How to Make Leg Warmers

Whether you're wondering how to make leg warmers because leg warmers are so expensive or because you enjoy making things, leg warmers are, thankfully, easier to make than most people think. The two most common methods of making leg warmers are to knit them or to take a knitted sweater and turn the sleeves into leg warmers.

In a children's dance class, there is very little special equipment needed, which is a good thing considering how quickly children grow out of everything they own. In general, girls will need a ballet leotard, a pair of tights, and a pair of ballet slippers. It's as ballerinas get older that the dress code changes, allowing them to wear all kinds of warm up items during class, such as pants, leg warmers, shorts, and various shirts.

In addition, many ballerinas (and many non-ballerinas) wear leg warmers in various other non-dance contexts. Leg warmers can be the perfect accent for an outfit with short pants or a skirt, not to mention that they also fulfill a practical function: keeping your legs warm!

Most leg warmers are knitted, although some are made from fabrics as well. Leg warmers for dancers can be bought at just about any dancewear store, as well as from several online dancewear websites. If you're feeling ambitious, you can knit your own pair!

Knitting on the Net Legwarmers offers free online step-by-step how to make leg warmers instructions for those who already know how to knit. Of course, if you don't know how to knit yet, making leg warmers could turn into a major project if you first have to master the art of knitting. Luckily, there is an alternative method for making leg warmers that requires only a few basic sewing skills; instead of needing a few skeins of yarn, you'll need an old sweater that you don't mind parting with.

In order to transform an old sweater you no longer want into leg warmers, you should choose a sweater that is of a color you want as leg warmers and whose sleeves are wide enough to fit around your legs. If you only want knee-length leg warmers, the sleeves will likely always fit; however, if you want leg warmers that go above your knees, you might need a bigger sweater than your own size.

You can first try taking the sleeves off the sweater you are using by taking a seam ripper to the seam connecting the sleeves to the sweater. If a seam ripper will not work, for whatever reason, simply cut the sleeves off with scissors (you're going to finish the seams of the leg warmers anyway).

First, finish the seam from the shoulder end of the sweater sleeve, and then take a plastic needle threaded with a ribbon color you like and thread the ribbon through the wrist end of the sleeve. The ribbon should be long enough so that you can tie the ribbon at whatever length will enable the leg warmers to stay on your legs without falling down (measure the upper-most point of your leg where you want the leg warmers; the wrist end of the sleeve will be the upper end of the leg warmer).

Alternatively, you can turn the sleeve inside out, take the wrist end and put an elastic around it and turn over the end around the elastic so that when you turn the leg warmer right side out, the elastic is completely hidden and sewn inside the leg warmer.

Lastly, finish the seam from the upper end of the sleeve (this will be the bottom of the leg warmer). Your new leg warmers are ready to go!

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