Alice & Olivia Inspired Jumpsuit

Pattern: McCall’s 7908

Fabric: 3 yards black stretch denim from Joann’s

Sizing: Sized down 12 on the bottom, 14 on Top

Modifications:

-Added 7” in length to make it full length 

-made a 1/4'” forward shoulder adjustment 

-added an 1”  to the crotch length.

- 3 belt loops, the back belt loop is 1" wide with red topstitching details and a button
-a 2” wide belt

-added  topstitching details all over!
Shoes: Treasure & Bond leopard suede mules 

The Details:

The inspiration for this jumpsuit was an Alice & Olivia jumpsuit that Erin at Busbeestyle posted on Instagram last Spring.

The body hugging fit and all the extra details of this jumpsuit are just perfect. So I thought a lot about how to alter the pattern to achieve the look. According to the pattern sizing I am a size 16 but when I looked at the finished measurements and compared them to ready wear pieces in my wardrobe I knew I would have to size down to get the fit. Especially since my denim is a stretch denim.

 I decided not to make an official muslin since I would need to purchase stretch denim to really figure out the fit anyway so I consider this a wearable muslin.To fine tune the fit I measured the pant pattern pieces and compared waist, hip and crotch length measurements to my body measurements and also to my favorite ready to wear jeans. This meant sizing down to a 12 on the bottom for about 1/2" of ease in the hips. 

For the bodice, I didn't have a fitted ready to wear garment to compare so I choose to go with the size 14 which gave me 1" of ease in the bust. Then I graded between the two sizes from hip to waist and placed the waist darts on the pants to line up with the princess seams on the bodice. 

As I assembled the jumpsuit, I made additional tweaks to the fit of the bodice. I just basted the bodice together and then pinched out some extra fabric above the bust. 

Garment Assembly:

The pattern directions and assembly were fairly straight forward with two exceptions:

1) Setting in the sleeves. When setting in the sleeves the instructions call for the typical two rows of ease stitches between the dots on the sleeve cap. I followed that exactly and ended up with a puff sleeve. Just too much fabric to ease in over a shorter span. So I removed the sleeve and extended the ease stitching from front to back notches. This did the trick and the sleeve went in easy peasy with no puff.

2) Installing the exposed zipper. The markings on the pattern are confusing and not explained well in the instructions. The bottom line is that when prepping to add the zipper the seam allowances need to be pressed back along the front opening and a ¼” along the bottom of the opening. The pattern piece is marked for this, however, the instructions say to sew the crotch to the circle at the bottom of the zipper opening. DO NOT DO THIS. The circle marking the bottom of the zipper is at a ¾” seam allowance. If you sew the crotch seam to that point the extra fabric needed to square off the bottom of zipper opening is gone. Instead sew the crotch seam at 5/8” stopping just below and 1/8” inside of the marked circle. This allows the zipper seam allowances above the crotch seam to fold flat. 

**This is one of those corrections that is probably hard understand until you are actually in the midst of sewing it all together! So if you have questions feel free to send me a note on Instagram 

Final Thoughts:

For a first attempt, I am pretty pleased with how this jumpsuit turned out. But there are a few things I would change. I would love to distress this a bit to get some of the faded details of the original. And in hindsight I think I could have sized down to a 12 in the bodice. The original has a really cute curved seam detail across the bum and McCall's has a new jeans pattern with this exact detail. So I think I will make this again in the spring mashing the two patterns together.

XOXO,
Shannon