Sewing Bee Sustainable Style Jumpsuit

For my birthday my wonderful boyfriend bought me the new Sewing Bee book – Sustainable Style! It’s been written by Selkie Patterns and there are lots of great patterns in it. In particular the Jumpsuit pattern caught my eye. This is the first jumpsuit I’ve made (and actually it’s a playsuit as I made the short version). I really took my time with it and enjoyed the slow sewing.

1. The fabric

Also for my birthday my parents gave me some money for fabric, and I bought this lovely 100% linen with it from Croft Mill. Because of the way it’s been woven with the blue and white fibres it looks a little like denim. It has a really bouncy feel to it and I think after a few washes it’ll feel even more soft as well. For the buttons I decided to use some wooden buttons from an assorted pack my brother bought me for Christmas. I hadn’t got any thread of exactly the right colour, so I ended up choosing a lilac thread which was the best match I had.

2. The pattern

I decided to make the shorts version of this jumpsuit, and I made the size 14. Once I’d cut the pattern pieces out I held them up to my body and decided to make a few adjustments.

• I did a narrow shoulder adjustment, which was new to me! I followed the excellent instructions on the Curvy Sewing Collective website and it was surprisingly easy. Looking at the fit of my previous garments I think that I should have been doing a narrow shoulder adjustment on a regular basis, and it’s great that it’s so simple.
• I also made a large adjustment to the bodice, which I shortened by 2.5 inches – this is a lot but I needed to do that so it would sit at my waist.
• I also did a sway back adjustment and removed 1 inch from the centre of the back of the shorts.
• I would ordinarily do a bust adjustmenet but I didn’t do one this time because I’d chosen the larger size pattern so it would fit around the bust, and I decided that any excess at the waist could be sinched in using the belt.

3. The challenges

I was really worried about making this pattern because it’s a pretty complicated make but I have been susprised by how easily it came together – I put that down to the excellent instructions. I took my time and enjoyed doing each step as perfectly as I could. I hand sewed the buttonholes (now my favourite way to do them), and also hand sewed the belt loops. There was a lot of gathering of fabric and I worried at the time they wouldn’t be even but I’m really happy with it.

The only puzzle I had to solve was the balance of the legs – I found that the legs were being pulled upwards at the front and I had excess at the back. I did the sway back adjustment to solve that, and ideally I would have taken even more out of the back but I didn’t want a ‘hungry bum’! If I make this again I think I’ll shorten the bodice by just 2 inches and then take out 1.5 inches for the sway back, that way there will be an extra half an inch at the front.

4. The final result

I relish the detail of this jumpsuit; I love all of the top stitching, the pocket detail, the belt loops, the straps to fold the sleeves up and the buttons. Because I put lots of time into doing them all, I get lots of satisfaction from them. Rather than sewing on a few large buttons I decided to use lots of small ones, to minimise the risk of gaping. It means getting in and out of the jumpsuit is a bit slower though. I decided to do horizontal instead of vertical button holes – this makes it a little harder to button up but I prefer the look. It’s a great design which emphasises my curves. The only thing I would change about it is that I would do even more of a narrow shoulder adjustment and take another half inch out because the puff of the sleeves is sitting just off the shoulder.