When they announced that activewear was the third round of the sewing bee I was quite excited. I had many ideas on what I could do. Since I didn't get around to writing up a review for these I thought I'd just put my submission here:
Ahh exercise – I have a varied history with exercise! My family was not sporty and I never played any sports growing up, however in about 9th grade I got invited to join a local soccer team, the requirements only being they needed girls who lived in my suburb. I played for a couple of years, enjoying the social aspects of the sport and gaining a little fitness but then that team fell apart. It wasn’t until I was at University that I found a new team to play with and I got back into it. I played for 9 years with these friends, cycling through a number of different teams as we moved but just generally having fun and getting fit but then I moved to the US. I was hoping to continue playing but I soon found out that sports in the US are not the same as sports in Australia. I find that there are very limited opportunities for sports to be played just for fun and not for competition - especially for adults. The only real option I had was playing for a competitive team over an hours drive away. Well I really wasn’t up for that – my first child was just a year old and so I ended up quitting soccer.
For a couple of years I did little to no exercise, before realising that I couldn’t continue like that. A friend invited me to run a 5K race with her and I took her up on it and found that, whilst I hate running races, I quite enjoy running by myself, and so I took up running for a couple of years. But then each year it would get cold and I’d stop enjoying running outside so I went looking for another way to exercise.
This time I took up weightlifting – Squats, Bench Press, Deadlifts etc. Again, I found I really enjoyed it for a while, but it was really solitary and I found that I wasn’t pushing myself enough. I wanted to be a part of a team, I need the accountability that other people bring.
Then last September I found a Ninja Warrior Gym had opened up nearby. My son and I really enjoy watching the program together and I thought it would be fun to try it. I was right – it is so much fun and a great workout, I especially love the obstacles where you get to fly through the air, though I’m still working on the landing! But the thing I like the most about it is the camaraderie. Everyone there is cheering you on, You don't have to be the best, you just have to do YOUR best and even the smallest achievements are celebrated.
There is only one problem with my Ninja Warrior class – and that is that it’s only on once a week – and so to supplement my training I’ve taken up running and lifting again. And now I find myself needing activewear that can be used not only for my Ninja Warrior classes, but also for running (including running outside in New England in the winter) and lifting. A tall order, but I think I’ve done it.
Sports Bra
As someone who is large busted the first thing I have to think about when I’m exercising is my bra. It’s a real struggle to find something that is supportive enough for a G/H cup. For weightlifting I can get away with a standard bra, but for higher impact sports like running and Ninja Warrior I find I need to wear two bras. My normal sports bra with a crop top over the top.
And so for my first activewear piece I wanted to make a sports bra that would work as a bra for weightlifting but could also be worn over another bra when I want to go out for a run.
Pattern
The pattern I used for my bra is a self-drafted pattern. It consists of a bridge, two-piece cup, a full coverage back piece and two curved strap pieces wrapping over the shoulders. I’ve tweaked this pattern a number of times to get the fit just right. It’s a balancing act trying to make it supportive enough and yet with enough give to get on and off. There is no closure to this bra.
Fabrics
I used 4 different fabrics in this piece. The main fabric is a teal poly lycra. This fabric is quite thick but has a large amount of stretch in all four directions 60% across the grain and 40% with the grain. In fact it has so much stretch it doesn’t provide that much support, so to combat this problem I underlined all the main pieces of the bra with a power mesh fabric.
I then added a black contrasting fabric. This is also a poly lycra, but it a slightly lighter weight and only has stretch (about 40%) in the cross direction. I used this as the strap fabric, as by cutting the strap so that there is no stretch over the shoulder it provides a little extra support.
The final fabric is a very light weight poly lycra fabric with a very small detailed geometric print in shades of teal, blue, pink and purple. This fabric has about 40% stretch on the cross grain and about 10% stretch lengthwise. I used this fabric to fully line the inside of the bra.
Design Details
I used my sewing machine to construct this bra rather than the serger as I didn't want to add any thickness to my seams. Each seam was sewn with the lightning stitch then finger pressed open and top stitched down the center of the seam with one of my machines decorative stitches that has a lot of stretch. I finally trimmed all loose seam allowances. This gives a very flat seam.
I started by sewing the bra out of the teal and the mesh fabric basted together. I then repeated all the steps with the lining fabric to create a second bra. The next step was to attach the two bras to each other along the top edges of the straps and around the underarm. These seams were sewn using a normal straight stitch so that there is no longer any stretch to those seams - this gives the bra maximum support.
The two layers of the bra were turned right side out and attached together at the shoulders. The two layers were serged together along the bottom edge and a piece of 1.5”wide plush elastic was sewn on with a zig zag stitch and then turned and top stitched using the stretchy decorative stitch.
Conclusion:
I love this bra. It’s super supportive, though I’ll probably still need my normal underwire bra underneath it to run in, but I think this will be fine on it’s own for Ninja warrior, and will definitely be fine for weightlifting. Overall a great piece.
I've worn this a bit now and it is definitely fine to wear by itself for most exercises (I haven't tested a 5k run yet) and is quite comfortable - though hard to get into.
Leggings
Up next in my activewear outfit is my leggings.
As a general rule I prefer to wear ¾ length leggings or shorts, however when winter rolls around I find that I need to wear full length leggings especially when I go out for a run, I’ve also found that I prefer full lenth for Ninja Warrior class (less scraped knees sliding back down the warped wall), and so I wanted to make a pair of full length leggings.
Fabrics
I knew that I wanted to incorporate the two colours from my bra, with the majority of the leggings being made from the teal fabric with the black being used as a contrasting colour, then after pulling out my power mesh to make my bra, I decided it would be fun to incorporate the mesh into the pattern as well.
Pattern Design
Again I used a self drafted pattern for this garment. It is a very basic pattern, just a single pattern piece cut on the fold at the front so there are really just two seams, the inside leg seam and the back seam, plus a gusset.
I knew that I wanted more detail for this pair of leggings. I knew I wanted pockets and decided if I was going to do pockets I may as well make them big enough to fit my phone. To do this I decided to place a black stripe down the outside of the leggings into which I could incorporate the pocket. I made a quick muslin of my pattern and the using my yard stick marked a line straight down my side which I then transferred to my pattern (as seen above). I then added lines 1.5” away on each side of the side seam line to create a 3” strip down the outside of the pants. I decided to flare the stripe outwards at the top creating a yoke around the back of the leggings and a curve at the front. I placed the pocket at the point where the curves end and the straight strip starts. To make the pocket I cut this side strip in two parts, one extending from the yoke down to about mid thigh and the other starting at the top of the pocket and extending down the length of the leg. I then used the patterned fabric from my bra to create a pocket bag. I sewed the lining to the top of the pocket and then used some clear elastic to reinforce the top of the pocket. A simple zig zag seam attaching the pocket lining to the back of the black stripe completed the pocket.
Once I had the side stripe down I then used some scraps of fabric pinned to my muslin to decide on the placement of the other black and mesh inserts. I ended up spiraling the inserts around my leg in an alternating arrangement (Teal, Black, Mesh) which when transferred to the pattern looked like lots of diagonal stripes.
I used tracing paper to make pattern pieces for each of the different coloured stripes and for the remaining legging pieces, adding ¼” seam allowance at every cut line.
When I went to baste it all together, I found out that my layout of the stripes had been off and they totally did not match up at the inside seam. I decided to keep the front pieces as is, and redrew all the back pieces double checking all my calculations this time and yeah second times a charm and I now have aligned stripes of black and teal mesh wrapping around my legs.
I also did some tweaking of the pattern at this point, taking about 2"out of the back seam and halving the size of the gusset to account for the amount of stretch in my teal fabric.
I could now start putting everything together – first the diagonal stripes to make the legs, then sewing the legs together down the inseam matching all the stripes carefully, adding in the gusset and then the black stripe down the sides, including the pockets.
To sew everything together I basted each seam on the sewing machine, serged the seam and then topstitched it in place using the decorative stretch stitch, making sure that the mesh segments were turned out so that no seams show through the mesh.
Now it was time to figure out the waistband. I had a strip of black fabric lying around and pinned it in place crossing the ends over each other at the front to make a V shaped wrap and I really liked the way it looked so I cut the pattern out of black for the outside, power mesh for the inside for support and the teal as the inner waistband. I also decided to add another smaller pocket into the waistband and cut a square of teal fabric that is not the main teal fabric but a much thinner poly lycra in the same colour that I already had in stash. I used this to create a small pocket between the inner and outer fabric. I sewed the waistband together along the top edge, including adding the pocket, and then basted it onto the pants overlapping it at the center and sewing the edges into the opposite side.
After wearing my leggings around the house for a while I found that without elastic in the waist they did have a tendency to roll down at the top, plus I knew I wanted to be able to show off the waistband on these pants, but I did not want to show off my bare stomach, so I decided to add a secondary waistband out of my main teal fabric, situated behind my main waistband.
I made this new waistband double the height of the original and serged a strip of 1.5”wide elastic to the top of this waistband and then turned and top stitched it with a lightning bolt stitch. I stitched the black waistband onto the teal waistband along the top edge of the black (leaving a gap for the little pocket) using a lightning bolt stitch.
Conclusion
I really love these leggings, they fit me really well after all the tweaking I did, they are super comfortable and they look great - I especially love the shape they give me with the double waistband. And even better I've been wearing these legging all morning now and not once have I had to hitch up the waistband - it's actually stayed up - this is amazing!
Shirt
Next I needed a shirt to go with my leggings. The first design decision was that it had to have sleeves. I have any number of tank top type shirts but….OK I’ll admit it…I’m lazy about shaving. Now personally I don’t care about hairy armpits, but I understand that it can be really off-putting for some and so to spare them the view of my unshaved underarms I wanted to have sleeves in my shirt. I wanted the sleeves to be fairly short though as you do get very warm in the ninja gym. Next, after making my statement crossover waistband on my leggings I knew that I wanted my shirt to be cropped.
Pattern Design
My original plan was to make a shirt using the sleeves from my raglan sleeve T-Shirt Pattern (The same one I used for round 1) and use mesh, rouleau straps and some draped elements - in the patterned fabric - for the body of the shirt. I cut the sleeves out of the teal fabric and then cut a full back piece out of the patterned fabric as a place holder whilst I worked on the front. For the front, instead of cutting it on the fold I cut the sides as per the pattern and then extended the cut out the full width of the fabric to give me lots of fabric to play around with.
I spent hours playing with different ways to drape that fabric, cutting it here, there and everywhere, twisting it, tying it, draping it. I finally found one arrangement that I liked but when I showed my husband he said it didn’t match the rest of the outfit – it looked too much like a nice top rather than an activewear top. I turned my whole shirt around and showed it to him with the straight fabric in the front and he said it worked much better. So then I thought maybe I could make a plain front and just do a drape at the back instead, but after much rearranging that didn’t work either. In the end I re-cut the front and back pieces to the original pattern and added a couple of darts in the front to make the shirt fit snuggly.
But now the shirt was very plain so I started to look at other ways to add interest. Once again I thought about my mesh fabric. I knew I wanted sleeves in my shirt to cover my underarm but I don’t really need the sleeves for warmth so I decided I should add mesh inserts into the top of the sleeve. I did this using the same technique as a welt, cut a trapezoid shape, stitched around it at ¼” and clipped the corners, the sewed the mesh in using a straight stitch. This time I used a black mesh to make it more noticeable and continue the black contrasting theme. To keep it simple I top stitched the seams in place using a straight stitch, but then used my decorative stretch stitch on the hem.
I then added another mesh insert into the back panel of the shirt. I originally planned to make it the full length of the shirt but then realized I didn’t want the back of my bra to be visible so stopped it just at the top of the bra. I used the teal mesh for this insert. I used the last of my black fabric to make a V neckband for my shirt.
I cut the bottom of the shirt with the same angle on the front hem as is found in the waistband of the leggings with just enough hem so that the final shirt would sit just above the waistband. To finish the hem of the shirt I cut a 1”wide facing to add extra weight to the hem to keep it in place.
Conclusion
This top works really nicely with my leggings. I tried it out on my ninja line and I can go upside down without flashing any skin which is useful.
Upon wearing this a little more I found that it was a touch too short and so I went back, unpicked the hem and added a 1.5" black band around the bottom. I had used up the last of my black fabric so I had to raid through my stash to find something similar - this works well enough. I tried to keep the same angle as my legging waistband and made it just a smidge smaller than the diameter of the bottom of the shirt to keep it in place. This works much better.
Sweater
I am a frog....I am always cold…. and I usually freeze trying to get to Ninja class in my workout gear, plus when I run outside in New England in the winter I need a warm sweater to go over the rest of my outfit. And so I decided to make a ultra warm sweatshirt that matches the rest of my activewear outfit.
The main problem was what fabric to use. I was out of the black fabric, only had a small amount of the teal left, plus poly lycra is not that warm so I needed to add another material into the mix. Luckily, I had something in stash. It’s a beautiful thick double faced fleece fabric – super soft, super snuggly in a heathered grey colourway, tending towards the darker end of grey so I thought that it might work with my other fabrics and I was right. To tie this garment into my outfit I used the last pieces of the teal fabric as contrast accents, cuffs, welts, side panels and inside the hood.
Pattern
I actually used a real pattern for this. The Paprika Patterns Jasper Sweatshirt. I’ve made this a number of times before and really love the way it fits. In the past I made a couple of small modifications to the pattern to get it to fit, you can see an Earlier Review Here for full fitting details.
I followed the instructions for the most part with a few minor modifications:
For the pocket welts I used the teal fabric, but interfaced it using a heavy weight interfacing to remove the stretch. For the pocket bags I used scraps of whatever fabric I could find, some of the lightweight teal fabric and some other black jersey from stash.
For the side pieces I wanted to use the teal fabric but I also wanted the warmth of the fleece so I used both. I cut the side pieces out of both fabrics and used strips of fusible seam tape to fuse them together whilst I basted around each edge. I then treated the resulting fabric as a single piece.
To sew the sweatshirt together I used a straight stitch on my main machine, then trimmed down one side of the seam, topstitched the second seam over the first and trimmed off any excess – A faux-faux flat fell.
The sleeves and hood were inserted per instructions, but I then lined the hood in the teal fabric taking care of all the exposed seams on the inside of the hood. Before finishing the hood I added two grommets to the front piece so I could add a cord at the end to secure the hood in place whilst running.
Last up was the bottom band and the cuffs – cut from the very last of the teal fabric. For these I sewed one end to the fabric then turned and top stitched the other side for a neatly finished interior.
I attempted to add thumb holes to the cuffs but after doing one and trying it on the dimensions of the cuff were all wrong and it just felt awkward so I took it off and instead took about 2” out of the width of the cuff and attached as per the bottom band. This really works better for me anyway, the sleeves are long enough that, with the small cuff on the end I can retract my hand right back into the sleeve to keep my hands warm whilst running.
Conclusion:
I love the way this outfit came together and I've now worn it a number of times with no issues at all (except for that change to the shirt to add the band).
For the competition they asked for photos of the outfit in action. I wasn't able to get to the ninga gym in time to take photos there so instead I took my outfit outside to try out our Ninja line and slackline. Not quite as fun as a real course but good for some practice! It was -7C (19F) out the morning I took these photos but I was nice and warm in my sweatshirt - it wasn't quite so pleasant when I took the sweater off to take photos of the shirt and bra however!
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