How to Braid Leggings

February 10 2020 – Christopher Coughlin

As promised, with the help of the Internet, I am going to make my first DIY pair of braided leggings. Braided leggings are great for festivals, working out, or even just every day wear. They’re so comfortable, cute and SO easy to make. In just a couple steps I’m going to show you how to turn any old pair of leggings into something trendy and cute using only a pair of scissors. I also want to include that I am not the most crafty person, so if I can make these in 20 minutes, so can you!

The only things you are going to need for this are a pair of old leggings and scissors, (preferably fabric scissors because, depending on how thick your leggings are they can be hard to cut.) Safety pins or a needle and thread can be used to tie up the ends, or chalk or a colored pencil can be used to mark where you want to start, but neither of these things are necessary.

The first step is to put your leggings on and decide where you want your first cut to be. This step is important because it’s hard to judge how high up you’re cutting when the leggings aren’t on. This part is based on personal preference, depending on how much of your leg you want to show. I marked where I wanted to cut mine so that you guys could see. If you want you can just hold a finger to that spot or place something on top of it to keep track.

As you can see, I put a little line on where my upper thigh is in white pencil. I wanted the design of my leggings to be on the front, but you can also put them on the sides as well.

The next step is to pinch the leggings in the spot where you want the cuts to be, and fold them over, as shown in the picture. Make sure that the center of the leggings, where my mark is, is in the middle of the fold. Also make sure they each leg is perfectly lined up with the other so that the cuts are even.

Now you can start cutting. The size of your cuts all depends on personal preference. I made my cuts about two inches long, with about an inch in between. Cut all the way from where you want them to start to the very bottom, cutting into both legs at once. It can also look really cool if you vary the length of the cuts by making them start small and get bigger in the middle. I kept mine all the same length to keep things simple. I also saw a lot of people using a ruler to decide where to cut, but I didn't feel like that step was necessary.

Once you cut all the way to the bottom, unfold the leggings and stretch out all of the cuts you made. The left side is the side that I stretched out; the right is what they should look like right after cutting them.

Once you stretch out the cuts, put the leggings back on so they are easier to braid. This is what the cut leggings look like on. I personally think they look really cool just like this and would totally wear these without even braiding them too.

Ok so here comes the braiding part. It's a lot simpler than it looks. You just take the top string and place it over the second one, pulling the second string under. You continue doing this exact same thing until you get all the way to the bottom. Once you get to the bottom, I was lazy and just tied a simple knot to get mine to stay. If you plan on wearing them to a rave or festival it would be a better idea to sew or safety pin the bottom strings to each other, but so far mine have been fine with just tying them.