Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Gym/Yoga Pants Tutorial

These were my all time favorite gym pants.  But they got a hole in the seat. :(  I hated that, and I couldn't find another pair like them.  I looked on the tag to get the material type and went shopping online.  I found a wonderful cotton spandex (95%/5%) at onlinefabricstore.net.  And I made a pattern using my favorite pants to duplicate them.

First, I took these apart.  I kept the band to put those in my new pants.  There was nothing wrong with the band, so why invent the wheel, right??  That was my daughter's brilliant idea.
Next, lay tracing paper right on top of each piece and trace around the edges.
I used a marker and sort of angled it to stay right at the edge.
Then I cut out those pieces and marked my grain line.  The easiest way to do it (and I'm not certain this is the right way) is to lay a ruler on top of your pattern piece, fold the pattern piece toward you, and line up the ruler with the grain line of the original pants.  Draw a line on the other side of the ruler.  That's what I used for my new grain line, and it worked perfectly for me.



Use your new pattern to cut out your fabric.

Mark your back pieces with an "X" so you don't get them mixed up.  You can barely see my "X".

Stitch one front to one back at the side seams then at the inseam.  Repeat with the other pieces.  I used a 3/8" seam allowance.  And they should look like this:

Turn one leg right side out and slide that leg inside the other leg matching the inseam and the edges.  Make sure they are right sides together.

Pin at the inseam and the edges and in between.

Stitch from one end to the other and turn right side out.  And they will look like this:


Now get your band and mark center front, back and sides.

Pin to the top of your pants matching center front, back and side seams with the marks you just made.  The pants will be slightly larger than your band, so stretch the band to fit the pants as you sew.  Hint: if you stitch with the pants side next to your feed dogs, they will ease in better.



Now they'll look like this:
All that's left is to edge stitch around the band to tame that seam and hem them.  I used my serger around the bottoms and turned them up 5/8"

And you now have a new pair of gym pants that are nearly identical to the ones you had before.




Please feel free to ask me questions if I haven't made something clear.  I hope this has been very helpful.

Happy Wednesday!
Angela

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