WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN??? Summer Denim Jumpsuit a mashup of NL6493, M6930, and Imagination

What's good sew fam?  I know, I know, I haven't posted anything in like 5 months, but believe me, your sis needed a break.  Here's what I've been up to:

In late February, I spent a week in Guadeloupe for my birthday.  What an amazing place!  I had never been before but definitely have plans to go back!

Anywho, as soon as I got back, LITERALLY... I raced home, dumped my luggage, packed my pre-arranged clothing for 23 days in Paris.  This was a work trip that was scheduled 3 weeks before I went to Guadeloupe.  

Now here's were the problem comes in..... 23 days of the most glorious food, work dinners, all day work sessions with pastries, all the wine.... ALL THE WINE!!!!

Again, beautiful place, I even took one of the weekends to go to Venice.  

But YALL.................I legit gained 15 lbs while there AND blew a sewing machine (yes I shipped mines there).  When I returned it really took me those same 30 days I spent from home to get my life together.  I began my workout regimen and slowly worked the lbs off.   

In that time though, I really lost my desire to sew.  I didn't go into my space for weeks.  I did client work, and that was about it.  I was uninspired, and flat out tired of what was available in both the form of patterns, and textiles.  So I decided to take a break.  

Fast forward to today, I finally put the pieces together to start blogging again.  I in better shape physically and mentally, but still uninspired most of the time.  I'm going to work through it though!

So about this jumpsuit.  I started on it in June as a solicited ideas from my FB group (Needles and Fashion).  I opted to alter patterns as opposed to draping so that others can be able to make the same. 

Inspiration: 

It wasn't easy finding a pattern to work with this top.  Thanks to my sew sis Shari Belle, I was about to get NL6493.  The fabric came from Fabric Mart Fabrics, but is no longer available.  Try these alternatives (HERE) & (HERE)

First thing you will realize with this pattern is 1) The bust seam is not centered, 2) this is pattern has an overlap at the center front, and 3) The top of the bodice was a lot taller than I wanted for this jumpsuit. 

UGH, If it was easy, it wouldn't be right!

The first thing I did was cut 2 inches from the top of the center front piece. 

Next up, from the top right corner, I cut a diagonal piece off of the pattern that is a total of 8 inches long (this is important).  

Next you want to true up this piece with the side front pattern piece.  To do this, you want to connect to top corners with seam allowance and pin.  Repeat this down to attach the pattern pieces.  

This will leave you with excess paper in your seam which you will need to cut off.  

After that is done, you want to line your back piece.  This is so you can draft the slope of the back.

As you can see, I started my draft line on the front piece and progressed to the back in order to have a seamless line. from front to back rather than doing it at the side seam.  Once you have your draft line figured out, you can cut the pattern pattern along the line. 

As last, you will need to cut off the overlap portion of the pattern piece along the vertical dashed line. 

You then want to take your pattern pieces for the front and back and create facing.  I created 2 inch facing.  and a 60 x 4 inch piece for the belt. (the pockets are also pictured here).

I then created (2) 1 x 30 inch ties made from folding the fabric in on both sides and then enclosed it using a straight stitch.  

Next up, we draft the pants.  I used M6930 which I have used many times in the past and opted for this fit rather than the pattern shorts.  You can do the same with either to extend them into pants.  You can check my YT for tuts that include drafting this shorts into pants, but the gist is below. 

Form a slight diagonal line from the top of the crotch down 10 inches and mark.  From there, you draft a straight line stopping at the your desired length.  

Once all of these pieces were drafted, I created the top attaching the facing and the neck ties.  

The pants were simple pockets, front and back.  Once put together, I attached the top to the bottom. 

THAT'S IT!!!!

It would have been easier to drape this on my dress form, but hopefully this works for some of you that haven't progressed to that yet.  Pattern hacking ain't no punk tho!  Be sure to tag me if you make this!  

Until Next time... SMOOCHES!

EDIT:  For those that wanted to know, I am putting a post together next week to give you the deets on my work out routine and new diet!