Hi! This is Shivika and I’m an avid maker of children’s clothing and occasional blogger over at A Little Bit Indian. I’m here today to share a pattern variation for Megan’s Mini Virginia Leggings pattern. It was perfect timing because my 9 yr old daughter was complaining about not being able to wear her tennis skirt at her lessons, now that the weather has gotten colder, so I thought it would be great to add a tennis skirt to the leggings.
First off, the pattern is super straightforward and fits amazing. I used a soft jersey for the leggings and some performance stretch fabric I got at Joann’s for the skirt.
Step 1. I sewed up Version 2 of the leggings, which has the separate waistband, in a size 8/9 and I left off the cuffs because Anaya likes her leggings a bit cropped. This step was a breeze.
Step 2. I then measured around the finished waist of the leggings with my measuring tape to make sure my skirt had the same waist measurement. If I were smarter, I would have just used the elastic length measurement in the pattern minus the 1″ for overlap.
Step 3. Then came the skirt. If I had to do it over again, I would have kept it easy and just used one fabric because the math of getting these 4 panels to look the way I wanted and equal the waist measurement of the leggings took more brain power than I wanted to use. I was trying to get a tennis-y vibe and also wanted to minimize the gathers to avoid a lot of bunching up at the waist. Alternatively, you could cut two rectangles, sew up the sides, and gather to match the waist of the leggings. There so many great, easy tutorials for basic girl’s skirts so the possibilities are endless.
For my project, I used this ridiculously overthought drawing as a guideline for the pattern pieces and this post as a general reference for skirt length because Anaya was nowhere to be found to measure. (The one thing I miscalculated was the length of the skirt – instead of subtracting the number of inches of the folded waistband from the length of the skirt, I took off the number of inches of the full pattern piece…oops. Good thing its a tennis skirt!)
Step 4: After sewing up the skirt, I pulled the finished legging through the skirt so the skirt wrong side and leggings right side were together. (Sorry about all the unclipped threads… I was really excited to see how it was coming together)
Step 5: Finally, I added the waistband on top of the skirt so the skirt was sandwiched between the waistband and leggings with all raw edges facing up and continued with Megan’s pattern instructions to attach the waistband to the leggings.
Step 6: Viola! Also excuse the mediocre pictures – my lens is not the greatest with indoor shots, but Anaya LOVES how it turned out and is already requesting more. I didn’t hem the skirt (mainly because it was already too short) or the bottom of the leggings because I didn’t think it needed it, but to each her own.
I hope this inspires you to add some skirts to this staple leggings pattern. Thanks!
// Now it’s your turn! //
We love seeing your makes! Don’t forget to tag your creations #MNminivirginia and @megannielsenpatterns to share your Mini Virginia’s.
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