Sew Fun- Gymnastics Leo Tutorial (12M)

Once again I am a hard headed beginner and have dreams of sewing things far beyond my capabilities! For Project #2 I decided I would make Ruth a leotard (12 month.) She will be starting a gymnastics mommy and me class soon and I just had to have something for her to wear. As I researched I came to find there is simply nothing out there smaller than a size 2T for gymnastics leotards. Due to my own personal gymnastics career I'm also a bit predigest to sending her in a ballet leotard... It's just not the same. Therefore, all that was left was for me to make her one!

Thank you Pinterest!!! I found a lady's website with a vague tutorial where she made one for her daughter. Feel free to check it out here.

I decided to take pictures throughout the process for anyone else who might want to make one but is a beginner (and needs lots of pictures to look at.) Here you go:

I started out with some purple spandex (1 yard which was FAR TO MUCH, half a yard would have been plenty with room for mistakes) and some teal elastic. Mine was 4 way stretch so I didn't have to worry about which way to cut it. Be sure that if you get 2 way stretch  (test it by stretching) that you cut it with the stretch going across the belly

I made my pattern by a combo of working with a bathing suit's shape that fits Ruth and looking at the blogs pictures. If you're making one for your little girl having a bathing suit to work off of will help. Here is my first draft of my pattern. The neck was too low on this one. If you use my shape make sure not to cut it so deep or your little girl might look more like she's wearing a wrestling suit.

 Here is the fabric against her bathing suit

Next I pinned the front and back pieces together and did a zigzag stitch at all the seams. I recommend practicing this a few times on a scrap piece as it took me a little while to get the feel of working with the spandex.***note*** Make sure both pieces of fabric are going the right way! I did not have both my shinny sides facing toward each other the first time I sewed :(

 Here it is from a top view:

I then added a straight stitch next to the zigzag. Not sure why you need both but several websites said I should do this... so I did.

Here it is turned right side out:

Finally, I added fold over elastic (FOE) to cover the edges. I think this really made it come together. I tried pinning the FOE at first but my first try didn't look very good. I watched a few videos and decided that I should try to sew it with the fabric in the  middle without pins. I don't have a close up but I used the same zigzag stitch as before.

Here is Ruth showing off the final product! She loved the way the spandex felt. I loved the way she looked in it!

Front

Back

Girl's got to have her tutu!