McCall's 6083 Jumpsuit

I made a jumpsuit!! And I have a lot to say about it!

Honestly, in the past, the idea of jumpsuits struck fear in my heart for various reasons. Mostly I was thinking I just couldn't pull one off, style-wise. But after seeing so many cute jumpsuits sewn up on the interwebs, I knew it was time to get over my fear and try it out.

Plus my mom made one recently, so... gauntlet thrown. Here's hers, an old-school '90s era McCall's 5431:

I have the By Hand London Holly jumpsuit in my stash, but I thought it prudent to start with a pattern that's a little bit less form fitting and then dive into the Holly pool if that went well. McCall's 6083 seemed like a good start- elastic waist, no closures, easy fit.

I'd seen many gorgeous versions of McCall's 6083 out there (see True Bias, Crab and Bee), but was completely sold on the pattern when I saw the version made by Margo at Creating in the Gap a few weeks ago. Perfection! I basically decided to outright copy her... view E wrap top + full leg pants, white on black print in a flowy fabric. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right? 

This pattern is a super easy sew. Cut on sleeves, built-in facings on the wrap front, no closures. Hooray! It is, however, not super easy to get in and out of. You pull it on by stepping through the neckhole and pulling it over your shoulders. I tremble at the thought of trying to wrangle out this jumpsuit in order to go to the bathroom, particularly at some of Bangkok's more, ahem, cleanliness-challenged public restrooms. But the comfort factor of wearing head-to-toe rayon challis may trump this inconvenience.

My fabric is some lovely geometric dot print rayon challis I bought at Spotlight in Singapore when I was there in May. It's a nice, soft, weighty rayon, perfect for this jumpsuit. They were having a major sale on rayon and had some gorgeous prints... I stocked up, so expect more.

I did have to make a couple alterations to the pattern to make it work for me, but I am pretty damn happy with how it turned out!!

Here are my construction notes:

I had some major wrap top gaping. Major. I think my body just does not work for woven wrap tops without alteration.. perhaps it's my slouch? Anyway there's enough evidence to make it official: see Yaletown (I ultimately added buttons across the wrap and love it), Anderson (still haven't attempted to fix this one to fit).

So to fix my jumpsuit gaping problem I added 3 small buttons and buttonholes across the wrap. On my Yaletown, they weren't functional buttons, but on this jumpsuit, they had to be functional since the neckline is the entry/exit point.

Margo and others mentioned that the pattern was a bit short in length in the body. As designed I was able to get it on ok and probably could have gotten away with not lengthening it, but I would have been on high wedgie and camel toe alert at all times, which is no way to live. As such, and in the spirit of fully copying Margo, I added a waistband/elastic casing.

I wasn't planning on making the waist sash, but the jumpsuit is not as belly pooch-friendly as I hoped. I ended up making the sash to disguise/distract from that area.

Sizewise, I cut my normal Big 4 size on the top and went up a size for the pants. A good choice, as there is not much extra room in the butt region. It's a closer fit there than I imagined it would be! Beware those with full bottoms, this is a flat bottom pattern.

The pants were a bit long on me. I ended up hemming them about 2 inches in order to wear the jumpsuit with my go-to sandals, which have medium-high heels. I am thinking now from the photos that they could go a little bit shorter:

I made one-layer pockets, rather than 2 layer because I prefer less bulk in the hip area. Also I hate when you put your hands in your pocket to pull out your phone or whatever and the pocket bag comes out with your hand. Pet peeve, I guess. Last time I made this alteration I had a request for a tutorial. I've attempted to do a tutorial- coming soon in my next post!

Finally, for those of you patient enough to read all the way through, and in honor of Gillian's Better Pictures Project October assignment to take a series of pictures to capture movement, I give you these amazingly hilarious (albeit not very flattering) "jump"suit shots.
You're welcome.