Tag: Skort

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!

Plaid Skort

Sometimes you see something that just inspires you to recreate it for yourself. This is the result.

I’ve been pining over a few pins I found on Pinterest of miniskorts (this is my board). Short shorts with a flap over the front to look like a skirt. So last weekend, I figured I’d finally get started. Got out my regular pants pattern, added some flare to the side seam and set to work. The plan was to have mine based on this pin, with a pocket on one side in a sort of welt type situation. After a bit of fiddling, it turns out that I added too much flare, so I took some out again. I had to take out the waistband and try again because it was too big, but apart from that it was mostly plain sailing.

Plaid skort

In the end, I’m still deciding whether I want to add any buttons. Right now I’m ok without them, but I haven’t cycled yet so I don’t know. Perhaps the flap flies up when going at speed and then I might want to get some buttons. It did turn out a little longer than my inspiration pictures, but I guess that’s ok. I’m probably not really one for short shorts anyway.

Skorting On!

I mentioned it during Me Made May 19, but I’ve been wearing a white flower skort to skating practice regularly. This particular skort isn’t actually officially finished yet, although I do not see it becoming actually finished ever. This has not stopped me from wearing it. The thing that makes it incomplete is that the waistband is a single unfinished layer made of two pieces that were supposed to become a double layer finished waistband. I even wore it during our most recent roller derby tournament.

 

Last weekend, I was very productive and made another skort from some scuba type stuff that has been in the stash since I finished this item. Said dress is no longer in the collection but a square leftover piece was. So I cut out another of the straight skorts from those remains. This version has additional panels in the back and a thinner front piece to move the pockets further to the front. It also has a self waistband on the outside. On the inside is a thin mesh knit that also form the shorts.

For the first time, I hemmed the shorts, so we’ll see what that does. This skort is finished with some twin-needling on the pockets and waistband. When I wore it around the house on Sunday it was very comfortable.

It seems that I’ll be skorting all day long again. – I’m still amazed that the addition of some shorts under a skirt can totally remove my reluctance to wear that skirt. Skorts are the best!

Improvements Needed

Remember all those sporting skorts of which only one had pockets? This is no longer the case. I put pockets on the three remaining skirts such that I will actually choose them. I also took in the elastic on of them such that it fit slightly better. I’m quite happy with this improvement. You might even be able to see the single pocket that was added to these skorts.

The second improvement was to the riding jacket. As I mentioned before, it shrunk in the wash and the sleeves needed to be let out and lengthened. Finally finished this today. I’m not sure why it took me so long to get done. It was not too hard to finish it.

Lets hope that these improvements will help to get more wear out of these items.

 

Even More Skorting

So there was still a little bit left over of the two fabrics I’ve used for my previous skorts. Last week I made a similar one to the improved version, so a half circle skirt. This time with a zipper in the waistband to create a little pocket for a key or such.

In order to make the zipper function correctly, and not get stuck in the fabric all the time, I put some ribbon behind it. There is also elastic in the top edge.

I managed to fit another skort in the last few remaining bits and pieces. This was another type of skort. The same shorts pattern was used, taken in about two centimeters to make it fit on the fabric. For the skirt, I googled skort and found a Jalie pattern (Jalie 2796 Multi-Sport Skort) of which I liked the features, so I attempted to draft something similar. I probably did not make it wide enough in the front since it seems to bunch up a little. But this tends to happen with skirts anyway. So I will see in the summer whether it works. The good thing about this one is that it has pockets in the sides and another hidden pocket on the leg.

All in all, getting four garments out of two coupons of fabric is quite a success. I’m going to try to throw out the leftovers. Then I won’t have more stuff remaining.

Sport Skort Evolution

In December I will be playing my first roller derby game. It is very exiting and very scary. We will all be wearing a yellow sport top with our name and number on it. However, for bottoms, we can figure it out ourselves. I wanted to have something different from just short leggings (or long leggings), so I set out to create a skirt with attached short leggings, now named the sport skort.

The first iteration used the leggings pattern from the striped leggings, taken in along the side seam and back seam significantly. With an added full circle skirt from some strange waffle-scuba type stuff. I had the waffle stuff on the outside. While testing it out, I determined that I liked the idea of the skirt, but since the fuzzy side was down, it kept sticking to the attached shorts. It was also very full which made it behave less than ideal. This is also why it ended up in the closet and is wrinkled in the pictures.

The second iteration took the same pattern, but I overlapped the side seams to each leg is now one piece. The skirt is a half circle from the same fabric as before, now added with the waffle side in and the fuzzy side out. The waistband is still from the leggings stuff, now with an added pocket for my mouth guard. This is most likely the shortest skirt I’ve ever worn outside of my house.

The only reason I dare to wear this it is because it has the attached leggings. This version fares much better and I’m actually thinking of making a second one, since this one is very comfortable. I declare this a success!

For the second version I cut the skirt with the same diameter, but being a half circle vs. a full circle, the waist takes up more of the diameter and the skirt becomes shorter. On the left the first version and on the right the second version.