My desire to sew something to skate in came after I bought an inexpensive tunic dress at Marshall's that became an uniform going skating that summer because it made it easy for me to transition from what I was comfortable on wearing on street on hot days, to the ice rink. I was wearing knee length leggings and this tunic dress to the rink and even running errands without feeling under dressed. Then at the rink I added over the knees legwarmers and an athletic jacket and I was ready to skate. No fuss, no changing in dressing room or bathroom and packing extra clothes. That tunic was made from a flimsy rayon fabric and was short lived and I couldn't find something similar. After the summer was gone and I would wear skating a long sleeves sport blouse over legging to the rink and I was wishing for something to cover my behind. So I had no choice but to make my own.
Now, I did sew when I was younger. A lot... I studied fashion design and pattern making for two years, had two fashion shows in school and sewed for clients. But then, I decided to take another career and I've been sewing just a couple a times a year. And I've never got to work with knits. Knits while very forgiving need different patterns and sewing skills than I had. But thanks to youtube I picked it up quickly. My at this point sewing machine was a very cheep and simple one and was stretching the knits so I had to buy a serger. That makes sewing knits really quick and easy.
These are the first tunics I've sewed for skating practices. They are really bad pictures (snapshots from videos of my practices, taken with my phone), sorry for that.
I made them quite loose so after they rise as I rise the hands, they'll
go back on their own, I wouldn't have to pull them down. The white one
is a thick poly knit and the dark gray is bamboo terry with tie dye inserts on the sides. The poly pilled
quite fast, the bamboo lasted for few years. It is disappointing to put so much work in a sewing project only to last for few wears. I'm sharing this because that
has became my main problem, how to judge the quality of the fabric. And
it seems there is no way. I have to restrain myself and use reorderable
fabrics that I test first. That became especially
important when I was asked by other skaters to make some for them.
As I was getting better at skating (maybe the fashion helped?) I was getting too warm in my tunics. As I was looking for something thinner I came over some wool knits, a blue gray and a cream. They were just a little ticker than a t shirt fabric. I have some ski base layers made of something similar. I made a basically long t shirt from the blue one and as it was looking rather plain I added a ruffle 2 inches above of where the tunic was ending. I don't have pictures with this one but I'll take some next time I'll wear it. At this point I've started Ice Dancing, and I think everybody that learns Ice Dancing knows Kseniya and Oleg youtube videos. The ruffle was inspired by one of Kseniya's skirts. With the cream knit I've learned my lesson and I design it to be more than a long t shirt. I added an asymmetrical piece inspired by another skirt of Kseniya. You can see it in the videos I posted in My jumps post, and here is a snapshot.
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