Scary Sewing of Spandex Part 1: Patterns & Measurements

So far, I’ve mostly been playing around with plain ol’ fabrics, knowing that non-stretchy stuff is generally easier to work with. Plus, I do have a general, long-term goal of learning to sew beyond making a Spider-Man costume. But making the costume is a pretty darn big short term goal, and I’ve decided that since I need to at some point learn to sew with spandex, I should start working with spandex. And if I can get pretty good at that, then the other fabrics will be even easier, right?

But whether it’s spandex or some other fabric, an important part of this whole process if learning the proper use–and sometimes creation–of good patterns. Of course, crucial to creating a good pattern is the ability to take good measurements.

There are plenty of helpful folks out there on the Internet, certainly even beyond those I have found so far. This guy at Somewhat Stretchy (love that site name) seems to have the process of making a bodysuit (or “catsuit,” as he calls it) from scratch down to a science. And I do mean science, with math and everything. I am not quite ready for this process yet, but it’s on my list.

What I have decided to do is partly about practice and learning for sewing spandex, and partly pseudo-experiment related to my previous thoughts (and those of others) on just how a teenage science nerd was able to create a Spider-Man costume from scratch. Now, this is not some crazy thing where I pretend like the only resources I have at hand are those that would have been available to Peter Parker in the late ’60’s in Queens/Manhattan, NY and so on. I’m more focused on the principle of putting together a practice costume (distinct from my eventual, final costume) piece by piece with the following general criteria:

1) Final Assembly Anonymity: No one place from which I am acquiring the materials could easily envision the final result of the combined materials. (That is in contrast to, say, Peter having ordered a custom made Spider-Man suit, thereby drawing a tad bit of suspicion that he was, in fact, Spider-Man.)
2) Relatively Homegrown: Minimize the use of professional services, such as seamstresses/tailors, professional screen-printing, etc.
3a) Comically Compartmentalized: The costume should consist of the “traditional” pieces as classically portrayed in the comics: shirt, pants, mask, gloves, boots.
3b) Pseudo-Seamlessness: Some means of achieving at least a partial illusion of “seamlessness,” as this is how the comic costume is typically drawn, despite that the mask, gloves, etc. are removable.
4b) Relatively Inexpensive: I don’t know that I can achieve “jobless (at that time) teen living with his cash-strapped aunt” cheap, but I’ll try to keep costs down where I can.

I’m not entirely sure how this will all be achieved as yet, but I have some pretty good ideas that I will be trying out and putting on display here.

But the costume of a thousand stitches has to start somewhere, and this one will start with a pair of–well, let’s call them spandex pants for men. Or leggings. Okay, they’re leggings.

This lady’s site, So Sew Easy, so far lives up to its name with this tutorial for leggings. It has an easy to follow video guide for taking one’s own measurements, a downloadable spreadsheet that allows you to enter in your measurements and get automatic calculations for the numbers that go into the pattern, and a great step-by-step for the pattern itself. This is the most sense this process has made to me so far. I made this:

Other than the poor planning involved in the vertical positioning, I think this turned out pretty well. Of course, we’ll see how this translates into an actual pair of spandex leggings. But that’s later.

There hasn’t been a good time to pull out the sewing machine yet, so I figure I would go ahead and get the pattern done for the next part, the shirt. (Sometimes the comics refer to this part of the costume as the “tunic,” apparently because regular, non-super people wear “shirts.”)

I didn’t immediately find a good tutorial for making the shirt, but I did see a couple of tutorials involving making a shirt pattern based on an existing shirt. Combining this idea with some of the upper body measurement tips from Somewhat Stretchy, and the principles of pattern-making/measurement-taking I garnered from the “So Sew Easy” lady, I pulled out my old Spider-Man costume, got the basic shape I wanted for the front and back torso pieces, tweaked that with body measurements, and came up with this:

It looks a lot like a shirt pattern (part of one, anyway). So, here’s hoping.

Next steps: Trace and tweak the sleeves, and do some practice sewing with a small sample of the spandex I’ll be using.

NEXT: (see previous sentence)