Hello Internet Friends!
Today I have another summery make! This is my Yvonne playsuit by Republic de Chiffon made in a fab ‘rock print’ from Mind the Maker. I bought this fabric wayyyy back in January and was of two minds as to which pattern to make from it, the Yvonne playsuit or the Ester Pants so I did a quick instagram poll on my stories and the playsuit was the winner! Making the playsuit also meant I could finally use the cute fox buttons I got a while back from Arrow Mountain. I love these buttons and I think they work really well with this pattern and print!
Despite winning the poll this project sat for a while in the ‘stalled project’ pile simply because the pattern required me to add on the seam allowance. Now I know for some sewists who started with sewing non-indie patterns adding seam allowances isn’t a big deal since pattern makers like Burda have never included seam allowances in their patterns. But for me, having started sewing in the age of the indie pattern, where included seam allowances are the norm the extra step of adding the allowance was a ‘ugh I don’t wanna have to think about that’ moment for me. Eventually though I did get up the mental energy to add the seam allowances to my pattern pieces by conveniently finding a pen and pencil that when tapped together gave a 3/8” distance between the two points allowing me to simply trace out my size with the pencil and use the pen as the cutting line. This worked for everything but the hems which had a larger suggested seam allowance which forced me to get out my ruler.
Once the task of adding a seam allowance was complete I could finally get to sewing. As has been kind of a concerning ‘trend’ for me lately I didn’t make a muslin (I really need to hit up Ikea and get some more cheep fabric for making muslins with), and I simply basted the side seams and shoulder seams on the bodice to check the fit. I actually thought at the time that this pattern bodice makes for a cute top on it’s own, I think i’m having a thing for ‘camp style’ collars at the moment since this pattern, the Willamette Shirt I made earlier in the year, and a planned Gilbert Top From Hellen’s closet all share this style of collar. I failed to notice at the time that arm scythe was too low for me, and when I lift my arms my bra totally shows (more on that later) I also should have tried gathering the waistline of the bodice to see if the amount of ‘bodice volume’ (I don’t know what it’s called but you get the idea) was too much or too little, which would have indicated for me to shorten the bodice by the 1.5” that I ended up doing later.
In terms of sizing I sewed a size 42 at the bust and then graded out to a size 40 at the waist and hip. I don’t know if doing a straight size 40 would have negated some of arm scythe bra showing, but given the amount of ease at the bust I probably could have gotten away with the size 40 or at least could have split the difference between the size 40 and 42 at the bust. As I mentioned above, I did end up taking out 1.5” out of the length of the bodice after trying on the completed playsuit, I was too lazy to undo the serging I had done on the waist line so I simply took off the elastic on the seam allowance and then folded out the excess, re stitched on the seam line and then serged off the excess. Not my neatest work but you can’t tell due to the gathering at the waist line. Speaking of, I really liked how this pattern used elastic on the seam allowance to gather the waist vs. doing an elastic casing. Doing it this way reduced the amount of bulk at the waistline, in my opinion, and allowed for the use of narrower elastic which I sometimes prefer as then the elastic doesn’t fold over itself when you are sitting.
Overall I really like the final result, the playsuit is really nice to wear, and I can even bike in it which is a bonus! It’s a bit fiddly to get on and off but worth it for the ease of styling and wear in my opinion. For any future iterations I would probably add interfacing to the collar and button band facing, the pattern doesn’t call for any interfacing but I think it would be a good idea to add some for the button areas at the very least. I don’t quite know how to fix the arm scythe bra showing problem (you can see the issue in the photo below), one thought would be to re draft the arm scythe to raise the bottom portion but i’m not sure how that would affect the overall shape of the ‘sleeve’ since it’s all one piece instead of a bodice and then sleeve sewn together. Any thoughts from the sewing hive mind? Let me know in the comments! Also, one more thing about this pattern, it’s not very size inclusive, it only goes up to a size 46, with a bust of 10 cm and waist of 88 cm, just wanted to give this info for those planning to make this pattern.
Hope you’ve enjoyed another summery make! I’ve started to notice the sun going down earlier again, meaning fall isn’t too far away…but I’m hoping to get a few more summery makes and sunny summer days before the cool weather shows up!