Assembly line sewing - Ottobre 6/2007

Yep - still here.  I must admit I'm relieved to read that so many others felt like May went past in a blur.

Leggings are a winter staple for Paige and due to her long, but very skinny legs RTW don't even come close to fitting.  We checked out Girl Charlee, Paige picked her fabrics and away we went.

This really was an exercise in the properties of different fabrics.  I made the (modeled) black pair first and was really happy with the fit.  They're the Lily leggings from Ottobre 6/2007 made up in a 'performance' cotton/lycra from Spotlight, which has great stretch and recovery.  I used size 104 with 1 inch added to the waistband height and 8.5 inches added to the length.  Happy with the fit, I went ahead and sewed up the others using the Girl Charlee fabrics.

The pair in the middle and on the left are a light weight ponte, the pair on the right are a light weight cotton/lycra.  The ponte fabric had reasonable stretch and recovery while the cotton/lycra was quite limited (it also faded badly when pre-washed, not particularly happy with the quality of this one).

The different amounts of stretch greatly affected the fit, they needed an extra couple of inches at the back rise and about 2 inches added to the length.  Overall though - Paige loves them and they get worn constantly.

Around the same time I also had to find school pants for Paige and she requested slim fit track pants.  It proved impossible to find a RTW pair that met my cost/quality criteria so I pulled out the (already modified) Lily leggings pattern and added 2 inches to the back rise, 3 inches to the width and 1.5 inches to the length.

I have one very satisfied customer and it was really enjoyable sewing these up.  I've actually sewn quite a lot of basics lately and I'm keen to sink my teeth into something a little more challenging over the long weekend.