What a wonderful surprise to see our Lightspeed Leggings pattern featured on last night’s episode of the Great British Sewing Bee!! It was Sports Week and Pascha chose to use our pattern as part of her Olympic javelin Made to Measure challenge.
Lightspeed Leggings on the Sewing Bee!
Tutorial: Lightspeed Active Leggings (for Men!)
One of my favourite things about the block-based approach to the designs in my “Sew Your Own Activewear” book is that you can use just about any block patterns as your starting point – not just the ones I’ve included in the book.
As I say on page 16, “The included blocks are designed for women in the sizes shown in these size charts, but if you’re not a woman or your body doesn’t match any of the measurements in the size charts, using your own block means that these designs could work for children, men, disabled people, trans people and non-binary folks, those who prefer modest clothing and those whose measurements are beyond the size range here. There really is no limit: if you’ve got a body, you can exercise, and if you can sew, you can make activewear.”
It’s one thing for me to say all of this, but it’s another entirely for me to show you. So today I’m going to show you how to take my men’s leggings pattern, the Lightspeed Leggings, and use them as the starting point for the Active Leggings in my book. (Scroll down for a discount code for the Lightspeed Leggings, too!!)
Three gifted Lightspeed Leggings
I’ve still got lots of holiday sewing to tell you about and today I wanted to focus on three pairs of our Lightspeed Leggings I made for Christmas gifts!
A good friend of ours spent Christmas with us this year, and seeing as how he’d helped me with the early development of the Lightspeed Leggings pattern I’d promised him a finished pair of shorts. On one of his visits months ago he’d picked out the remains of the houndstooth lycra (as seen modeled by Jason on the pattern cover), but when I went to cut it, I discovered there wasn’t enough! Boo.
As is typical for me, working within restraints often results in better designs than if I’m given free creative reign – so I decided to “make it work” and still give my friend the houndstooth running shorts he wanted, but with a curved piece of rust-coloured supplex at the bottom of the leg to make up the correct length. Since there are no side seams I was able to make a nice, smooth curve around the leg and I think the finished shorts are even better for it! (And more importantly, so does he!)
James’s ombre Lightspeed Leggings
Wow, you all really do love a sale! It’s great to see so many of you sharing our enthusiasm for the new Lightspeed Leggings pattern, too! I hope you’ve had enough time to compose yourself after meeting our first athlete model, Jason, as today we’re going to take a look at our second athlete model, James. Yes, my husband James! 😘
Jason’s houndstooth Lightspeed shorts & cycling jersey
Thanks so much for all your enthusiasm over our new Lightspeed Leggings pattern! There’s also been a bit of *ahem* enthusiasm over our latest athlete model, Jason, so I thought it was high time you learned a little bit more about our cover star!
Lightspeed Leggings sewing pattern – out now!
This pattern has been a long time in the making. I originally wanted to make a leggings pattern for men way back in 2014 after I’d released the Surf to Summit Top pattern for men. I made quite a few muslin attempts over the years but I kept getting distracted and discouraged by the lack of drafting information (anywhere!) for a close fitting men’s crotch curve, so it kept being put aside for other patterns ideas.
But I finally resolved to crack it, and I’m proud that the resulting pattern provides a comfortable fit for active men! There are front and back panels and a one-piece leg (so men can finally have crazy patterned leggings without a side seam getting in the way, too!), and the shorts length can be used equally well for base layers under shorts, too.