Jalie 2796 Snow Day Skort

Last Tuesday was a snow day, so I spent ~9 hours working on the Jalie 2796 skort, the first skort I have ever sewn.



I'm pulling up the skirt here so you can see the shorts underneath.  And because it's Jalie, the shorts are super cleverly sewn in.....

I love love love the shorts sewn into the skort underneath.  I read in the PR reviews that when they say they are compression shorts, they really mean it...plus Jalie wants you to use fabric with 70% stretch and mine (activewear fabric from Apple Annie online--54% nylon, 17% poly, 29% lycra, "From a leading sportswear manufacturer") was around 50%.  My hips are a 40 which means in Jalie that's size V....based on that info I traced the pattern with an additional 1" everywhere (seam allowance, top of shorts and bottom of shorts)  and used it all except on the bottom (the shorts were peeking out of the bottom of the skirt).  There are no side seams to the shorts, just the center front and center back seams, so I used every inch of those additional 4 inches.

The waistband also has 4" added to the size V.

For the skirt part I did not need the 1" SA....with 4 side seams that was 8" extra! The regular V was totally fine, even  though the pink side panels are only 25% stretch.


Here you can see the cute side panel.

 It actually forms a pocket for your iPod or iPhone or iWhatever.

There's elastic at the top of that panel on the upper layer.... and then it makes this cute crossover detailing at the bottom

Ugh it is not perfect but from 4' away it's totally fine.  If I make it again I will  do better with that.  It's too long of a story to describe why it doesn't look better.



The pink fabric (Joann's performance fabric from last year) did not want to take my stretch twin needle at all, hence it's just a plain stitch.

But that Apple Annie fabric?? It *loved* my stretch twin needle. It was like that needle and that fabric were meant to be together forever and never to part. and the hem was still actually stretchy!

SO even though it looks sort of a-line in some of these pictures (like above), it's very much a tight body-con silhouette. I didn't fully realize this just looking at the envelope picture (though I would have had I looked more closely at the review pictures).

You can see more clearly how it's very body con here (I lifted my tank to show the waistband):



How did it do???
I wore it to boogietone last Thursday.  BT is a pretty high impact, active, sweaty dance based class that I adore.  To stabilize the side panels, I used a layer of the Apple Annie black fabric...but that means there are 4 layers of fabric on each of my hips so it just felt like a lot of fabric on me.  The AA fabric is quite thick (it is actually recommended for cold weather workouts) so I think next time I would make the shorts out of the AA fabric (because it is compressing and comfy feeling) and the outer skirt out of thinner fabric.  Also I will never use the pockets so I'd either eliminate the side panel completely or change it to a one layer boring rectangle or even modify it to be A-line (my preferred silhouette).

There is an A-line Jalie skating skirt pattern that I just bought this weekend, so I'm eager to try that out with these shorts (the skating skirt has panties attached, not shorts and I prefer shorts as we do squats and lunges as part of the class).

So this is part of my entry for the PR Activewear contest.  I still need to make a coordinating tank (the one here coordinates but I made it waaay before the timeframe of this contest).  I started muslining Jalie and  Kwik Sew tanks this weekend...though I might go back to my TNT Simplicity pattern instead.  You know there will be a lace overlay involved!!!  Unless I totally scrap this plan and start working on the other plan percolating in my brain....


No dressform pix this time as it is a skort and Izzy doesn't have legs!

Be well!