V1440 leather detail leggings.

I‘m back once more with my Sensible Sewing challenge. This far I have managed to finish all the makes but it will take some time to post all of them! This time I show the V1440 Donna Karan collection leggings. I actually made two pairs, but the other one is just your basic black pair and nothing very interesting. After making that, I wanted to do something different. I have stored a piece of black leather for a long time in my stash. I decided to use the leather to decorate the bottom part of the front trouser legs.

The pattern V1440 and sizing

V1440 has three patterns in sizes 6 to 22. I have made the sleeveless blouse here. I also did the leggings back then but they came up too big and I never posted them. Luckily I decided to save them since I have gained a bit of weight since sewing those leggings and nowadays the size 12 fits quite nicely. The jacket, however, doesn’t really tempt me. It might work without the huge collar and the fronts that cover the interesting cut that the jacket has.

The leggings pattern doesn’t have any extra details, but it was very simple to chop the front pattern piece in two and cut the lower part out of a different material.

Materials

I bought some black ponte knit which was one of the recommended materials listed on the pattern. The leather I used was really thin and soft, perhaps goat. I was worried about it ripping if the leather would stretch, so I left the leather decoration just to the portion under my knees.

Sewing and the fit

This was a really quick make. However, as I was trying it on, before inserting the waistband elastic, I noticed that the back waistline was very low. This, I realised, was due to my fabric being much less stretchy than the materials I had used previously. The waistline was very close to being too short, so I couldn’t just turn the top edge as the instructions commanded. Instead, I used a trick that I have seen in some commercial trousers and used wide elastic as a facing. That worked nicely.

I am still not very happy with how these leggings fit. With this less stretchy fabric, I should have scooped out the back of the crotch curve to make more room for my bum. With any other trouser pattern that is my standard procedure but since the previous versions out of stretchier fabrics fitted so well, I didn’t.

Luckily the fit issues don’t show lower down. I usually wear leggings with long tunics or short dresses, so they will cover any fit issues.

Thank you for reading and don’t forget to subscribe! Do enjoy the last days of summer and happy sewing!

Katja