I’ve been trying to do bursts of short, 10 minute exercise every morning for a while now. I used to do it upstairs, but recently started watching tv in the living room at the same time. That meant that I wanted more shorts in case people would look in. YouTube was kind enough to show me an ad for exercise shorts that looked super fun, and I decided to look for a similar pattern. The Greenstyle Spark Tights seemed to be pretty close. After purchasing, printing and taping together, into the hoard I went. I returned with some yellow stretch fabric that would also make this suitable for roller derby as the team colours are yellow and black.
The pattern includes pockets, always essential if you ask me, a seamless front, three different length options for the legs and multiple options for the waistband. These yellow sparks were made in bicycle length. Cutting was pretty easy and fairly economical, you don’t need a lot of fabric for these tights. I sewed them together on my treadle with a slight zigzag stitch and did the hemming with a twin needle. I don’t have yellow serger thread and this seemed to work just fine when you stretch the fabric enough while sewing.
The pattern requires fabric with a lot of stretch (75% horizontal and 50% vertical), which makes it possible to skip elastics. I chose to make the high rise waistband (not the super contoured option) and removed about a cm from the top edge because it wanted to bunch when it was that little bit higher. The waistband is the same fabric as the rest of the shorts but they stay up really well. I’ve been wearing these every morning for the last week or so and I’m enjoying them a lot. Since they were so quick, I immediately cut out a second pair but this time with built in skirt. That’ll be up soon too.
