The making of the jogger pants

It wasn't too long ago that I took the plunge into athleisure and wore jogger pants in public for the first time. Funny thing about jogger pants—I've never liked them. When I was a young un-unfashionista of around 8-11 years old, I wore almost nothing but coordinated sweatsuits. I wore them because they were comfortable, and because they were given to me, and because that was about all I had to wear. But I hated the way they looked. I hated the way the legs bunched up at the bottom with their stupid cuffs. When straight-legged, uncuffed athletic pants became the norm in the 2000's, I was thrilled beyond belief.

But now that tapered-leg joggers are the "cool" kind of pants, I felt like I must change with the times. Today's joggers are a little more slim-fitting and clean-lined than the bulky sweatpants of my youth. If not exactly gorgeous, at least they're slightly less hideous, so decided I'd give them a fighting chance. The only problem was, I wasn't about to spend my hard-earned money on a pair of ugly pants, even if they are fashionable. I was going to make my own!

Fortunately, I have quite a collection of leisure pants, including a pair of dark grey sweats that would be the perfect candidate for jogger-conversion!

I lopped a few inches off the bottom of each leg.

Next, I played around with how much width I wanted to remove from the bottom, pinning the excess fabric once I'd decided.

I reattached the bottom portion, making it much narrower than it had been originally. It had only one seam, so I put that at the back of the leg. I left the remaining leg fabric intact because I wasn't exactly sure how much I wanted to remove yet.

After a couple of try-ons, I determined the amount of tapering I wanted the leg to have, then sewed a seam up the back of the leg to achieve the effect.

In the end, I got this oh-so-stylish result!

Since my joggers are the closest thing to sportswear I'll ever sport, I felt I had to do something suitably athletic to model them:

Jumping for joggers!