Sunday, June 21, 2015

Skorts! Kwik Sew 4113

My latest sewing adventure was to add a pair of workout skorts to my activewear wardrobe. One of the other regulars at Bikram Yoga Tempe wears a few pairs and they inspired me to give it a try. So when the latest Kwik Sew release came out with a pair, I snatched it up. Unfortunately, they go on sale rarely at JoAnn so I had to pay full price. Of course, now that I got them made up, JA is advertising Kwik Sew on sale in a few weeks! Arrgh....

 Ta Da! I started with my pink and black polka dot version. Yes, it is just as bright in real life. Hence, skort, not leggings. Leggings would have hurt everyone's eyes, mine included. But I figured, for a skort, why not? Of course, after I bought the fabric, I realized I only have one top I can wear with it; all my other types are prints or other bright colors that would just say "clown" all over. Again, arrgh..!

Added In Darts To Skort Back
Sewing them up started out super fast. I couldn't believe I might be finally having one of those "I whipped them up in a couple hours" experiences I've read about. It was not to be. The last step, when I could finally try them on to check out fit, revealed some problems. The back, where the skirt attaches to the band and the short, had WAY too much fabric. It pouched -- quite a bit -- and rolled -- quite a bit -- up over the band. Thankfully, I had only basted everything, so it was easy to unpick. I started by adding in darts to remove some of the extra width-wise fabric.

The Back - Final Product
Re-drew CB Seam
That partially solved the problem. However, the skirt was still rolling up over the back. So, back to the seam ripper. I ended up shifting the center back panel up 5/8" where it attached to the band at the center point and then gradually tapering it off at the edges. Problem solved! Yay!

The next problem was that the front was also rolling up! There wasn't an excess of fabric in the same was as the back. Simply rolling the seam allowances up and stitching them down with a wide coverstitch did the trick. I'm really quite pleased with how that turned out. The coverstitch completely encased the seam and didn't have any skipped stitches...on the first try! I can't begin to express how exciting that was. My serger/coverstitch and I still don't always speak the same language. (Ok, we rarely speak the same language!)

The skort's short :)
My final tweak was to the short underneath. I think it is supposed to be negative ease and hug the leg to stay in place. It didn't do that. There is a slight gap at the bottom of the short so I pinched some of the fabric out on my next version. This version got some very rough darts added in. I'm still not entirely happy with either version. I'm used to longer shorts that don't move at all.

So...on to version two! My fabric is a bit less loud and definitely more friendly with the tops in my workout wardrobe. There's lots I can wear it with. I made all my changes on the pattern before cutting out this fabric and crossed my fingers that it would all go right the first time. Yes! Success!

Version #2: Flowers! And no weird fitting issues.

 So...how do I like them? They are definitely a cute alternative to leggings. They keep me covered. But I have been wearing leggings or capris to the gym and yoga for so long, it's gonna take some getting used to. One thing I don't like is that when doing some of the various poses, the bottom hem of the skirt is just a wee bit too narrow and can't stretch enough and it hitches up higher. (This is more problematic with the pink polka-dot version since I added a binding to the bottom. Even though it's a stretchy fabric, it still restricts movement a bit. The flowers have a simple hem and the skirt has more stretch. Live and learn.) Nothing indecent (and yikes! some of the Bikram girls wear some very short shorts and I'm still more covered than them!), but I'm just used to nice, long leggings. No problems whatsoever at step class, however.



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