Athletic Tights Fitting When Your Body Changes

Do you ever have mental blocks with sewing projects? I love the Greenstyle Inspire tights. They are quick, easy, and fit really well… normally. I have to admit to you, though, at the end of this past spring, my fit changed on them, and I just didn’t want to mess with it. Thankfully, summer arrived and shorts sewing began. I also had the Super Gs that still fit me really well so I just turned to them when I needed a leggings fix.

For today’s post, I am talking to you about how I perfected fit for my current body and am also talking all about FABRIC!!

Fitting Woes

One of the best parts about sewing is that you can customize the fit specifically to your body shape. One of the worst parts about sewing is that you need to make fit adjustments specifically for your body shape, even when that body shape changes often and is not typical.

I feel like as soon as I “arrive” at a perfect fit, my body fluctuates. Even when my weight is stable, depending on the time of the month and other life factors, my stomach can be a size or two larger or smaller, and if I gain 5-10 pounds, I am in another size (or vice versa). I think some of this is because I am petite (5’2″) and specifically short in my legs. My torso is average and rarely needs adjustments in patterns, but my legs are another story. I think petite people carry their leg mass differently. My legs are not a perfect triangle with the top large and bottom narrow. They are more of a rectangle and seem stout.

I noticed that a few pairs of my athletic tights lately (namely, the stride tights and inspire tights) were not fitting the same way that they always have. I had all this extra fabric only in my front pubic region.

Here is a photo of a pair of Strides to show you what I am talking about:

Do you see all that excess fabric? Not pretty. My hips are 35 inches. I made a size small, which covers hip sizes 35-37 inches. So, technically, I was making the correct size, and from the backside, everything did look ok and my legs felt great. So, after much deliberation as to what to do, I decided to just go down a size.

The crotch was fixed!!! BUT, my legs were yelling at me. LOUDLY. So, I didn’t quite think it all through. Only my crotch needed fit help. My legs did not need another size down. Specifically, my calves. Even in super Gs, I grade out at my calves so that my pattern piece is not as triangular as it typically should be.

So, to fix this pair… I cut them into capris, put a triangle of the laser cut out fabric in the inseam at the bottom, and called it a win. My crotch looks normal again and now my calves can breathe. Woohoo! The camo fabric was saved!

Here is the back. I have some wrinkles at the back of the knee, which I find to be normal for movement. They usually go away when my leg is straight, and reappear when my knee is bent. This is the space where you don’t want to overfit.

So, now that my first stab at reassessing the fit on the Inspires was finished, I took what I learned and applied it to my next pair.

I copied straight from my old pattern everything from about midthigh down. On my old pattern piece, I had taken out length where I needed (for a total of three inches, all mainly in the lower part of my legs), slimmed some starting a few inches above the ankle and voila. I now have a wonderful excuse to sew all the leggings again.

Also note, I add 1/4 inch to the top of both waistband pieces and use a 1/4 inch seam allowance when sewing the inner and outer waistband pieces together and when applying the waistband to the tights. This gives me a higher rise than the pattern intends, and it lands exactly where I want this way.

What do you think about the fit?

To celebrate, I also made a tie back tank and another power sports bra. It is #braaugust on Instagram so it was the perfect time to make a matching set.

Two days before making this bra, I had just told a friend that I did not need any more power sports bras until I was done nursing. But then, I saw the scraps left from my tights, the stash of nursing clips I still have, and I just gave in. Haha!

Fabric

Greenstyle sells fabric now!!! Did you hear?? I am sooo excited. Angelyn is an absolute genius when it comes to athletic sewing patterns, drafting, and design. I pray every day that she gets more time to make more patterns because she seriously has a gift. I am blessed to get to admin for her and help her out when she needs. When she told me she wanted to start stocking fabrics that she picked out specifically for her patterns, to say I was thrilled is an understatement.

She has made over 50 pairs of leggings to test and try out different bases from different manufacturers. Some fabrics would feel amazing, but when she worked out in them, they would not hold up to her routine. While others were too thick or not thick enough. Did I mention she is also a workout instructor and an engineer? Anyways, the ones that stood up to her standards and made the cut are now going to be making it into the Greenstyle store.

For this post, I have 5 different fabrics to show you.

For the back of my tie back tank, I used the laser cut performance tricot. This fabric is really nice and stable, has wonderful stretch, and is like an air conditioner with air flow. It was 100 degrees outside when I took these photos, and as you can see, I am not even that red! I normally turn red when I get to hot, but I was fine outside in leggings to boot! I plan to use what I have left for some inserts on the strides or super g tights.

Underneath my tights, I am wearing the No Show Brief in Mist fabric. This fabric is absolutely amazing for wearing as panties so that you have ZERO panty lines. They really feel like you are just wearing nothing at all. Since they feel like I am wearing nothing at all, and are a shade pretty close to my skin, I did NOT take photos of that for the internet to see. I think you would much rather see my NO PANTY LINE leggings instead.

The front of my tank is the Perfo-Tek fabric. This is the best (awkard) photo I got of the tank when it is not tied. This fabric is thick enough to make leggings out of and not so heavy that you can also use it as a tank.

I used the Power Flex in Rainbow Strata for my full length Inspire tights. This is squishy comfy amazingness that everyone should feel. It has just enough spandex to hold you together but is not compressive. It is such a wonderful fabric to wear. This colorway is sold out, but she has more coming (hopefully this week!).

For my camo tights, I used the DriTex camo base. It feels very light and nice but is still very opaque.

If you have made it this far, stay tuned for my next post! I have some Super G tights to show you as well as a GIVEAWAY of a free yard of Greenstyle fabric!!

Resources

• The patterns that I used were the Greenstyle Inspire tights, Tie Back Tank, and Power Sports Bra. The No Show Brief will be the next pattern released by Greenstyle. It is still in testing for some sizes, and I still have a dozen to make so I don’t have to wash this pair so often.
• You can shop the Greenstyle Fabric store HERE.
• For my Power Sports bra, I got the cups from Amazon HERE, and I got the clear elastic from Amazon HERE. I got my nursing clips from Jo-ann Fabrics. My elastic from the underbust of my bra also came from Joann. It is the Dritz 1.5 inch soft waistband elastic.

Thanks for stopping by! I would love to stay connected with you. You can find me on Instagram, or you may receive updates by liking my page on Facebook. If you want to take a look into the things that inspire me, you can follow me on Pinterest. You may also follow my blog with Bloglovin.

Disclosures

I received this fabric for free so I could sew it up and show how it would look sewn up. This post also may contain affiliate links, which means I receive a small compensation when you purchase via my link. This does not cost you anything, and I genuinely appreciate the support. Any and all opinions expressed are still my own.