What a year 2020 has been so far. I hope you are safe and that your loved ones are okay.
I’m writing this after almost two months from self-isolation. I continue to work from home, but all of my teaching engagements are cancelled/postponed. This is a tough time to be self-employed. My good friend Woolly Wormhead has written a long post detailing how the ongoing pandemic is affecting her. It is a very good read, and her observation about how the pandemic affects those of us with inabilities and disabilities really hit home. Right now my Patreon is keeping me afloat and I cannot thank people enough for their ongoing support. It makes such a huge difference both financially and also creatively. Thank you.
During the past two months I have had plenty of time to think about making and the role it plays in my mental health well-being. I find that making things gives me a sense of agency at a time when I might feel I have little or none. It is not the first time I have felt this, but I feel it very strongly right now. Making grounds me in the here and now: I feel my hands working with materials, and I see patterns and textures emerge. It is easy to feel one day is bleeding into another (this is an excellent article about memories, time, and the pandemic) but I can measure out my life by the things I make.
Right now I’m making a navy jumpsuit and I am in the middle of a major mending project. I still knit, but knitting requires concentration and focus on another level as it is my job. On the days I cannot conjure up any focus, I mend and dress-make.
(Now that I cannot head out for glamorous photo shoot locations, you get my backyard garden instead.)
Here is my slinky red jumpsuit.
I’ve long admired the Zadie Jumpsuit by Paper Theory Patterns. I took the plunge, printed out 55 pages and painstakingly stuck them together. Then I whipped up a toile in some ghastly polycotton I had kicking about and adjusted from there. The first Zadie I finished I made from some pretty Makower cotton fabric that I stashed back in my tea-dress wearing days. The end result looked and felt like fancy pyjamas, so I took another look in my fabric stash.
And this is where the red slinkiness comes in.
I found 2.5m of slinky red viscose with a very subtle woodgrain pattern. I’ll be honest: the fabric terrified me a bit as it was enormously slinky, drapey and silky. I also did not know if I had enough fabric. I was making a size 18 with a few adjustments (more on that later) which called for 2.80m of fabric. Paper Theory Patterns tend to be extremely conservative with fabric consumption and I’d read that people had been left with very little fabric.
So, I went outside on the landing where I could spread out all the fabric and play Tetris with the pattern pieces. Leaving off the long sleeves meant I should be okay, but I still had to be ingenious and make sure the fabric wouldn’t slide around on me. I ghost-traced all the pieces on the fabric with yellow chalk and then went inside to my tiny kitchen table where I spent the next few days carefully cutting out the various pieces.
Zadie is a really good sewing pattern. It has relatively few pieces, it comes together quickly, and it looks incredible on a variety of bodies. I just had to fight my urge to rush through the cutting process as I knew I needed to take time with my fabric.
I made adjustments between the toile and the fancy pyjamas version, and I used the same adjustments for the slinky red one:
• I raised the crotch by 3” both front and back
• I used light interfacing to stabilise the neckline (others suggest stay-stitching it before doing anything else, but my fabric was so slippery that I wanted extra stability) and also the top of the pockets.
• I lengthened the belt by 6” (which obviously made the fabric consumption extra fun — I opted to piece the extra length together from scraps)
Sewing the jumpsuit was a good learning experience. I was still terrified by the fabric, so I basted a lot (using the longest straight stitch on my sewing machine), pinned even more, and stitched the pieces together slowly. I opted for as much control as I could possibly get, though I never needed to pull out all the stops. I found the fabric beautiful to sew and the drape worked wonderfully with the pattern.
The only real snag I hit upon was the bias binding around the neckline. I’ve done bias-binding before on both quilts and on other dress-making projects, so I didn’t think it would be a major issue here as long as I pinned and pressed like a woman possessed. However, the fabric had other ideas. It simply did not want to be made into bias binding. No amount of cajoling or pressing helped. I did not have any fabric leftover to make facings, so instead I improvised (after consulting on Twitter). First I stitched the refusing-to-stay-pressed strip RS against RS, then I turned the strip over so it looked like bias binding and basted that %&^$£! piece of fabric in place. Stitching in the ditch kept the bias binding look on the RS and secured the fabric stitch on the WS.
Et voila! One slinky jumpsuit that fits like a dream. It is a date night outfit rather than something I’d wear everyday (a new & exciting addition to my wardrobe) and I’m proud of myself for using fabric that terrified me when I first saw it in my stash. If I recall correctly, I bought the fabric around 2011 in a sale for around £3 a metre, so that was a great purchase. Well done, past me!
I’m now working on a navy version of Zadie, using a heavier cotton/viscose mix that still has a lot of drape but which will also work as an everyday wardrobe staple. The fabric has a very slightly different RS and WS which has meant I’ve only been able to work on prep during daytime. I’m in the sewing stage now, though, so it should work up quicker now. I’ve lengthened the legs as I’m long-limbed and also drafted facings for the fronts which I think will work better in the long run. Patreon readers will know about my obsession with the everyday wardrobe and I’m thinking strategically about my dress-making even if it will be from my eclectic fabric stash.
I’ll be documenting my various makes here, so do stick around. It’s all terribly old school but I rather adore that. It’s a way of keeping myself sane during a period of time that is anything but sane. Let me know in the comments what helps you get through this extraordinary time.