I showed you a casual version of my new VNA Top pattern a few weeks ago, modeled by my athlete friend Anne, but one of the great things about this pattern is that it works equally well for both exercising and lounging about. Just change the fabrics and go up a size and it’s ready to throw on with jeans!
Since you’ve already seen one casual version, I wanted to show you my favourite workout version – actually, this might be my favourite workout top ever – I just love how the fabrics coordinate together!
If you’ve used any of my patterns before, you know how great they are for using up small pieces of fabric – because sportswear fabric can be expensive and I hate wasting anything, but also because it means you can coordinate tops and bottoms really easily! I made this VNA Top using a Spoonflower print I fell in love with, printed onto their Performance Knit base (though now that they’ve released their Performance Pique, I actually prefer that to the “knit”!), and when it finally arrived, I saw that the teal colour in it coordinated perfectly with the mint space dyed supplex I had leftover from my minty XYT Workout Top, but also with a bunch of mis-printed “Run to the Beat” technical tees I got given for refashioning. I couldn’t believe my luck!!
I cut the Upper Front in the Spoonflower print, the Lower Front & Back from the “hint of mint” supplex, and the Back and Bindings from the refashioned race tee. Three different fabrics in one top, but the shared teal colour mean they look great together!
When I went to take these photos, though, I realised that none of my bottoms really coordinated well – loads of my Duathlon shorts use a turquoise that looks bad next to this greener teal, and most of my leggings are too loud to go with a print-heavy top. So I brought out one of my old Jalie sports skirts (not the exact one in the link, but very close) for these photos, even though they’re a bit too big for me now.
But that got me thinking – I wonder if there’s enough leftover from the fat quarter of Spoonflower fabric to make coordinated Duathlon booty shorts… and it turned out there was! I did have to introduce a hidden seam into the Upper Side piece (here’s how!), but it meant I have a nicely coordinated summer outfit now.
I noticed that the booty shorts were really riding up during my first run, though (which could very well be down to my using black Suziplex, which has a ton of stretch), so I went back and sewed some grippy elastic on the insides of the hems using two lines of zigzag stitching. The silicone lines are so grippy, though that they want to stick to your presser foot, so you can cover these up with tissue paper (or interfacing, which is what I had to hand) and sew next to, not through the paper to stop it sticking!
I’ve had sooooo many compliments every time I wear this to my running crew, and I only posted a few teaser photos of this outfit and already I’ve had a private order to make an XYT Top in this fabric for someone! I love it when I can wear something thoroughly attractive and well-fitting to workout in, but it’s even better when it hardly cost me anything with minimal waste, too!
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$10.99USD (£6.65)
