Futuristic Spark Skorts

Shorts, pockets, skirt, what more could I want?

After completing the yellow Sparks, I set about to create some shorter shorts from some mystery futuristic stretch fabric in the hoard. The legs were shortened such that the pockets would still work, but they wouldn’t come down my leg as far as the yellow ones. I probably made a mistake in that shortening because the hem looks like the weirdest zigzag when it isn’t on my body. But nobody is going to care about that when it’s laying in my cupboard, right?!

This is the Greenstyle Spark Tights pattern underneath. I made the same alteration to the waistband and cut a little bit off, and I added a skirt. No pattern involved, which also meant that it didn’t really go well first time round. I had to cut a lot of the waistline of the skirt in order to get it to lay approximately flat. You’ll also see that this fabric has a white background, and since the waistband just uses the stretch to keep the thing on me, it is much lighter in colour than the non-stretched skirt. I’m just going to go with ‘design element’ on that one.

I’m still amazed by the thread colour I ended up sewing with. I did not expect that I would have to opt for green as the most suitable colour. The sewing went pretty well, the general Sparks pattern came together easily. It still has the same pockets underneath that I can fit a phone or something else in. I love pockets, they are great! Since I only finished the hemming recently, I still have to wear them around for a bit to see if they work as well as I’m hoping. Fingers crossed!

Yellow Sparks

Ready to sweat in these banana shorts!

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.