Now that I am a couple of months past the birth of my third (and final) baby and a few more months before my fortieth birthday, I have been feeling the urge to start running again. In a happy turn of events, there are now a plethora of running skort options out there for those of us who would like functional clothes without feeling like we are running in our underwear. These Tough Girl Skirts from Skirt Sports caught my eye, as I will be running in the cold for most of the next three seasons. Sadly, I’m not in a place in life where I can justify forking over eighty some dollars for an item of exercise clothing. So I went to the consignment store sale in the hopes of finding someone else’s cast off skort. No luck, but I did find a running shirt made out of the same material for $3. I had an old pair of running tights that I got for free from a boyfriend who was training the BC Women’s Dragonboat team (always fun to look like a sponsored athlete!), but I saw tights at the same store for $5.
I cut the shirt off straight across at the under arms.
Next I pinned it to the waistband of the existing pants, just underneath where the drawstring lies. I folded it over once and used a zig zag stitch to sew them together.
I don’t have a fancy machine, and I am not a great seamstress, and I have NO patience with stretchy slippery fabrics, so I made the cut off shirt fit the waistband of the pants mostly by making pleated folds and a little bit by stretching the two layers to match. If I do it again, I might do some kind of darts in a more organized fashion. Here’s a sample on the back.
And here it is on from a couple of angles.
Front:
Side:
Back: (strange angle/ shot; taking a picture of myself in a mirror from the back is somewhat awkward!)
Not perfect, but totally functional, and soon I’ll be going so quickly, no one will have time to notice those funky seams! It was enough of a success that I feel like going back and trying another one. Maybe a shortie this time. If it turns out better or I learn anything else, I’ll add to this post.
Love this. We should run together this fall.