craftgrrl | Helmet Panties

I spent the last day or so making two helmet panties for my roller derby league, the Queen City Roller Girls. We're traveling to Hamilton, ON on Saturday for a bout, so we needed a new pair of panties to match our lovely new shirts. After printing out the pattern for the panties (and making several copies for my league), I discovered that the pattern was at least twice the size it needed to be. Ugh. So, after throwing a few objects and using a few select words, I decided to do the best that I could with what I had. Behind the cut is my mini tutorial on how to make helmet panties. I'm not exactly Martha Stewart, but I think I did well considering what I had to work with. The panties are a bit tight on the helmet, but they should do the job!

xoxo,
C.N. Red
Queen City Roller Girls

Start with one helmet panty that is several inches too big for the helmet. This is how big it was on my helmet before I trimmed anything off. Notice the mullet action going on in the back.

After trimming the panties a little, I taped up the sides to the helmet to see how much I needed to take it in. I bet Martha Stewart didn't think of using medical tape as a multi-tasker, huh?

Now my helmet cover kinda looks like a big purple vagina. Hahaha! Besides putting my mind in the gutter, I also pinned up the sides so I could sew a pocket to add 1/8" elastic string.

The helmet cover is almost complete! The sides were stitched up, the elastic was added, and the back seam where the elastic goes was closed up. Now we just need to add a couple of stars for a jammer cover, or a big line down the middle for a pivot cover.

Looks like I decided to go with the pivot panty. Pick your other uniform color and make a huge stripe down the middle of your cover. Pin it up really well, then stitch up each side really well. I used a small zig-zag stitch for all of my sewing on this project, since it's sturdier and will stretch rather well.

Hey look, I'm playing pivot! For all of you non-derby folks, the pivot keeps the speed of the pack, as well as keeping the pack together, calling out plays, and acts as the last line of defense for her team. It's a pretty important job, thus the helmet cover.

If you want to make a jammer helmet panty, just add a star to each side of your helmet instead of a stripe. See? Now I'm a jammer! Again, for you non-derby folks, the jammer is the one player on her team who can score during each jam. She gets a point for every opponent she passes.