Gonna Make You, Make You, Make You Notice

Have you seen Biquette’s new (freeeee!) pattern, the Brass in Pocket playsuit? Can you believe how cute it is? Did I mention it’s free?

She asked me to be a tester and, even though my sewing time is usually way too precious to me to accept those kind of requests, this time I jumped on it right away. I had crushed hard on her black playsuit and was excited to be able to get a version for myself. This is the kind of sewing project I could see myself dreaming about for years and never actually making, so I took that testing as a great opportunity to sew it without delay.

I chose a black twill from de Stoffenkamer, which I had already used in navy for a jacket for Monsieur (to be blogged soonish) and knew was great quality, if not for its propensity to attract every lint, hair, dust particle, you name it… Other than that, really, a great fabric: it presses beautifully yet doesn’t wrinkle too easily, a pleasure to sew and to wear!

The buttons are from my stash: they were rescued from an old jacket. They are plastic, but they don’t look it!

Now for the pattern itself. Any problem I might have encountered making it has been changed in the final version, so I can only recommend it to you. The only real technical difficulty is the tailored collar. Mine is not exemplary: I failed to get a perfect angle where the two parts meet, but it isn’t obvious at all on the worn garment (especially in black). And I hear there might be a tailored collar tutorial coming to Biquette’s blog, so yours will probably look better…

Another mistake I made was at the centre front: the overlap of the two fronts is too short on my version compared with the pattern, which made it impossible to space the buttons as far away as per the pattern. This is also why I took off the top pair of buttons: it looked pretty weird in relation with the spacing of the other buttons.

Size-wise, I blended a 38 bust, a 36 ½ waist and 42 hips, a very usual adjustment for me, and I’m happy with the fit. I could do with a tiny bit more length in the body: when I raise my arms up in the air, the whole playsuit comes up and it’s not the most comfortable at the crotch. It’s perfectly comfortable when I move around normally, even when I sit; the only problem is when I raise both arms all the way up. But if I were to sew the pattern again, I would add a centimetre or two at the waist seam. Do consider using a wider seam allowance than the 1 cm provided in the pattern in case you need to make the same adjustment.

Before hemming the shorts, I was also afraid they were going to be too short once hemmed, but I was misevaluating how much length the 2 cm hem would take visually, and in the end I think the length is perfectly fine, at least with opaque tights as I intend to wear the playsuit.

If it is your style and you fit into the size range (which starts really low but unfortunately doesn’t go very high up — the highest size has a 100 cm bust), go have a look at the pattern: it’s free, but that doesn’t mean it’s amateurish. It has positively nothing to envy of professional patterns. Among other well thought-of details, you can choose to print only the size(s) you want, and you can also choose to print it with or without (1 cm) seam allowances!

As you have probably understood by now, I love my little playsuit! I’m not sure how practical it’s going to be (I may have to cut back on my tea drinking! 😉 ), or whether I’m going to be able to wear it at work (the length of the shorts is what makes me hesitate), but I think it’s quite unique and definitely gorgeous! So I may not wear it daily like a lot of my clothing, but I know I’ll wear it nonetheless! Monsieur’s opinion is more reserved: “I don’t understand… You look all dressed up on top, and ready for camping on the bottom.”