Saving a leggings fail with... a belt?!

Last month I decided that I needed some neutral-colored leggings for work. (All my leggings are very bright and don't always match well with work clothes.) So I took out my leggings pattern (if you don't have a leggings pattern, here's how to draft your own!) and started sewing. (And here's my tutorial on how to sew leggings, or really any pants.) But guess what major boo boo I made? Apparently suffering from a massive brain blockage, I'd used regular cotton jersey for my leggings. Which obviously don't have enough stretch for leggings. After sewing together the leg and crotch seams I attempted to try them on, but couldn't even get them past my knees, they were so tight. Eek!

And this is where I managed to save my leggings fail with a belt. Yes, a belt! See that long black thing in the photo above? That is nothing other than a long sewn strip of stretchy black viscose (or some other super stretchy fabric) that was a tie-around belt for a dress of my sister's. She never actually used the belt and so she gave it to me. I'd thought that I'd use it to make a massive fabric flower or something, but during then I realized that I could attempt to save my leggings disaster with it by sewing it into the legs as side stripes! It would provide extra fabric, but it was also stretchy so I hoped that it would be enough to make its way around my thighs.

I cut down the outside of both legs and sewed the belt fabric in. I was then able to pull the leggings up, but they were still too short. I didn't have enough fabric at the bottom to hem and the edge of the fabric just barely covered my butt, so sewing the elastic casing was out of the question.

I had just enough belt fabric left to go around one ankle, so I cut the remaining belt strip open (luckily it was two layers), cut it in half, folded each rectangle in half, and sewed them onto the bottoms of the leggings as cuffs. This way I didn't have to sacrifice any leggings fabric in hemming.

I would've used the same belt fabric as a stretchy fabric waistband, but there wasn't any left. So I just made a loop of wide black elastic and sewed it on directly to the fabric edge as an elastic waistband. So I was able to raise the top of the leggings, once again, without having to sacrifice the fabric with an elastic casing. Hooray!

The leggings are not perfect and the unstretchy jersey does make for slightly uncomfortable and tight leg wear, however I'm happy that I did manage to salvage the project. And I love the look of the stripes! So, even if this project didn't start out as a refashion, I was able to save it with a little refashioned touch!

For more details on this project and other refashioning and sewing tutorials, check out my blog, Cucicucicoo!