Summer Internship: DAY 50

50 DAYS OF BEING AN INTERN!!!  I cannot even believe how much I have learned in such a quick period of time.  I have about a week left of this experience; although I wish I could keep learning on the side of Christopher, I have to graduate this coming Spring 2014!  Once this is accomplished I will have a major in apparel merchandising and minors in business and dance.  My education will not be done there; however.  After this internship experience, it has now solidified my future career path.  I want to narrow in on fashion design specifically so my goal is to obtain a degree in it once my four year education is finished.  With that being said, internships are great insight when trying to discover your passion and figuring out jobs that suit you.  I actually almost stayed in my home town to do my internship, but after discussing with professors, they recommended I venture out.  I am EXTREMELY grateful I took that advice because I would not have the knowledge I do now.  This journey has changed my life.  I probably would have never gotten into sewing the way I have, learned sketching techniques, nor gotten the incredible insight from a true designer.  I know I have said it before but I will say it again, I am truly blessed with having done this over the summer.  

But enough of my "schpeel"!  Let's talk about what I did today:) I was doing independent work today at home working on a sewing project.  From the collection I had sketched out, one of the pieces included leggings and a sweater.

    
As I had said before, I had to modify the sweater pattern as well as choose somewhat similar material to what I had sketched out.

So let's get started with how these leggings are actually made!  They are fairly simple.  After the pattern is cut, you have something that looks like this:

Basically it looks like absolutely nothing right now; definitely not your idea of how pants will come out but trust me it will!  I start out by pinning those curvatures you see at the top to be serged.

These are actually the crotch seams (not sure of a more appropriate way to say it so I will just be blunt).  Once I take these seams and pull them to the sides they look like so:

SURPRISE!  Pants!  It is like magic how garments come out after some manipulation.  

My next step is to do some shortening on the legs.  Again, I am short and if my legs were ever that long, it would be a miracle!

I marked the ends to cut off around 4 inches on each side.  Then I pinned the leg hems to be finished.

When this hem is serged and flipped out it is now finished!  The next item I do is serge the legs.  The last step is putting on the waistband and elastic.  

I leave a small opening to insert the elastic.  To help pull this through, it is best to use a safety pin on one end.  

After it has made its way through, sew your elastic ends together and let it sit in the band as the rest of it is ready to be serged.

Once that is complete, you have yourself a pair of leggings!  These in particular are a sweater knit material that easily stretch and will be warm for fall and winter.  

I will show photos of the leggings on once the matching sweater is ready too:)