Sew Your Own Pair of Leggings From Scratch With This Tutorial

Tools and materials:

• Performance fabric
• Sewing machine
• Jersey ballpoint needle
• Sewing machine
• Sewing clips
• Leggings pattern, with crotch gusset
• Serger
• Sewing pins
• Ruler

You’ll have to make a few changes to your sewing machine for this project. First, switch your needle to a jersey ballpoint needle, which will go through the fibers of your performance fabric instead of piercing them. Then, set your sewing machine to a lightning stitch. 

A crotch gusset is a little triangle piece of fabric in your crotch seam that prevents all four of the seams, coming in from the front and the back, joining together at one spot, which would be the center of the crotch. The crotch gusset disperses that seam allowance and gives better ease of movement. So, after cutting out your fabric according to the pattern, you’re going to line up the crotch gusset with the notches on the front piece of the leggings. Then stitch the gusset, starting or stopping at the marking so that you have a little extra at the top. Then take the other panel and match it up on top of the gusset, also starting at the marking. You’ll be left with a triangle in between both panels. 

Match up the front and back seams and clip them together. I don’t advise using sewing pins for this type of material. Once your pieces are clipped together, stitch down the sides, stopping at the given mark. 

To finish the edges, first you’re going to serge the edges where you sewed together the front and back pieces. Then you’re going to topstitch the edges so that everything lies nice and flat. You want to make sure your seams match up in between each other so that you don’t have four seams in one area. 

Turn the fabric right sides together, matching up the notches along the legs. Then match up the center-back and the center of the gusset. Once the pieces are clipped together, stitch all the way across. 

After cutting out the waistband pieces from your pattern, take the front and back pieces and mark your fronts so that you’ll be able to tell them apart once you’ve put them together. Then put the two pieces together and clip the sides, then stitch the side seams on both the pieces. Mark which one is going to be the lining. 

Insert the lining into the outer piece and clip them together, offsetting it by ⅛” down from the top of the waistband. Then set your machine to a wide-stitch zigzag stitch. Take your elastic, and measure it around your waist, then pin the elastic in four spots on the wrong side, and sew it, pulling the elastic as you stitch. Then turn the waistband out right side out and stitch the top to the top of the legs of your pants. 

Turn the edges of the legs over about ½” and pin that in place. Then, using a twin needle, topstitch around the leg opening. You can also use a cover stitch instead. Once you’ve finished doing that, your leggings are complete! 

There you have it, folks! I love how these leggings came out. They are so comfortable and so soft, I absolutely love wearing them! I will admit, though, that they don’t pass the squat test, so I’ll probably avoid wearing them at yoga, but otherwise, I’m obsessed with them. Give this project a try, you won’t regret it. Are there specific times you wear your leggings, or do you wear them anywhere and everywhere? Let me know in the comments!