Category Archives: Pattern – vintage

Minimal cord jumpsuit

Cord jumpsuit

I’ve waxed on before about how much I love my Roberts dungarees and they’re a total wardrobe staple for me, so more jumpsuit type things have always been in my sewing plans. I’ve made another set of overalls since, but they were a wearable toile and while they certainly are wearable I wanted to rework them with a few tweaks.

Cord jumpsuit

I used the same vintage pattern, McCall’s 9077, as a basis, but traced it out, removing nearly all of the design details and refining the fit a bit. The fit still isn’t perfect around the top; next time I’m going to pivot the straps inwards as they are too wide-set and like to slip off my shoulders.

Cord jumpsuit

I used a fine pin-dotted cotton corduroy from Miss Matatabi. I had 2m and it was only 41″ wide so I had to do some very creative cutting to make the long pieces fit onto my yardage. I added a back waist seam, one of the back legs is cut on the cross-grain, the crotch is pieced, and the upper back is pieced in about 4 pieces. Luckily none of that shows up in real life or photos, though I quite enjoyed pointing it out to my colleagues.

Cord jumpsuit

I wanted bigger pockets but this was literally all the yardage I had left, so they are tiny useless pockets that fit nothing.

Cord jumpsuit

I didn’t feel like doing facings or binding (and had no fabric left) so all the edges are finished by simply turning and hemming, which worked surprisingly OK.

to sew board

On a tangent, I had a couple of comments on my post about swatching for spring that it’s interesting to have a peek into how I plan what I want to make, as well as the projects themselves. And to be honest I spend far more time on the planning/dreaming phase than the actual making, so it’s a nice thing to write about.

pinterest

Pinterest is obviously a great tool for collecting inspiration. I have boards for each type of garment (dresses, tops, bottoms, jumpsuits) along with some more general boards with ideas for outfits and wardrobe planning. Recently I also started a To sew list to extract all the things from the various boards that I want to make imminently. Generally I’ll only add stuff to my to-sew list board when I have a good idea of the fabric and pattern I want to use. My first make using this system was actually my Melilot blouse, which was based on this pin, and this is the second!

jumpsuits

Up next, I want to make a floatier culotte-leg jumpsuit based on this pin, and I have some perfect chambray-coloured linen mix in my stash. It’s really nice to have a list of things I want to make that I know are going to work in my wardrobe, so when I sit down to sew I know I’m going to get something useful and highly wearable at the end.