackets, plus two slips and a handful of pairs of panties, an iPad cover, some running armbands, and a boat skylight cover!

But the biggest number of them all – 21 of the above were for running! omg.