What I’ve made: end of August, mostly Spandex

I am a pretty adventurous sewer. I love the comfort and conformity of cotton woven but also love the simplicity of sewing with knits, especially spandex. The last couple of weeks, I changed the needles on my machine and turned the dials on my overlocker to have a run of knits. As usual, I tweaked well loved patterns a little and I’ll share those mini-hacks with you here.

imgp7026 — How to add a banded waistband to leggings for baby

This pair of size 0 leggings are for my littlie to wear out in the sun over Spring and Summer for some sun protection. I used the Boo! Designs leggings pattern (I had to splice the right leg as I accidently cut 2 left legs and did not have enough fabric).

To add the band, rather than use elastic, I used the band pattern piece from the Boo! Cheekies pattern (you could also use the one from their baby swimmers). So that it wouldn’t be too long in the rise, you need to take into account 2 measurements. First, I took off 1/2 inch (the elastic allowance is 3/4 inch, then I added 1/4 inch for the seam allowance, leaving 1/2 inch). Then I added the amount that is increased by adding the band. As the band folds in half, I halved the width then subtracted the 1/4 inch seam allowance. This measurement plus the 1/2 inch from the elastic is taken from the top of the leg pieces when being cut out.

For the sun protection on top for my bub, I used the Flosstyle Singlet Super Suit pattern to make a long sleeve onesie. At her age, she is carried a lot and tops ride up. I didn’t want to be pulling in down all the time. (I always use the Boo! Rashie for the older kids and when she was tiny and not moving around.) The only tweak here was that I slid in a little offcut of spandex into the binding to reinforce the snap section.

Apple + Fig has had a big look in this week as well. I made a sports hat for my sister. The trick with this was to interface the spandex pieces. I also used my glue pen a lot to prevent over ironing.

The stalks I made myself had been the low cut but they were riding down because of my body shape. I undid the elastic and added a band to the top. To work out the amount, I looked at the difference between high and low waist (8cm), took off how much I had that had been folded down with the elastic and added 2 x 1/4 inch seam allowance.

This gorgeous panel and spandex (yes, I used it for 4 projects this week!) is all from Boo! Designs. I had bought this just for myself. I got out a top that I love the fit of and traced around it with greaseproof paper. I then added 1/4 inch to the shoulders and sides and made sure there was enough for a hem at the bottom. I had the help of the lovely ladies in the Boo! group on facebook for the measurements of the banding on the neck and arms, where I used 85% of the measurements to get the length (then added 2cm for a 1cm seam where I joined them).

Finally, I did actually sew something woven. My daughter was off to a birthday party so I whipped this up for a gift for the party girl. This was simply a WOF (width of fabric) length with the width, elastic and seam measurements roughly taken from Prints and Polka dots Blog.