It’s back to work for most of us today, but I hope you’ve had a relaxing and/or productive holiday break! We had a brilliantly low-key Christmas, followed by quite a few days just spent at home, some of them in the sewing cave (or in Fallout 4, in James’s case), some spent painting the boat in the unseasonably warm weather, and even a quick trip down to Poole thrown in for good measure!
I was able to sew up a few things over the holidays (never as much as I intend, but I’ve made great progress in this regard!), including a few pieces of activewear. Try not to look so surprised, eh??
Kimono Sweat top
I love wearing my green sweatshirt View A version of my Kimono Sweat sewing pattern so much that I just knew I had to make another to throw on over my sweaty workout gear or just throw on with jeans. I had some black cotton sweatshirting leftover from the hoodie I made my nephew for his Christmas present, originally bought from Josery (which is milled and manufactured in the UK!).
No modifications for the pattern here – I sewed this up in size Small and I resisted the urge to use a contrast thread colour for the neckline, hem, and sleeve topstitching, going with all black instead. I used my coverstitch machine from the wrong side of the garment to get a faux-flatlock sort of stitch on the right side, similar to my grey version, though it’s hard to see in the photos.
If you fancy sewing up your own, good news – you can buy the sewing pattern right over here!
Aires capris
I’m not shy when it comes to how much I enjoy Seamwork magazine and their patterns – I’ve written quite a few articles for them over the past year, and I’ve been a subscriber since day one. But up until now, I’ve been just as in the dark over what that month’s patterns will be until the 1st of the month. But for the new January 2016 “Body Issue”, when they got in touch asking if I’d like to write an article describing pattern and movement considerations for different exercises (which you can read here!), and I was also offered the chance to sew up the new Aires capris pattern a week early!
You may have noticed that mine are not capris, however – I personally don’t like to wear capri length anything (though I know many of you do!), so I lengthened mine to be full-length leggings. I used a gorgeous floral photo printed lycra from Funkifabrics as the main fabric, and some fluorescent yellow mesh from Tia Knight (that had been in my stash for sports bras) for the contrast leg panel as well as the pocket lining.
Oh yes, there’s a little hidden pocket in the back waistband! These leggings have no outer leg seam, but do have a small crotch gusset, and a wide waistband with some narrow elastic hidden inside to give it some stability. The elastic application was the only place where I found the instructions to be a little unclear (though the illustrations are very accurate!). The elastic eventually ends up attached to the seam allowances only, so once it’s stitched on in the first waistband step, don’t stitch through it again – you want the pocket attachment stitching and the stitching that joins the inner and outer waistbands together to be below that elastic. I actually used 1cm (3/8in) elastic in mine so my waistband is fractionally lower than intended, just fyi.
I notice they look a tad loose in places in these photos – I made the size Large but maybe I could’ve gone down to a Medium? They feel nice when they’re on, and I love the combo of the pretty floral against the pop of the neon yellow. All the horizontal seams are topstitched, and since I used my overlocker (serger) for the main construction, I didn’t want another mass of thread on the inside so I opted to topstitch with a zigzag stitch with fluorescent yellow thread. I actually only used my coverstitch machine to hem the bottoms at the very end!
There’s bee a lot of buzz around this Seamwork issue and these capris in particular – has anyone else got these on their To Sew list?