Baby leggings: An experiment

I only quilt. And make headbands. And pillows. But I do not EVER make clothes. I just don’t know how to.

Mr. Right says I’m a perfectionist who is scared to branch out and fail. I think he may be right. Or maybe it’s that I have a limited amount of sewing time, and I don’t want to waste it and my valuable fabric on failed projects.

But then Mr. Right found some pics of handmade baby leggings on Instagram, and I fell in love and knew I’d just have to figure it out. And that’s what I did, and I am so, SO proud!

I googled “baby legging tutorial” and found this super easy pattern. (Note to self – I want to try ALL of her tutorials.)

leggings1

Then Mr. Right and I went on a date to the Fabric store and found some ADORABLE fabrics in spandex and jersey. I have found that busy, random patterns are the most forgiving because you don’t have to line up seams or worry about having something upside down (the same goes for the backings on quilts).

I learned a few lessons the hard way:

1. I need chalk to trace my patterns. You know, black fabric + ink pen doesn’t really work. I ended up pinning the paper pattern to my fabric and just cutting carefully around it, which was fine for forgiving, stretchy material, but for another project that needed to be more exact, that would have caused problems. I’ve found sewing requires PERFECT measurements and cutting.

2. You can’t iron spandex, which made pressing the seams and hemming harder, but I worked around that by doing a lot of pinning.

3. My machine sucked that light, stretchy material right up, jamming my machine so badly I had to call in reinforcements in the form of a hunky husband with his tool belt. He saved the day and had me up and running within about 15 minutes, but I found that I had to be very careful not to do that again. Quilting with cotton is so much easier.

Other than that, the project was fairly easy. It took me about two hours from start to finish (I completed it during Wrenn’s naptime) and I loved the instant gratification of being able to dress her in her new leggings that same day. Quilts take me about 30 hours to make, so it’s usually at least a month of sewing (and that was pre-baby) before I get to admire the finished product.

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Wrenn LOVES her new leggings – she is fascinated with the shiny silver polka dots, and they’re so comfy. She may or may not have worn them Saturday night… and Sunday to church… and Monday to visit my office. And pooped on them twice (lot’s of laundry going on in this house).

I’m hooked, and have bought more fabric to make a few different pairs. And now I’m inspired to try some more baby clothes – I have a book of baby dress patterns that I’ve been avoiding, and I think I’m going to tackle it next and see what comes of it!

It feels good to try something new, doesn’t it?

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