DIY Running Gaiters

by Sara Quackenbush, posted in Gear, MYOG
Not bad for 30 minutes and a bunch of scraps!

Running gaiters: ever popular with hikers, but I have never tried them! I swear by my winter waterproof gaiters in snowy conditions, but have never tried this variation. I dug through my sewing room and found everything I needed to make them, so thought it would be a fun project on a Friday evening.

I only made my pattern to my own foot size, which is a size 8 for reference. If anyone is trying to use this pattern to make their own, a note that I have large calves and these are a hair on the tight side: fine with tights, okay with thin hiking pants, a stretch (puns always intended!) with thicker pants. My fabric had a firm stretch as it is intended for compression sports wear, so a fabric with a more relaxed stretch would have been fine with these dimensions. Alter accordingly!

Materials:

  • ~1/3 of a yard of 4 way stretch fabric. I used a poly performance fabric I have on hand from some running tights I made.
  • 1.5 yards clear elastic (helps the top and bottom edges hold their shape, prevents them from stretching out over time)
  • Small amount of velcro
  • 6 inches of 1/2″ webbing
  • Snaps, I used 4 little metal snaps that I had around that happen to fit through the gaiter loop on my shoes. Kam snaps would have looked better, but I wanted to use what I already had.

Most notes are in the photo captions, but one general thing: use a stretch stitch! I used the dedicated stretch stitch on my machine, but a zig-zag works fine too.

The pattern piece I used, with measurements
My two pieces of gaiter fabric cut out
I sewed the front foot seam using a stretch stitch. This fabric won’t fray on the seams, so seam finishing was unnecessary, but they could be serged if so desired (I didn’t want to bother getting my serger dug out and set up!)
Clear elastic inserted into the top and bottom hems will help them hold their shape over time.
I laid the elastic flush with the edge of the fabric, then folded it over and hemmed.
Top and bottom edges all hemmed!
The finished main body of the gaiters, time to add the velcro and snaps!
The velcro is sewn onto the heel side of the gaiters. My shoes have built in velcro, so I needed to make sure I had the correct parts of the velcro in the right places. For my Altras, that was the loops on the inside and the hooks on the outside
Next I sewed on a small length of 1/2″ webbing to the inside of the front of the gaiters. This is what the snaps will be sewn onto.
I sewed these snaps on by hand. This took longer than the whole rest of the project! Kam snaps would have looked better and been easier to put on, but I didn’t have any on hand. I then cut down the webbing and melted the end to prevent fraying. I left enough of a ‘tab’ past the last snap to make undoing them easy.
All done!

I’m happy with how they turned out, and can’t wait to test them!

2 thoughts on “DIY Running Gaiters”

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