So here are the capri leggings I made from my custom Spoonflower print. I was really inspired by some of the more elaborate ready to wear leggings that have been popping up lately and wanted to see if I could mimic some of the techniques with my home sewing equipment.
One of the things I’ve seen recently is curved insets. In the garment manufacturing industry, these are sewn using an industrial flatlock machine. I don’t have access to one of those, unfortunately, so instead I serged the mesh insets using a narrow 3-thread overlock seam with woolly nylon in the loopers. Then I topstitched the curve in place using my coverstitch machine.
The pockets I covered with fold over elastic, and I think this a really clever way to finish pockets on activewear or other stretchy knit garments. So simple and it looks very neat too I think!
Spoonflower prints on a white fabric which is a factor to consider. There is a smidgen of the white showing at the seams and over the bum where the fabric is stretched out a lot. I was given a heads-up about this before I went and ordered the fabric, and to me it’s not an issue, but I think lighter prints might work better than really dark colours if the white sheen is something you want to avoid completely. I’ve also noticed that a lot of RTW activewear brands use this print on white technique now with the bold pattern trend, so this way of printing is fairly common.
While this project took a lot of effort and I’m very happy that I did put in the time to make all my design ideas into practice.
