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Color Blocked Blanca Flightsuit

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Yall know I love a jumpsuit. LOVE! A! JUMPSUIT! But my favorites have been ones that I’ve tweaked and hacked between as many as 4 different patterns, so when Closet Core came out with the Blanca Jumpsuit pattern, I was over the moon! I knew the chances of it fitting me pretty closely right out the envelope was strong, and I was excited to be able to make some small tweaks to one pattern as opposed to big tweaks to four (I don’t even think I could recreate the jumpsuits I have made in the past since so many adjustments were made to them in different ways- I try to keep up with them during construction and write them all down but I inevitably get so overwhelmed with all the things needed to tweak the fit that I usually abandon my note-taking duties to focus on the actual garment.

 

Anyways, the Blanca Flight Suit has some lovely details, as to be expected from a Closet Core pattern, but they are easy to adapt to one’s own needs. It has a relaxed fit in the bodice, a much slimmer fit in the hip and thighs, and a straight leg that can be either cropped, full length, or tapered in with little tabs and snaps (think authentic flight suit details). There are some different pocket options for the front bodice and options for the sleeves as well. I’m normally not a “zipper straight down the front” kind of person and I usually alter my boilersuits to give them a button placket down the front but, maybe because the zipper has a facing, I really like the way it looks a lot. Which is funny because I have read that a couple people don’t like the facing (think of it a little like a fly shield but for the whole jumpsuit instead of just the zipper area on a pair of pants), but I think it makes the jumpsuit look really polished and professionally made. It’s totally a personal choice and I’m pretty sure it’s easy to omit the zipper facing if it’s not your thing, but for me it’s the only reason the zipper down the front doesn’t bother me.

I decided to make the simplest, least adorned version of the jumpsuit for my first version so I could get a feel for the shape and fit and figure out what changes I might want to make for a future make (think wearable muslin with emphasis on the “wearable” part). As I have been doing lots of color and print blocking lately, I had a pretty zany idea for how I wanted to use color in this make. I’ve done the right side vs. left side before but I hadn’t ever done a front vs. back color block, so in my next order of gifted fabric from The Fabric Store, I rifled through their marvelous assortment of linens and chose a deep burnt orange to pair with a light sky blue- sky blue is of course not in my color palette, but I love the way an orange and blue combination looks and I figured if I wore the blue on the back of the jumpsuit, it wouldn’t do any of the things to my face that pastels normally do (wash it out, make me look grey, etc).

I didn’t make too many changes for my first version- I graded out at the hips to accomodate my measurements but kept everything else pretty much the same; short sleeves, cropped length, non-zippered chest pockets. The instructions were clear and easy to follow and the whole thing came together pretty fast, considering I was color blocking and having to pay extra attention to how I was cutting the fabric and which pieces were being used where. The back bodice has this interesting pleat thing going on that creates a little visual interest and allows the wearer room in the back body without it being too full in the shoulders, which I liked a lot.

Once the majority of the garment was sewn, I tried it on and was pretty pleased with it- it came out absolutely wearable, but it’s also just REALLY FUN, because I look like business in the front and a party in the back, which pleases me to no end. However I definitely had some issues with the way the waist was sitting on me, so I made a quick and dirty fix to make it work for this version that was already nearly complete. I have a swayback and a smaller waist size compared to hip size and the waist area on this jumpsuit was so big it was literally hanging down over my butt. The flight suit is supposed to have a loose fit in the bodice and a bit of extra length in the back so that you can sit, stand, and move around with ease without the jumpsuit digging into your nether regions, but this is the opposite issue I have with a swayback, where I need to take out length in the back to accommodate the smaller distance between my hip and my waistline. But the waistline was also just way too roomy for my liking, so roomy that even with a belt on, there was so much fabric that it bunched up and gaped everywhere.

 

I knew I needed to figure out a way to take out the excess ease in the waist so I opted to slide some elastic just in the back waistline piece to see how it looked and it was a great fix. I didn’t make it super tight, I wanted to keep in line with the loose fit of the jumpsuit, but using elastic allowed the extra fabric to be eased in without looking lumpy and bumpy.

In addition to the extra room in the waistline, it also lands really low for my body. I had actually seen What Katie Sews discuss this issue in her own IG stories so I kept it in mind but didn’t want to alter my own pieces til after I had made it as drafted and could see how it fit for myself. Turns out I had the same issue- it might just be a preference thing, but I like that most of my garment waistlines hit high on me, so I will probably bring this waistline up between a 1/2″ and 1″ on my next version. I will also make a swayback adjustment and take out a little length in the back bodice at center while adding a little length to the back pants at center- hopefully that will fix the issue and make it look nicer. You can kind of see how low the waistband is on me at the back- I placed the pockets at the appropriate marks and I think they hit in the right spot, but look how close the tops of the pockets are to the waistband- there isn’t much room between the two areas which I will hopefully be able to fix my raising the waistline.

Looking at the finished garment, I wished I had made the full length of pant legs instead of cropping them, but that’s an easy fix on the next version, too. For these pictures I wore the colorblocked belt I made (which was unfinished in this photoshoot- I was still waiting for my belt rings to arrive in the mail, lol), but although the rings eventually arrived, I’ve been wearing it without the belt. This is a style preference that I have to work out for myself, but for some reason the utilitarian elements of the jumpsuit just aren’t vibing with a belt for me, whether it’s tied, made with buckles or made with rings. It’s the center front zipper that distracts me from it- a belt just looks too busy on top of the zipper (again, this is just my own taste talking- I’ve seen lots of cute versions with belts and I think they all look great). Thankfully the elastic keeps the waistline in place so I can get away with not wearing a belt, but for future versions, I probably just won’t even make one.

 

I’ve been racking my brain to figure out what I want to make my next version out of. Although I think the linen is easy and breezy to wear, I think I prefer this jumpsuit in a much more structured fabric, especially because the design is so utilitarian. I have a lightweight canary yellow wool suiting in my stash that this would look so cute with, but I also just got a gorgeous earth toned twill from Blackbird Fabrics that would be an amazing match with this pattern come fall/winter, so…maybe one of each? HA!

The Blanca Flight Suit was a joy to make and it’s even more fun to wear (although I admittedly haven’t had a ton of opportunities to don it, seeing as how the temps have regularly been in the 100’s the past couple of weeks). Here’s to hoping for a nice cool down sooner than later!

 

 

Colorblocked Kalle

Colorblocked Kalle

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FYI: This post is about the Kalle Shirt/Shirtdress by the artist formerly known as Closet Case Patterns- they have now had a name change and can be found at Closet Core Patterns! Same great patterns, cool designs and inspiring and informative blog, but with a new name! You can check out their blog to learn a little bit more on the why’s of the name change. As a massive fan of this brand of patterns I have made just about everything they have released, so I plan to go through all my old blog posts to find where I have tagged their company so I can change it to their new name.

Colorblocked Kalle

I stumbled upon the idea for this colorblocked Kalle by accident. In my stash were two cuts of raw, nubby silk that I had purchased from different fabric stores, and I bought them with no idea whatsoever of what I planned to make with them, I just really like this kind of raw silk and I snag it up whenever I have a chance. I had saved both pieces when I did my fabric palette color cull at the beginning of the year, even though one was only marginally in my deep autumn palette.

The sunny, bright yellow was an obvious yes, but the salmon was debatable. Warm, orangey peaches definitely work within my palette, but this salmon-y color is more cool than warm, and I could even tell when I held it up to my skin that it made me look pretty grey. But I kept it anyways because I’m the boss! Although I love having parameters to work with in my makes, I don’t ever want to feel like the PALETTE is in total control, and I like experimenting and seeing how I can involve other pieces outside of my normal style/color scheme. I wondered if the yellow might be lively enough to bring up the kind of dull mood the salmon silk was conveying, and the Kalle shirt seemed like a brilliant pattern to test out my theory on.

 

I’ve made the Kalle a bunch of times, both for myself and for Claire, and it’s a real TNT for me. It’s so easy to wear and it’s a very straightforward make, but it also has lots of room for playing around with the design. I’ve made the kalle shirtdress in a silk that I sandwashed in my washing machine and one of my fav versions is in a striped grey and white linen that I changed directions on so that one side was vertical and the other horizontal (never made it to the blog but it’s been on my IG feed a bunch):

https://www.instagram.com/p/CAoDEDxn68V/

The construction was very straightforward- again, I am familiar with this pattern because I have made it about 5 or 6 times now, so I don’t have much more to say about the make itself that I haven’t mentioned in my other blog posts (here is my first make of this pattern)! I decided to french all the inside seams since I knew you would get glimpses of the innards while I was wearing it and I wanted it to look nice and clean.

Fiddling around with the color blocking for this project wasn’t too tricky either, it just required some thoughtfulness of where I needed to add seam allowances (if I was splitting one pattern piece into two) and which sides needed to be a certain color. I will admit that I had to go slow with the collar pieces, lol. My brain gets easily confused with this sort of stuff but it doesn’t help me to plan it out by writing it down in advance- I have to see the fabric and the pattern pieces all laid out for them to make sense to me. I decided to do the collar all in one color to add just a tiny bit of visual interest to the garment, and since yellow is the warmer of the two hues, I wanted to have as much of it close to my face as possible (the inside of the collar is colorblocked the opposite way of the outer shirt, which I guess is just a little something for me to enjoy when I put the shirt on, haha.

Josephine’s Dry Goods kindly provided THE MOST PERFECT buttons for this top, and we did it all through instagram DMs which I am very impressed by; the color is spot on!

Oh, one other huge thing I did with this top besides colorblock it was to lengthen the back piece, haha- can’t believe I didn’t start this post with that information. I see these pics and forget that this isn’t exactly how the pattern was drafted!

 

I got the idea for this dramatic high-lo hem from, you guessed it- pinterest!

…and the bravery to try the yellow and salmon together from this image. My color choices aren’t quite the same, but the spirit is there!

My kalle is obviously a much more wearable version of the first image above but I do love the idea of a shirt as kind of a cape (I’ve been going around calling this top my “butt cape” lol), and I’m really happy with how this ended up! It’s fun and its interesting and I got to use two fabrics from my stash that, until this point, I couldn’t figure out how to utilize! Altering the back piece was super easy, I just added a lengthen line on the pattern piece and added several inches, but you can’t forget to transfer that same length to the hem facing. One of my favorite details about this pattern is the hefty hem facing that gives the garment a bit of visual and physical weight- I loooove that curve at the sides, and the dramatic drop on the back is so nice!

My only issue is that I am not entirely sure how to style it. I threw it on with some persephone pants for the purposes of this photo shoot, but truth be told, I had taken photos of like, 7 other garments already before we photographed the Kalle shirt and I was too tired to work on putting together a nice outfit- I just wanted to get it done. So I’m not sold on this outfit (I personally prefer this top with more slim-fitting bottoms), but I am curious to see what it would look like with a couple other items from my wardrobe- namely these hot pink pants (also made in raw nubby silk!) or these baby blue Peaches Trousers that might tell a beautiful color story. I’ll probably share some more ideas on what to style this with on IG stories or something at some point in the future, so if you follow me there, stay tuned!

Espadrilles: me made

Persephone Pants: me made

Kalle shirt: me made

Thanks for the photos, Claire!

 

Mustard Linen Jumpsuit and Windowpane Check Duster

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Before I begin this post, I just want to take a moment to make my position very clear- I am a staunch proponent of #blacklivesmatter #blacktranslivesmatter #disabledtranslivesmatter and #defundingthegoddamnpolice. I am so worn out by the last couple weeks and I have tried to use my social media platforms as much as I can to share information on anti-racism, dispel harmful myths about blackness, shine light on the effects of white supremacy, and uplift the voices of my black, queer community. At this point I am exhausted from having these dialogues and dealing with the ignorance that is par for the course when we start talking about why black lives matter, so I don’t have much energy to write anything very eloquent here right now (other than this blog post that I wrote weeks ago and am only now getting around to posting, haha). My website will not be a space for debate or “conversation” with white people on why black lives need to be protected and police brutality needs to finally, FINALLY, end. You are either on our side, or you are in the way. I expect that I will write more on this at some point in the future, but ’til then, if you are not an actively anti-racist person, please feel free to begin the journey of defunding your own personal white supremacy/anti-blackness and seeking out information to enlighten your mind, your heart, and your spirit…anywhere but in the comments of my post 🙂

My inspiration for this jumpsuit came directly from themindfulsewist, who used FibreMood’s Carmella Jumpsuit as a starting off point and ended up with this beautiful thing!

https://www.instagram.com/p/B58fVDaAroa/

My jumpsuit has a slightly different fit than hers (which makes me want to give hers another go at some point) but I still love how mine came out. I already had so many similar jumpsuit patterns in my stash that I couldn’t bear cutting a new one out and figuring out all the alterations, so I combined 3 or 4 patterns to end up where I did, with a slightly loose-fitting, cropped legged jumpsuit. I started out with the pants of the Intrepid Boilersuit Pattern from Alice & Co that I tested a while back, then I added the Leah Jumpsuit pattern from FibreMood (I hadn’t made this pattern before but liked the collar and boxy but not-too-loose bodice). Next I used the popover button placket from the Kalle shirtdress to create that beautiful front button band, and I think there was a little taste of a McCalls jumpsuit pattern in there…but I can’t remember exactly where- maybe in the crotch curve of the pants? lol)

Anyways, it was a real Franken-sperience putting it all together, and I didn’t quite nail it. Aesthetically it’s great, but fit-wise I really don’t like the bodice. The arm holes are too low and I hate that webbed underarm look in garments where it seems like your arm and torso are connected. It’s not uncomfortable, but I like the fit of the arms on the Intrepid Boilersuit much better. Additionally, I’m not super pleased with the crotch depth- it’s just a teeny bit too short and has a tendency to ride up when I first put it on (versus once the linen has relaxed a bit). That part is all my fault- I usually leave like, a whole inch in the seam allowance of the waistband so that I can adjust the fit as necessary, but because of the order in which I sewed the button placket in relation to the rest of the garment, I had to make a decision on length before I was able to fully try it on, and I cut myself a little short.

The popover placket is one of the things that really drew me to themindfulsewist’s jumpsuit- it looks so finished and modern with it, much more interesting than the standard button bands I usually tack onto the front. And I always hate figuring out how to finish the bottom of the normal placket where it attaches to the crotch seam. Mine just never seem to turn out very clean. But this one looks great! Unfortunately, because I was hacking so many different patterns together and wasn’t following any one set of instructions, I painted myself into a bunch of weird corners in the process of sewing this. I got myself out of every single one of them, thankfully, but watching me figure all the details out in real time was quite the sight!

 

This was mainly because I really liked the popover button placket technique for the Kalle shirtdress and didn’t want to draft a new one for the jumpsuit; I essentially just took the popover pattern piece, lengthened it to fit all the way from the neckline to the crotch, then followed the instructions as written. Since the popover placket gets sewn onto a flat, uncut bodice front (you cut the placket open during construction after it’s been sewn and stabilized to the front piece), this meant that I needed to sew the waistband before I sewed the placket, but sewing the waistband on first meant I also couldn’t try it on for fit adjustments (it’s a woven garment, so a closed front meant I couldn’t try it on until after I had already made the placket). I solved this by doing some very weird clothing yoga where only half the waistband was sewn so I wouldn’t have to unpick the WHOLE thing in case the fit was off, and then I just kind of held the bodice up to my body with my legs in the pants and eyeballed where the shoulders hit, lol. It was bizarre! And inexact! As I said earlier in the post, I could have given myself a tiny bit more room at the waist to create more room in the crotch and more of a bloused effect, but it’s not uncomfortable so I am not stressing too much about it. Again, the garment is made of linen, so it softens and stretches out quite a bit after some wear.

Speaking of the fabric, WOWZA, amirite? This is a stunning vintage washed linen from The Fabric Store in the most beautiful blend of green, brown and yellow I could imagine. Mustard is in my color palette (obviously!) and I think it’s brilliant, one of those colors that doesn’t say much when by itself, but when worn against brown skin, it just sizzles.

So you may be asking, what the hell is going on with those pockets, lol. I loved the pockets from the inspo make- extra big patch pockets that took up practically the whole thigh. I waited to draft the pockets until after the majority of the jumpsuit was constructed so I could make sure I got the proportions correct, but once I got to that point, I realized I had very little fabric left and I still needed to draft a belt. At some point I was standing in the mirror with a pocket pinned to one leg and a scrap of fabric held around my waist for the belt, just trying to visualize the proper placement. The top of the pocket and bottom of the belt were hitting at the same place on me, and when I lifted the pocket just a touch to be even with the belt, I got this interesting apron effect with it. I wondered if I had enough fabric to make this apron idea an actual design feature, and after a little puzzling around with my tiny scraps, I figured it out.

I would have loved to have even more fabric so I could make the pockets bigger and wrap the apron/belt tie around my waist more than once, but I am totally satisfied with how this came out and I think it looks so rad. I can’t explain why it works, it just does, and honestly those are some of my favorite moments in making clothes. I have only a basic understanding of color theory and would consider myself only an intermediate sewist, but when things click into place for me without any rationalizing, when I’m just overwhelmed by a moment of “THIS LOOKS SO RIGHT!”, I feel rejuvenated! Because there isn’t really a science of style- we all have different tastes and we like what we like, and when I put these pink memade mules on with this brownish yellow ensemble, I can’t explain to anyone why it works, I just know that it makes my heart beat fast when I see it. And I really want to hold on to that, hold onto being motivated by my own tastes instead of what I think I am supposed to like, or what advertisers and marketers assume I will like based on my demographic.

So yeah, here I am inspired by a jumpsuit that I didn’t quite end up with myself, but one that I love nonetheless. And truth be told, I will probably give my inspo jumpsuit another try in the very near future- after having hacked about 3 jumpsuits from different pieces of different patterns, I am ready for a regular old run of the mill pattern that will need much less work. My guess is that the new Closet Case Patterns Bianca Flight Suit is gonna work out well for me since all their other patterns do, and Heather always does a fine job of sharing smart ways to correct fitting issues along the way! So far, jackets and jumpsuits have been my sewing mainstays (did you know that I will have made SIX JACKETS in the past 6 months?!?!) and I don’t want to ruin a good thing. Speaking of jackets…

 

There isn’t a whole lot to say about this one- making it was a last minute decision because I had acquired the pattern (Simplicity R10013) on my hunt for a different coat project which I ended up not using it for. It is a very simple and quick pattern to put together, no real shaping, no lining (although I ended up adding one), and no special techniques required. It’s a great pattern for a newbie but doesn’t offer much in terms of style- it’s baggy and boxy even in the XS I made. I think the only reason I like it is because the fabric is so dynamic. The fabric is actually the wool suiting that I planned to make my Jasika Blazer out of, which, FYI, is on it’s way to the blog, I just need better photos of the jacket first. Once that post is up, you can read all about why I discarded the fabric in favor of something more stable and thick, but thankfully I figured out another way to use it. It’s actually pretty terrific as a warm weather jacket- the wool suiting is so light that it’s almost floaty, which is why I decided to line it with white dupioni silk from my stash- it needed a little more heft to ground it. Again, it’s not the most interesting jacket in the world, but it’s gonna be a dream to layer over things when the weather gets cool again; thankfully the window pane check gives it all the drama it needs.

You might recognize that this icy blue color is not in my autumn palette (one of the other reasons I decided not to make a blazer out of it!) but it pairs beautifully with this mustard yellow and also with other oranges and browns in my palette, so although I haven’t had many opportunities to wear it yet, I think it will be a nice addition to the outerwear portion of my closet.

FYI, shoes are memade suede mules that you can read more about here. Thanks as always to Claire for the pretty pics, and thanks to you all for continuing to show support and love for me and my black community!

A Jumpsuit in Wheated Silk

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This fabric, which I believe is a silk crepe, was gifted to me by a woman that teaches at the pilates/yoga studio I go to. She was a fashion student at FIDM and accumulated lots of beautiful fabric over the years from friends and family adding to her stash, but apparently she just never really got into sewing beyond school and all the textiles that had been given to her were gathering dust in a bin at her home. After following me on IG, she wanted to gift me the pieces because she figured I would use them before she ever would. And she was right! I had a few immediate favorites from the pile she gifted to me, and this bizarre number this was one of them! The actual print, which appears to be, of all things, a wheat stalk, isn’t particularly inspiring on it’s own, but I think the brilliant contrast of the gold and blue coupled with the nice quality of the fabric (which feels so lovely against my skin!) really spoke to me.

I wasn’t sure exactly what I was going to make with this til I stood behind a woman in the airport who was wearing the cutest black double gauze jumpsuit that I couldn’t stop thinking about, and though I don’t remember all the details about it now, I can say that this garment is a decent interpretation of it. Her jumpsuit had wide, open legs and a gathered waist which I liked a lot, so I decided that I would hack the Ninni Culottes by Named Patterns (my first version of these pants is here) onto an interesting bodice and go from there. Seemed easy enough, but I had a lot of trouble deciding on which bodice I wanted to use. After lot’s of hemming and hawing, I settled on this Project Runway for Simplicity #1803 that I had made once before here.

I chose a different bodice view than I had made before (the top left floral version on the pattern envelope) and went to work sewing everything together, having tissue fit the bodice already. As I sewed my fabric together, I loved how everything was looking, but when I tried the bodice on by itself, something was just not jibing with me about the neckline. It fit great and looked like the image on the pattern envelope, but I just didn’t like that neck detail on me at all; it felt fussy and distracting and looked a little like I was being choked with that band hitting across my collarbones. I decided to cut the neck detail off, which immediately looked better, but now I had to figure out how to connect the front bodice to the back bodice since the front yoke had also served as the shoulders of the garment. I decided to cut out some spaghetti straps and use them in lieu of the wide shoulder band straps that are designed into the garment. I liked that it would add a nice little romantic detail to an otherwise fairly bland garment.

Because I used spaghetti straps instead of the neck band/shoulder straps, I also now had to troubleshoot the bust area. I don’t like when a bra shows beneath delicate shoulder straps like this, but I also knew I wouldn’t want to go braless with this jumpsuit. I go braless all the time when I am wearing either a super fitted, rigid bodice or something very flowy, but for anything in between I prefer more support. I decided to take a pair of bra cups from my collection of bra pads that I am always pulling out of RTW sports bras and sew them onto the inside of the lining of the bodice so that they were sandwiched between the lining and the outer fabric and didn’t show on the inside of the garment. This worked an absolute treat! The cups are soft and unobtrusive and the shape fits my girls nicely so you can’t tell that there are cups inside the jumpsuit- no outline of the cup shape or anything, and I feel perfectly supported!

Once I got the bodice just how I liked it, the rest was a breeze- I made my usual pocket adjustment for the Ninnis (I don’t like “free floating” pockets and prefer mine to be extended and sewn into the waistband and side seams), and then I sewed the pants onto the bodice, which was fully lined with self fabric. I realized that I should have lengthened the crotch depth of the pants to give myself a bit more room in the seat area (the rise of the Ninni’s by itself vs the rise of the Ninnis when attached to a bodice is not equal) but they pass the comfort test- when I am putting them on it feels like the crotch will be just a tad too short but as soon as they are properly on my body and zipped up, the jumpsuit feels much better- just need to make sure I don’t impulsively drop into the splits with these, lol!

While installing an invisible back zipper, I also attached two fabric belt pieces to both sides of the back waist seam so that I could tie it in the front- whenever I have a garment that only looks good to me with a belt around it, I try and attach it to the garment in some way because I hate fishing around my closet for lost fabric belts!

And there you have it: a very easy, breezy jumpsuit inspired by something I saw a woman wearing in the security line of the airport, made up in the strangest fabric I have in my stash. Somehow, it works! My wife has celiac disease so the fact that I made a jumpsuit depicting one of the most dangerous foods she can come across is pretty funny to us, but thankfully the jumpsuit hasn’t caused any physical reactions…yet!

Thanks to my Babygirl, Claire, for taking these pictures!

 

Sew Frosting!

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I’m sure many of you are familiar with the #sewfrosting hashtag that recently started trending on sewcial media. The #sewfrosting challenge is the brainchild of the creators behind True Bias and Closet Case Patterns. It is a call to arms for sewists across the globe to take a little break from sewing cake- cake being the sturdy workhorse portion of our garment sewing, like t-shirts and jeans and button downs- and spend a bit more time sewing frosting, the fancy, frilly, sweet, delightful garments that we perhaps have less opportunities to wear, like cocktail dresses, shiny pants, floral suits, etc. Although I wasn’t calling it by this name, I have been a big proponent of sewing frosting for a few years now. I always used the hashtag #redcarpetDIY because these were the garments I would have a chance to wear when going to work events and promoting tv/film projects, but I might need to go through all my old blog posts and add #sewfrosting to the hashtags now since it is so succinct. I like that the term “sewfrosting” represents something both specific and broad at the same time,  encompassing so many in the community- sewing frosting will look very different to different people, depending on their style, gender identity, culture, habits, ability and even geographical location, but this hashtag allows us to celebrate it all together. Whether your frosting is a gown to wear to an awards ceremony, a fancy pair of pants for church, or a simple shawl made of beautiful lace, it feels like there is room for us all in there to celebrate the idea of challenging ourselves, with fabric, design, and trends. Kelli and Heather Lou turned the #sewfrosting hashtag, which has apparently been around for a while,  into a bit of a contest with some prizes and deals to compete for if you create your garment before the end of November, but let’s be honest- the real prize here is adding something exciting, new and unique to your wardrobe!

My original idea of frosting was inspired (of course!) by this dress I found on Pinterest. I love love love the plunging neckline and armholes that manage to bare some skin but not look too revealing, and although my drafting skills are amatuer at best, I thought I could manage to recreate this look without too much trouble. Unfortunately I was wrong- I got all of the style lines right when I draped this on my dress form, but I couldn’t figure out how to get the sides of the bodice to not gape out around my bust. Initially I thought that perhaps my bust was fuller than the model’s in the photo and therefore this was not the perfect bodice for me, but then I realized that I might have been approaching the shape all wrong- maybe it wasn’t created from darts as I assumed, but created from panels, kind of like a strapless bodice. So I pulled out my trusty TnT strapless dress bodice from Gertie’s Ultimate Book of Dresses and I started the process of hacking the pieces to match the shape of the Pinterest inspo dress…but then I got impatient. I decided I wanted to spend more time on something that I knew was going to come out successfully rather than something that was going to require a lot of experimenting and testing to get right. And this made even more sense because I wanted my submission to get in before the deadline and I didn’t want to run out of time!

Before I aborted my original plan I knew exactly what fabric I wanted to make my #sewfrosting in and thankfully the fabric translated easily into my new plan. The fabric is a beautiful, geometric jacquard purchased from The Fabric Store in LA many months ago, and it’s been sitting in my stash just waiting for the perfect opportunity to be used. This fabric is medium weight with a lot of body, and I knew I wanted to show it off by sewing it into something with a big shape.

My first idea was a strapless bodice with a big wide poofy skirt, but because I am obsessed with jumpsuits right now, I kept coming back to the idea of trading the big skirt for some big pants. Immediately the Winslow Culottes by Helen’s Closet came to mind because of the pleating at the front and back and wide legs- that garment actually looks like a skirt when you’re standing still and it seemed like a really interesting pairing to match with my bodice, but I worried that the body of the fabric wouldn’t marry well with the style lines.

What if it gave out too much poof, or not enough poof, or just ended up looking dowdy? I tried to take my uncut fabric and fold it around my body to give me a good idea of how the end result would look but it was practically impossible to tell, so I took a leap of faith and just went for it- worst case scenario was that it wouldn’t look good at all and I would have to cut shapes out of the pants pieces to create a skirt (which wouldn’t be too hard to do since the pant legs are so wide). With a little urging from sewcial media I went forward with my plan and ultimately it came out beautifully! I wouldn’t change a single thing!

Okay, that’s a lie- I totally would change the fabric of the lining that I used, lol. I cut out my pieces from my fashion fabric, then cut out the same pieces from hair canvas to give the bodice additional stability, and then I cut out another set of pieces from some black silk organza in my stash to make the lining (I opted to create channels for my boning by sewing them onto the lining and hair canvas instead of using separate channeling). I didn’t really have any other fabric in my stash to make the lining out of that would match the color scheme of the fabric and I thought the organza would provide yet another layer of stability for the bodice, so this seemed like a great idea at the time.

Unfortunately I didn’t take into account how scratchy the hair canvas in the middle of the bodice would end up being- it was so itchy that it poked through the organza and immediately started irritating my skin when I first tried the garment on. BIG FAIL! It was so bad that I knew I would have to make some sort of adjustment or the garment would be unwearable, but taking the whole thing apart was out of the question- the bodice was literally ENTIRELY complete: under stitched, hand stitched closed at the waistline and everything! I didn’t have the time or patience to dismantle the whole thing since I had a bunch of birthday gifts to sew for claire, and I also was just NOT FEELING DOING ALL THAT WORK.

So I had to come up with a quicker fix that would work almost as well as replacing the entire layer of organza lining. I opened the bodice back up from the waistline seam and I decided to fill in the spaces between the boning with another layer of silk (this time a white silk habotoi from my stash) to serve as a buffer between the hair canvas and organza lining. It was tricky, imprecise, and took some very delicate maneuvering- I cut out the rough shape of the space needed to be filled from my habotoi silk, carefully slid it into the area underneath the lining, then stitched around the edges of the organza and hair canvas to keep the silk in place. There was one triangular space at each of the top sides where the opening was simply too tiny to stuff the silk into, but I was able to effectively cover the hair canvas everywhere else in the bodice. I wasn’t sure how well it was going to work, but thankfully it did the trick, and the two spots that aren’t covered with the habotoi seem to be too small to be of major concern. I tried the garment on and my skin didn’t start turning red and getting itchy- success!

Other than that snafu with the bodice, everything else came together beautifully. The Winslow Culottes pattern is a STUNNING match for this fabric- I love how the pleats puff out from the waistline and how perfect the length is, and I did some very careful and successful pattern matching on the pieces, too. I changed the shape of the pockets on these pants as I wish I had done on my original pair. They are designed to have a teardrop pocket that hangs from the side seam, but I prefer my side seam pockets to be drafted to the waistline and sewn down into the waist seam which keeps them in place and makes sure they dont wiggle around, get bunched up, and bulk up the silhouette of my hips. I re-drafted this pocket by raising the height to match the waist of the front pants piece and it came out beautifully.

One thing I find hilarious about this make is the fact that used the same black organza for the pockets as I did for the lining- organza is strong and soft, so it seemed like a reasonable thing to do, but I didn’t take into account that this would give me transparent pockets, which you can get a tiny peekaboo at when I pull them open on the sides. This was a happy accident- I LOVE a little peek of skin in an unexpected place! I just need to make sure that my underwear match the fabric a little bit more, lol!

 

All in all I am thrilled at how this garment came out and I am so happy with the journey I went on to get here. I had such different ideas for how I wanted this piece to look at the beginning of the project, but I came out with something entirely unique and very me. This isn’t to say that I won’t give my original Pinterest dress another try at some point in the future, but I am really happy with where I ended up and I probably wouldn’t have created this strapless jumpsuit without starting from where I did. The marriage of fabric and pattern here are so exquisite and this is one of those garments that I haven’t really seen around before- it’s a dynamic shape in a bold print, and I feel so special in it… kind of like a dollop of frosting! Mission accomplished! Thanks for the inspiration, Kelli and Heather Lou!

P.S. Photos by Claire Savage (thanks, honey!)

Hacked and Wrapped Peppermint Jumpsuit Take 2

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It’s Thanksgiving and I have a LOT to be grateful for, y’all! Thanksgiving has always been a tricky holiday for me, which I think I have discussed before on this blog at some point. It’s one of those cultural traditions that I just accepted when I was growing up without giving it much thought, but as I got older and started questioning so much of the history that I was taught in the Alabama school system I attended, I began to realize how complicated it is to uphold traditions that are dear to us while also being aware and even critical about where they come from and what they represent. On the whole, spending a day with family (chosen or otherwise) to break bread (gluten free or otherwise) and celebrate all you are thankful is an absolutely honorable and lovely thing to do. But it is so closely tied with excess and consumption (both of food and black friday deals), and so often separated from the horrors of all the indigenous life lost in the name of this holiday, that it can be really frustrating to know how to celebrate it appropriately. Of course I don’t have an answer for how to do it, and even if I did, that would assume there was a “right” way. All I can do on this day is try and make enough room for all the contradictions that exist within and around me- being thankful for my wonderful, supportive relationships with friends and family, for my loving, encouraging wife, for my health, for my body and all it is capable of, for therapy, for the roof over my head, for the food being cooked in the oven at this very moment, for my brother’s recovery from illness, while also saving space for the fact that so much of what I am thankful for is rooted in privilege- financial privilege, class privilege, able-bodied privilege, gender privilege, geographical privilege and more.

It’s interesting to imagine what all I would be thankful for if there weren’t so many inequities among us all.

Today I am also thankful for the firefighters (both incarcerated and not) for all the hard work they do to keep us safe. I am thankful for the sewing community- the support, encouragement and laughter generated from almost every interaction I have with some of you brightens my days and continues to inspire me. And I am thankful for being an ambassador to The Fabric Store, which keeps challenging my sewing practice, elevating my makes, and ensuring that my stash is stocked with so many divine textiles. Which leads us to our regularly scheduled blog post…

Normally I don’t put several versions of the same make on the blog, because I don’t often have all that much to say about a variation on a pattern, other than “I must really love this thing to keep making it” and “ooooh, look at this pretty fabric”! But the Peppermint jumpsuit that I hacked (thanks to inspo from some other amazing sewing bloggers) got so much attention that I figured it was smart to talk about it on the blog again, especially since I knew I wanted to make it in a slightly dressier fabric compared to my casual, summertime striped linen version.

I really do love seeing how much a pattern can be transformed when you pair it with different textiles and prints. Cotton and linen tend to have a crisper feel against the skin and a more relaxed vibe when sewn up in designs like pants and jumpsuits, but a softer, drapier, more luxurious fabric can make the same design look red carpet ready, and I was excited to see how elevated this fun (and free!) Peppermint/In the Folds jumpsuit hack would look in this gorgeous crepe rayon I got from The Fabric Store. The color I used for this make is lapis (french blue) but they have several stunning hues in this fabric and I have a couple other cuts in my stash that I have yet to dig into- I’ve just been waiting for inspiration to hit! The fabric is silky and flowy but the crepe gives it a nice surface texture that I love, which also makes it shimmer a bit in the light. It’s not transparent but it is lightweight, so I think it works best for a garment that has some ease or some pleating/gathering/folding which allows the fabric to move and dance and catch the light.

Since I had already made the hack once before, this garment was pretty straightforward to create, but I did adjust the legs a bit; the original drafting of the Peppermint Jumpsuit has a significant amount of ease in the legs (particularly around the thighs), which can be seen in all the folds created around the midsection of the garment, which is cinched in by the belt. I made the legs a bit narrower in my first hack with the striped linen fabric, but I brought the seams in even more (on the outer leg) for this crepe rayon version. They tend to bulge out a bit at the sides and look like clown pants, perhaps because of all the other adjusting I did to the top half of the pattern, so tapering them in on the sides gave a much cleaner, more classic silhouette. Everything else was pretty much the same- I created french seams on all the main seams since rayon tends to fray a lot and I prefer clean finished insides for this kind of fabric. Surprisingly I didn’t need to sew in bra strap tabs (I don’t know what the real name for this is, but it’s when you sew snaps onto a little cut of ribbon and place it inside the shoulder seam to keep your bra straps connected to the garment when either one of them likes to slide down) like I did on my striped linen version- I would think that a slinkier fabric like rayon would want to slide down much more than linen would, but the opposite turned out to be true!

One question I got asked a lot about this hack was whether or not you could create bias strips to enclose the raw edges of the neckline/wrap, and there is a way you can do it, but it will involve adjusting the way the front wrap gets attached to the crotch seam, and possibly a redrafting of that area- I think you would need to add seam allowance to the top of the crotch seam edge so that you can flip the bias-edged wrap under and connect it to the seam that way. But I haven’t tried it on this pattern and I’m only working it out in my head so that could be totally wrong, lol. I actually prefer creating a facing for the neckline that gets sewn to the jumpsuit and then under stitched because it provides a lot more stability to that area, which is cut on the bias and has a tendency to stretch out like mad. In fact, I learned after making this second version that it is essential to stay stitch the entire front and back necklines of your pattern pieces as soon as you cut them because they will want to morph out of shape as soon as you start moving the fabric around.

To create my facings, I just traced the edges of my front and back necklines on transparent pattern paper, and then I widened the shapes so that they were about 4-inches all the way around. I interfaced all the pieces, sewed the back halves together, then sewed the back piece to the front pieces at the shoulder seams. Next, I sewed the whole facing piece onto the jumpsuit, pausing at the area where the belt is attached so that I could sew it in the way I like (I prefer my wrap front to maintain it’s triangle shape at the edge, which means I can’t sew it to the belt like normal and just flip it to the right side- but if you don’t want to go through the trouble of all that, you could sew the edge flat instead of pointed).

And that’s all she wrote! I love the way this jumpsuit fits and feels (although this fabric gets a little wrinkly!) and I think I might add a little vintage romper slip (to match the fact that this is a jumpsuit) to my list of future makes because I wouldn’t mind having one more layer of fabric under this thing. I love the color, I love the effect, and I love how I look in it- I can’t wait to wear this for an #auditionlewk when I go in for Recently Divorced Mom In A Small Town Trying To Get Her Groove Back While Going Back to School to Become A Beautician 😉

Happy Thanksgiving if you celebrate it, and Happy ThanksLiving if you don’t!

 

 

 

 

Madewell Inspired Jumpsuit

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Heather Lou of ClosetCasePatterns posted a selfie a few months back wearing a version of the above jumpsuit that I immediately fell in love with (although I am realizing more and more lately that I sometimes might not be in love with a garment so much as in love with a garment on someone who looks amazing in it, if that makes any sense). Anyways, I did a little research and found the jumpsuit on Madewell’s website and decided that I could reasonably make it for myself with a bit of pattern hacking. Although Madewell is a really great clothing brand in terms of transparency with their customers and sustainability, I must admit that buying RTW does not provide even a fraction of the thrill for me that it once did. I much prefer making my own and figuring out ways that I can recreate a garment myself based on what I see online and in stores, and I am sure that much of this stems from the fact that I can GUARANTEE you that this jumpsuit would look awful on me right off the hanger.

I pinned images of the jumpsuit to my pinterest page and set out to find a sewing pattern that could easily accommodate the main style lines of the jumpsuit. In the midst of doing this research, my Dad was in town and we went to the mall to buy him some sneakers. I rarely go to malls nowadays so I had forgotten that there was a Madewell store there, and once we walked by it, I figured we could hop inside so I could see the jumpsuit in person and get a better understanding of the garment’s construction. The store was small and it didn’t take me long to see that the jumpsuit I was looking for was “so last season” lol and had now been replaced by late summer/early fall garments. We were about to walk out when a different jumpsuit caught my eye. It was a similar idea to the original one I was looking for, but, dare I say…even better suited to my tastes and body!

The waist was cinched with elastic at the back and drawstring ties at the front, the legs were wide and cropped (which is my favorite pants style right now), and it had nice big buttons on the front and top stitching all over. I didn’t bother trying the jumpsuit on because I didn’t want to base my make off of the fit of an existing garment (which would most likely have been ill-fitting)- I would rather start from scratch and just incorporate the design elements into a fresh look inspired by the RTW garment. I decide to use McCalls 7330 to base my make from, but it took a lot of adjusting and hacking to get it exactly how I wanted it.

This pattern comes in Small/Medium/Large and I graded from a small at bust and waist to a medium at the hips (but later end up taking the pattern in significantly at the waist and high hip so the grading out wasn’t necessary). Major hacks/changes to the pattern included:

  • adding width to the legs and cropping the length (I based the shape of the pants legs off my Persephone Pants)
  • using View F of the pattern with 2 piece collar and extending the length of the collar so that Iit could accommodate…
  • …an extended front button band (because I wanted my button band to be wide like the inspo jumpsuit)
  • reshaping the bodice front piece and adding a facing that extended from the bodice fronts down to the crotch (I based these design elements off of my Republique du Chiffon Domonique jumpsuit that I haven’t yet blogged about)
  • using the shape of the front pants pockets from View A but making them wider and longer to look more like the inspo jumpsuit
  • omitting the waistband, and adding that length back to the bodice and pants (which I ended up taking out, but more on that later)
  • adding a casing to the inside of the back waistband (to house the elastic) and the outside of the front waistbands (to house the drawstrings) on either side of the bodice opening
  • adding drawstrings for the front waist

Seems fairly simple now that I am writing it all out but everything felt much less straight-forward while I was making it. I made the majority of these changes to the bedsheet muslin I sewed up first, and once I was happy with how it was looking (or could look with a few more tweaks), I cut out my fashion fabric. Now a word about my fabric: I bought about a yard and a quarter quite a while ago while on a trip to Joann’s looking for twill fabric to make some more CCF Sasha trousers. A good stretch twill isn’t always something I stumble on when shopping at my main squeeze fabric stores so when I saw the pretty salmon color of this fabric I immediately put it in my cart. Of course when I saw the Madewell jumpsuit in a similarly colored fabric, I decided to take fabric inspo from it, but I didn’t have enough yardage.

I cut a little swatch of my already-washed twill from my stash and brought it with me to Joann’s, hoping I could find it again, and I did! I bought another yard of it, took it home and washed it. Then I pulled out my two separate yardages to start cutting and…the two pieces were from different dye lots. L O L, immediately followed by an EYEROLL. The difference between them was very subtle, Claire couldn’t see it all, but of COURSE I could. I decided to cut out the pants from one of the pieces of fabric and the top and sleeves from the other, so that at least the fabric would all look the same among the separate halves, and I cut the bodice pocket out of the pants fabric to try and pull it all together. Now that it’s complete, Claire says she still can’t see the color difference, meanwhile the garment looks practically color-blocked to me, haha.

 

The main changes I made to the garment all seemed to work really well, but perhaps because of the difference in textile from muslin to fashion fabric, there were still some issues. The salmon twill version was still too long in the torso, even though I had already chopped off about 2 inches from the pants and bodice. Thankfully my top and bottom pieces were still basted together at this point so I was able to take them apart and chop off even more from the bodice, but the completed version is still about 3/4″ too long for me, so if and when I make it again I will try and address that. The crotch also ended up being too long and sagging down in a weird way between my legs so I brought the bottom of the crotch up at least 1/2″ more, too. Honestly, the weight of this twill is a little heavier than I would like it to be (it’s also heavier than the inspo jumpsuit) and I am really looking forward to making this again in maybe a linen or cotton blend fabric that makes it a bit airier and lighter.

Another thing I am a little on the fence about is this collar, and I think it also has to do with the weight of my fabric- it feels and looks more like a jacket because it’s so thick and sticks out a bit from the body. The design of it is cute, but I think that for this fabric I should have made a one-piece fold down collar instead of the two-piece collar (the RTW jumpsuit is a one-piece). But in a lighter weight fabric, the collar would have looked just like a nice button up shirt collar and would have probably laid down much more neatly. As it stands, the collar looks a bit like it’s making a statement, and I’m not mad about it- although it’s not what I was initially going for, I do think it’s cute and very much in line with the grandma-chic vibes that the rest of the garment gives.

Overall, I am really happy with this make and impressed with how it came out- I have rubbed off RTW clothes before but never have I started from scratch with the design of a RTW garment and tried to turn an existing pattern into a replica of it. It was really fun, and I would definitely do it again!

 

Thankfully there is a pattern out in the world for pretty much everything you could possibly find in a storefront window, so that makes the job easier- and I know there are at least a couple of instagramming sewists out there who are dedicated to matching patterns with RTW garments (I keep forgetting their handles but I definitely need to follow them). Still, I felt like this was a very challenging project that I learned a lot from, and it has inspired me to keep testing the limits of my knowledge and learning more. And the BEST part? I just got asked to be a pattern tester for a new pattern that is practically the spitting image of the original yellow Madewell jumpsuit that I first took inspiration from. So it looks like I’m gonna be able to have my cake and eat it, too!

 

Striped Wrap Jumpsuit

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This project is brought to you by a domino-effect of inspiration via instagram (which is my FAVORITE kind)! I initially saw Katie’s (of What Katie Sews) absolutely fantastic wrap jumpsuit that she posted about on her blog here and fell in love. I love the shape! I love the fabric! I love the design! Wrap jumpsuits aren’t really a big thing right now, but they should be- I have been on a jumpsuit kick the past couple of months that is unreal (you’ll see the fruits of that obsession here on the blog soon), so every time I see a new version of one I get super excited. I have never before seen a design quite like Katie’s jumpsuit, though, and according to her blog post she got her idea from a garment made by Threadsnips.

Catherine sewed up a very cool vintage jumpsuit pattern that wrapped around the waist with ties and suggested that other sewist’s could recreate this design fairly easily by using a simple jumpsuit pattern and altering a couple of the lines of the pattern pieces, which is what Katie did to great success. Katie used a Butterick pattern she had in her stash for adapting hers, but I didn’t have anything in my arsenal that would work well for this hack so I took Catherine’s advice and just used the free In the Folds jumpsuit pattern from Peppermint Magazine. I am not gonna meticulously share all the details of what I did to adjust the pattern since both Katie and Catherine did the hard work of it already, WITH pictures (bless y’all!), so check out their blog posts to get the very simple details of exactly how to hack the pattern.

I will share the general details of what I did though! First I adjusted the shoulder seam of the jumpsuit pattern because I knew I wanted a little hint of a sleeve and not something totally sleeveless, as the In the Folds jumpsuit is drafted. I basically moved the width of the dart of the front of the jumpsuit to change the angle of the shoulder seam so that it was raised higher, and I added several inches to the length of the seam to make it jut out from my arm. I drew in the pattern line for the rest of the sleeve (I basically just mimicked the line of Katie’s Butterick jumpsuit sleeve) and connected it to the side seam of the body of the jumpsuit, copying the same lines for the back piece. I adjusted the side seams of the jumpsuit pattern to make it a little closer fitting since some of the images I saw of the pattern in a google search seemed like it had an awful lot of ease in the waist and hip area.

After sewing up a muslin in some old bedsheets and improperly adjusting the length (I overestimated how much shorter the jumpsuit should be in the bodice and ended up making it WAY too short, so I added all but about a quarter inch of the length back when I moved on to my fashion fabric), I used a gorgeous cut of linen from The Fabric Store for my wearable garment. I have been SO into stripes lately (particularly stripe play!) and thankfully TFS has stocked a ton of really beautiful pieces to choose from. Plus, Los Angeles weather means I can get away with wearing this wonderfully breezy fabric for quite a while longer.

Initially I wanted to play around with the direction of the stripes (like one half of the jumpsuit in horizontal and the other in vertical), but my yardage wasn’t quite wide enough to accomodate proper pattern placement, so I stuck with the vertical stripes all the way around the garment and I’m actually really happy it turned out this way. The stripes of this yardage are already pretty dynamic, so adding even more drama to it might have put it into clown territory? I mean, I still love the idea of the directional stripes for a jumpsuit like this, but maybe if the stripes are all one color/size/pattern it will have a more subdued overall look. I’m sure my original vision is still somewhere in my future!

Anyways, after I sewed up my linen, I drafted facings for 1. the front neckline all the way down through the added triangular piece of the wrap to the crotch seam, 2. the back neckline, and 3. the sleeves. My original plan was to just use bias binding for the edges but I didn’t have very much striped fabric leftover and I also realized I should have something a bit more stable for the neckline since it is such a long seam line (also, after sewing this garment up, I know that for next time I need to STAY STITCH THOSE FRONT NECKLINE EDGES, because that fabric stretched waaaay out in the process of sewing everything else up). I used some white scrap linen I had for the facings and I interfaced them all, sliding the ends of the ties between the fabric and facing on each triangular edge before edgestitching them closed.

After drafting and sewing up the facings, the actual construction of the garment was SO FAST AND EASY. I left a hole opposite the edge of one side of my wrap for the waist tie to get pulled through, under stitched all my facings, I edgestitched the wrap onto the opposite pant leg a few inches past the crotch line to keep it closed. Since the front opens up to a wrap style, the back zipper is unnecessary, but it also means that the front wrap wants to splay open a bit, so I added a snap at front center to keep the wrap closed and I also added some bra strap snaps at the shoulder seams- I think there is a more technical term for this, but basically I created a loop inside the garment for the bra straps to be hooked onto which helps keep the shoulder seams in place.

I am CRAZY about this jumpsuit: it’s comfortable, summery, fun, and I have never seen anything quite like it in a store before. I am dying to make it in a solid, slightly more supple fabric for the fall- maybe like a crepe rayon or even a printed satin-y silk. I might try to add some pockets to my next one, and I might also try and adjust the angle of the neckline so the garment won’t want to fall open as much (hopefully negating the need for the bra strap snaps!). And longer waist ties for more drama! But all in all, this make was exceptionally quick and satisfying to make, and it’s technically not summer anymore but I should be able to get a few good wears out of this before the weather gets too cool. I am so very thankful for other sewists sharing their hacks, tips and makes with the community, (thanks, Katie and Catherine!) and thankful to Claire for taking these bright, pretty pictures!

(outtake)

Culottes Jumpsuit Hack in Bathing Beauties

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Although I love a good print, I’m not much for novelty fabrics for garment sewing- they can be so loud and make things look so twee, which is not necessarily bad, but I find it a little hard to balance out the aesthetics of a cutesy pattern in a cutesy print within my wardrobe. And on top of that, lately I have felt a pretty big shift in my fabric tastes, going from floral, colorful, eye-catching pieces of fabric to a more classic monochromatic palette (pastels, neutrals, stripes). That said, sometimes you come across a novelty print that just speaks to your soul on a deep level and you have to pass Go, collect $200, and buy the damn yardage without asking questions.

It happened to me a couple of years ago with that Zombie Pin-Ups print that Alexander Henry came out with (still haven’t used it!), and it happened again recently with this Bathing Beauties cotton. Curvy, stylish women of all colors and hairstyles confidently donning bikinis and having the time of their life? This is the representation I like seeing in fun novelty fabric! The only thing to make this print better would be for some of the beauties to have wheelchairs and underarm hair! The print comes in at least a few different colors, one being a purple pastel that I was really drawn to, but, as Claire pointed out, you couldn’t tell that some of the beauties were various shades of black and brown when the whole print was washed in a pastel color, so I went with this perhaps slightly less exciting color story to make room for my principles, LOL! It’s a strange color palette to me, this brown, yellow and blue, perhaps because there seem to be too many primary colors fighting for attention- like, if they kept all the various shades of skin colors in tact but limited the other colors (bathing suits, hair) to a smaller, more refined palette, it might be more within my preference? No matter. Even with the strange color choices, I am pretty in love with this bold fabric and I am very happy with how this garment came out!

Initially I was going to make a super cute fit n flare dress (see? cutesy pattern and cutesy print! So easy for me to fall into this trap!) but I realized that I would only wear a dress such as this when I was getting dolled up for a moderately special occasion and I already knew I wanted this fabric to be a bigger part of my summer than a party dress would allow. So my next choice was to make something still cute looking but more casual, and I quickly decided on another version of McCalls 7774 which I completed a few months ago (it will be up on the blog soon). It’s my absolute favorite summer dress right now because it’s so breezy and easy to wear when it’s hot out, and I would love to have more of that silhouette in my closet.

But then I glimpsed a different garment in my wardrobe that has been one of my favorite pieces to wear for nearly 4 years, Vogue 9025, a culottes jumpsuit with dress variation, and I thought this would be the perfect thing to hack with the bodice from the McCalls dress. I love culottes jumpsuits because they look like a dress but allow a bit more freedom of movement and a very unexpected surprise factor when I decide to randomly do the splits (my splits ain’t what they used to be but I can still get that front leg straight)! Although I love both versions of the Vogue jumpsuit I have made, the princess seamed bodice was a bit finicky on me depending on what fabric the garment was made out of and I liked the simplicity and straightforward details of the McCalls bodice. My Vogue jumpsuits are heavily altered, with the waistline raised several inches and the pants lengthened to make up the difference (more details in this post). I also added more width to the front pants so that they have a more relaxed fit around my midsection than the close fit they were drafted for. This makes for a much looser garment all around, and I am in love with it. It’s one of the most comfortable things in my closet!

As for the McCalls dress, I took out about 1/2″ of width at the center front of bodice as I did for the first version, but I probably could have taken out an even bigger wedge because this jumpsuit dips out slightly at the neckline (strangely it didn’t do that in my first version?). I stay stitched the armholes of the bodice which was a grand idea and kept me from having to add additional darts on either side of the bust as I did on my first version, and I also fully lined the bodice (but I had to use scraps of linen for the back pieces since I ran out of fabric). I remembered to lengthen the pockets to match up with the longer pants pieces but I forgot to double check my pleats and I totally sewed them going the wrong way on the front of the jumpsuit (they should be facing the side seams). But it didn’t bug me enough to take them out and redo them since they still laid flat and looked fine. I also shortened the pants to make this an above-the-knee garment since I didn’t have much yardage to work with and I wanted to do a variation of the other garments I had made from the same Vogue pattern.

The result is simple, comfortable, and super eye catching! But perhaps a little too bold for people to comment on? I can feel them staring but so far they rarely ask me about it, which is pretty surprising since strangers have asked me about my jeans before which are way less interesting looking! I think they might just be too riveted by the bold bathing beauties to muster up any words! No matter- I’m not sure I would know what to say if I saw someone walking down the street in this killer print, either- I would just stare with a little drool coming out the side of my mouth 😉

P.S. I changed shoes halfway through this photoshoot so some of the photos have me in gold Sven clogs and others have me in a pair of flat sandals I made a couple years ago!

Circle Skirt in Black and White

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I bought this fabric for a different project but realized that it was too drapey for the structured dress I was planning, so I decided on a whim to whip it into something else. I was intrigued by a couple of images of Elisalex (owner of By Hand London)’s instagram where she is wearing a very soft, flowy wrap circle skirt and figured I could eek out enough fabric from my yardage to make this quick and simple replica (I was wrong- I had to go to The Fabric Store and get more, but it was worth it).

I’ve made plenty of circle skirts in my past based off of my measurements but never a wrap skirt, so I tried to use the nifty calculator and sparse directions on By Hand London’s blog post to sew it up. Elisalex has a tutorial for how to make the wrap circle skirt from start to finish in a UK sewing magazine but unfortunately they didn’t have the article archived online and I wasn’t about to try and hunt down/pay for a physical copy when I knew I could probably stumble through making it myself. So that’s what I did, because I’m what? TRYCURIOUS, thasss right! And it came out fine! The most important bit of information I needed to make this skirt was that 6 panels are required for a circle wrap garment, and once I cut those pattern pieces out based on the measurement of my waist circumference, all I needed was to sew those pieces together and add a waistband with long ties.

I think I spent more time trying to hunt down Elisalex’s magazine tutorial than actually sewing this thing, and ultimately all I needed were the brief instructions she shared in her blog post! What a fantastic skirt! My fabric is a rayon that frays like mad at the raw edges so I french seamed all the panels together, folded the side edges in on either end of the skirt and hemmed them. Next I measured the full length of the waist to calculate my waist band and I cut out a rectangle at the height I wanted my band to be, plus seam allowances for all sides. After going back and forth on the matter, I decided to interface the entire waistband and I am glad I did- it gives the skirt some nice structure right around my belly but since the waistband is fairly narrow it doesn’t feel like too much bulk.

I sewed up some long tubes of fabric for the ties, making sure the finished tube was the same width as my waistband (I think I made it 1.5″?), pulled them right side out, then sewed them to each edge of my waistband. I added a buttonhole from which to pull the waist tie through above the side seam opposite where the skirt opens, and then, after letting the garment hang overnight, I spent what felt 23 days sewing the hem (circle skirts, amirite??).

End result? SO cute! This fabric is borderline polka dots/leopard spots, depending on what category you love the most, which is a nice space for me to be in since I am not crazy about animal prints (not on me- I oooh and ahhh every time I see someone else rocking animal print, though). The dots are multi-sized and randomly scattered about so it gives the print a little more depth and visual interest than a regular dotted fabric, I think. After seeing these pictures and wearing it around for a bit, I am tempted to shorten the skirt just a couple inches to have it hit right at my knee instead of below it, because I feel like it might just be swallowing me up with that bold print and all the yards of fabric swirling around? But maybe it’s just how I styled it here, and with different shoes or a different top it will look more balanced on me. Honestly I don’t know if I have it in me to spend 23 more days re-hemming this skirt so I might have to sit on it for a while before I make a move, LOL.