June 23, 2016

Sportswear plans

Remember this top I made? 

Seen here fairly recently, when I went bouldering with my cousin and my brother. 
By the way, my cousin, the smallest gentleman in this picture, is still the only person who ever made a remark about the arrow on my back without me pointing it out...
I still like and wear it and the other tops I have made. After I started making my own, I just got too fed up with the way RTW tops creep up over hips to go back. I also still wear the just-over-the-knee trousers I made for climbing and, if it is not too warm for that, the cardigans.

But time has passed and life is not so kind to sportswear.

This is what that top, the most recent one I made, looks like now. 

I don't think the fabric is of poor quality or anything like that. What you see is just the natural result of certain types of climbing. Specifically, of climbing balance-y routes on vertical or less-than-vertical walls. If you are in the kind of route where you have to inch your way forward between very bad handholds (or even without handholds) you have to lean towards the wall to maintain your balance. Often, when doing that, even a flat-chested girl like me can hear the fabric of her top snag on the rough surface of the wall (and I have it on good authority that the guys aren't free of this either). 
This happens to all my climbing tops. 
And both pairs of me-made trousers have developed a hole at a knee. At different places on different knees, to be precise. If both had holes in exactly the same place, I should re-evaluate my climbing style...

In short, I could do with adding some more sports clothes. I'd like one or two crop tops (which I would only use for bouldering in warm weather), two or more normal tops (in which case it would be nice to try a new pattern) and two more pairs of trousers. 
For now, I am planning on using the fabrics in my stash although I have to say I am starting to think about real performance fabrics...
I think I will start with tops. So many types of lycra to choose from! For trousers, I am not so sure. I have no complaints about the fabric of the old pairs (other than that it developed holes before the stretch woven of my my RTW trousers did) but it is dark brown...  I'm still not drawn towards leggings though!

Oh, and I am thinking about making a bag for my climbing stuff. At the moment, we are still using an old sportsbag but that thing has clearly seen better days. These things are usually made from plastic-backed nylon and I can see the reason for that. And I just happen to have held on to an off-cut from the black-out curtain in our bedroom... The material seems very similar...

As usual, it is a case of "so many plans, so little time".  

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