Legs that go all the way up to eleven.

Given that I have to make this costume.. not just assemble it out of so many shop bought bits.. I figured it was time to work out the leggings..

Turns out theres a vast resource of this stuff out there, http://www.patternschool.com and http://www.stretchy.org are both amazing sites if you are starting out trying to figure out just how all the bits need to gotogether (for way more than just leggings).

So I decided that given that a straight leggings pattern looked so simple, I'd want to make it a bit more entertaining, and try to move the seam to the center rear leg.. after all, a Bat should try to look good, right?

So, I drew out a few backsides.. and the leggings front & back.. and then tried to see what options there were starting from a center back seam per leg.

Quite a few!

I settled on the last one (bottom right), bringing the seams round from the rear leg up to the side of the hips in a smoothish curve.

All I need to do now is figure out just what that did to my pattern. At this stage I realise I have issues comprehending the mapping of a flat surface over a shape with no obvious corners..




So I cheat.. yay for primark, where you can buy a pair of leggings for 3 pounds.. I'm sure theres an entire story to be written here at why I'm even bothering to make a pair, when I could just buy one from there, or how they manage to make them for less than the cost I could buy the material for, let alone that they can clearly already sew in a straight line ;-)

Insanely cheap leggings in hand, and some tailors chalk, mark the lines, cut the lines, cut through the crotch to seperate the legs, and then lay the resulting piece down & carefully trace out the outline, being really careful to keep the fabric all under the same amount of tension.. easy! (mutter mutter)


With that done, I present the worlds oddest leg pattern.


If you plan to make a pair, you'll need to:

• cut two of the right hand pattern as opposites..
• for each bit, sew into a tube by sewing the longest sides together 
• Yes, the curves do make this a bit of a pain
• Yes, sewing lycra isn't easy
• Top tip, cheat & use temporary spray glue, 505 makes sewing this stuff almost easy.
• Join the two tubes along the crotch seam... 

If you got all that right.. you end up with something a little like this.. Though I probably wouldnt recommend using lilac.

Especially not this lilac, which is the most evil cloth ever to try to sew. So lightweight the feed dogs kept trying to eat the cloth rather than feed it. So stretchy that the slightest tug means your seam ends up wonky.

Still.. the seams did end up where they were supposed to, score one for cutting up stuff from primark !