My Love for Athletic Brushed Poly Continues

Hi friends. Have you ever wondered how the Athletic Brushed Poly (ABP) from The Styled Magnolia holds up to intense washing and use over time? Well, now that I have been sewing and wearing this fabric for a few years now, I feel confident to report to you how it is holding up.

I also tried a new (to me) fabric base called Athletic Honeycomb from Greenstyle that I will tell you my initial thoughts on in the second part of this post.

Athletic Brushed Poly

Almost two years ago, I made these Inspire leggings with the Enchanted Garden print on the ABP from the Styled Magnolia. You can find my initial post on them here that I wrote when I first made them.

They ended up being one of my favorite pairs because this pattern does not have a ton of negative ease so I wear them all the time around the house as well as out and about.

I have had a smallish scrap of the fabric left over after making my leggings, and I FINALLY got around to using that scrap. It was the perfect size for a Greenstyle Cami! This cami pattern has a shelf bra and is the ultimate piece of comfort! I made the high hip option and the crossed back straps option. I also included the optional liner for bra cups.

I was initially nervous to make something with my scrap that would be worn with my leggings because I thought that surely by now the colors would have been different due to washing and use or at least the leggings would be slightly pilled and have a different and more worn look.

HOWEVER – My fears were unfounded. LOOK!

CONFESSION: I have washed these tights with my kids laundry on normal (warm water) and then put them in my medium to high heat dryer without any special care. Probably 2-3 times a month at a minimum for the past 20 months (probably less in summer and more times than this for fall, winter, and spring).

Can you even tell that my bottoms have been worn and washed at least 30 times more than my top?

I am really hard on clothes. My kids play baseball and slide in the mud so my wash cycles are longer and have oxyclean in them usually. I even will throw my daughters jeans in with mixed colors loads sometimes. To be honest, some clothes I have sewn just don’t hold up to my life, and it is caused me to become even more picky with what I buy because it is really tragic to invest precious sewing time on something I will ruin in the wash.

The fabric care info for The Styled Magnolia says you are supposed to wash this fabric on cold and dry on low to medium. You are not really supposed to put athletic fabric in the dryer because it can lose elasticy over time due to the wear on the spandex content in the fabric from the heat of the dryer. This fabric still has all the snap back despite my dryer usage. I am going to try to do better at separating them from the dryer like I do bras so I don’t wear them out that way.

And here is the backside – which is the part that is most likely to pill due to sitting on concrete bleachers. I try to always remember to bring my chair, but I really don’t baby my clothes when I wear them. Thankfully, this pair has no pilling at all! That really is amazing for a brushed fabric.

Since the fabric is brushed it is soft and comfortable. I love this set so much! I have been wearing it with a hoodie over the cami and then when the afternoons are hotter, I just wear the cami with the leggings. Is that too much blue floral all at once??

Pink Athletic Honeycomb

I have noticed all the fun honeycomb leggings I have seen being made in the Greenstyle group, and I really wanted to try this fabric so I could understand what all the rage is so I ordered a yard of this pink.

This is the fabric that Greenstyle latest leggings – the Lift leggings – is drafted for. I tried my initial pair of this pattern out in a brushed supplex and wanted to see how they felt in the intended fabric.

This fabric definitely does exactly what it is intended to do and makes your booty look great. I noticed that the fabric has the most stretch running along the grainline so I cut my leggings out on the cross grain instead of the regular way with the grain so that I could have the most stretch running widthwise across my body. Since they are not super stretchy along the width of the fabric and that is the part of the fabric I have running vertically on my body, they are not as high in the rise as my other pair of leggings, despite using the exact same highest rise option.

Let me preface my opinion on this fabric with some background. I think I have slight texture issues. I notice that I gravitate towards fabrics that are super soft and feel a certain way next to my skin. I can’t wear scuba or ITY very often because I feel the coldness of it. I also struggle with seams that rub against me and notice how my clothes touch me. Soooo… these have texture and somehow I forgot about my texture issues until I put this pair of leggings on my body.

I instantly felt them and was not so sure about how it felt to constantly feel every part of the texture. Especially since it is not a brushed feeling but a bumpy one. I plan to use these only for work outs and probably won’t be wearing them for extended periods until I can get more accustomed to the feeling. I noticed even just standing and modeling them that I started to like them more and more. The look on my husband’s face was also pretty priceless!

What do you think? Are you a fan of the honeycomb fabric? If you have worn it, did you notice the texture and like it?

Resources

1. Enchanted Garden ABP – This print is on sale this month in the Pick A Print section. It is part of the Styled Magnolia’s Monthly Preorder.
2. Athletic Honeycomb Fabric
3. Cami Pattern
4. Lift Leggings Pattern
5. Inspire Tights Pattern – This is the pattern I used initially when I made my floral leggings. I modified the pattern to have a cuff and a pocket.