Activewear 101: Leggings 1 – Muslin

We’re delighted to have Suzy from Suzy Bee Sews as one of our first contributors! Suzy is a whizz at making curvy activewear, and will be walking us through the steps of fitting. Take it away, Suzy! – Jenny

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I’m sewing up Fehr Trade’s Duathlon leggings and thought I’d sew up a muslin and show my fitting steps one by one.

I’m using a thick matt knit for my final version, but I have some of this teal coloured knit that is virtually identical in stretch and feel. If you are going to make a muslin the most important thing is that you either use the same material or a very similar one as the stretch and weight will affect your final version.

Muslin fitting

So first things first, I’ve taped my pattern (it’s a PDF), I fall just over the XL in this so I’ve cut out a sz XL with extra seam allowance (over 1” extra) on both the inner and outer seams.

I baste my muslin together, sewing the inner seams first on the proper cutting line, sew the crotch and sew up the side seams last.

Straight away I can see some pulling at the front. This is caused by there not being enough length on the crotch seam so I let out the inner leg seams by about 5/8”.

This improves the front crotch heaps however I am getting a lot of pull lines at the back still. These are normally caused by the crotch height being too high so I scoop it out by about 1/4”.

This makes it better but I decide to scoop it out by another 1/4”.

It doesn’t seem to make too much difference but the leggings are too loose at this stage and that’s why it doesn’t make much difference, when I pull the leggings tight it looks fine so I decide to leave any more adjustments to later if it needs it.

Time to take in the side seams, when I check the side seam the panel feels like its sitting too far back so I decide to only take in the front of the leggings.

Now I’ve unpicked the front, cut off 5/8” and resewn them onto the side panel. You don’t need to cut off the excess either, you can just sew with extra deep side seams when fitting, that way its easy to let out again if need be.

I’m pretty happy with how the pants are fitting now, but I can feel the pants legs falling inwards, and I have wrinkles and excess fabric on the side of them, so I pin out the excess which also straightens the pants and stops them catching so much on my knees.

I’m happy enough with the pants now I’m going to leave them alone so its time to transfer the changes to the paper pattern.