Zadie Jumpsuit by Paper Theory Patterns and A Bit of Planning

I sewed a Zadie Jumpsuit! Getting there was a little bit of an adenture.

Best Laid Plans

You may remember my Sewing Summer School plan from last year. It was great in theory! In practice, I forgot to take into account how much summer sucks when you don’t have air-conditioning. So I spent my summer parked in front of my window unit in my bedroom and not so much anywhere near a sewing machine.

However, I did take some sewing classes at the West Side Sewing Studio during the autumn and really enjoyed them! Patti, the instructor, is so knowledgeable and patient and really helped me to understand some of the basic sewing skills I needed to work on. If you’re in the Providence, RI, area and want to learn to sew, I highly recommend West Side Sewing Studio. And if you’re elsewhere and looking to learn to sew, definitely look into taking classes for your first few makes! Very much worth the money.

My Zadie Jumpsuit Muslin

My latest make (fresh off the machine and not at all hemmed) is this muslin of the Zadie Jumpsuit from Paper Theory Patterns.

 

 

 

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A post shared by Amy (@threadpanda) on Aug 12, 2019 at 9:42am PDT

I am pleased with the way it came out! Originally, I was hoping this would be a more wearable muslin but the fabric is super sheer and also really hard to remember which is the “right side” so it’s got a few very large errors that make it the perfect bumming around the house piece. I cut the size 24 for this muslin and overall it fits, but I want to re-cut the top to start with a larger size and grade down to the 24, to better fit my shoulders. My next version will also have a bit of length added to the legs to better suit my wardrobe needs. The pattern was very clear and easy to follow and really didn’t take a long time to come together. It’s still pretty warm this summer, so I spaced everything out based on how long I wanted to be sweating.

My only “issue” with this pattern is the cutting “map”, or lack thereof. This is not to say that it’s a negative against the pattern—I totally understand why the designer chose not to draw up a cutting map and also it wouldn’t have worked so well for me anyway (this muslin was like 100″ wide or something ridiculous). And I’m just lacking in experience to really make the best decisions about laying out pieces for cutting. Also lacking in air-conditioning—when I realized I was sweating onto the paper and fabric while trying to crawl around on the floor, I just gave up, took a few nights off and waited for another cooler evening, then just started cutting. Hoping to be a bit more methodical with my “real” fabric.

Other Plans with Yarn

I have some more sewing plans in the works and I’ll talk about them some more in another post! Today I want to make a list of yarn projects that I want to finish in the near future.

First up is my sister-in-law’s birthday present which I’ll talk about later just in case she happens to see this post.

I also want to finish up my Davallia, which is so close. I’m roughly 60% done with one sleeve. Then crochet the other sleeve and put it all together. Hoping to finish up these two projects by the end of August.

THEN I hope to bust a move on finishing some half-finished projects. First up is my Brewster Pullover, designed by Alexis Winslow and knit with ridiculously Halloween-y colors by me, which I’m hoping to wear to Rhinebeck. I’m halfway done with the body and I think I can definitely finish this in September.

I also want to finish the Sevilla I started knitting for my mom last year. Hopefully I can have it done for Christmas—when I have time to work on it, it moves along very nicely, and nearly done with the back (just have to finish the armhole section).

I definitely have a much longer wish list of things to finish (including two in-progress Lopi sweaters, because the …five? six? I already have are clearly not enough). But I’m also trying to set realistic goals and not get too bogged down in what I do and don’t accomplish.