For the record, I finished this on the last day of April so I haven’t broken my Me Made May pledge just yet!

I’ve been in a bit of a Fibre Mood run of late, firstly with the Arlette Skirt and then the Stella Sweater. This next make has to be my favourite one so far though!

It’s the Carmella Jumpsuit from issue 1 (and the main reason why I bothered buying the back issue). I’ve been loving the boiler suit trend lately and I’ve been seeing some gorgeous handmade ones all over the web in all colours of the rainbow.

I chose this one of the many boiler suit patterns out there because I liked the collar and button placket. (There’s also the fact I get a bunch more patterns for the same cost and all without the faff of printing a PDF…)

My idea for this outfit was for it to all denim and to look at dressing it up or down depending on my accessories that day! I didn’t end up getting the denim as planned but instead went for a blue cotton linen mix from Myfabrics. The colour was described as denim though! 😂.

I figured that this would be just as easy to work with and with the added benefit of being cooler for the upcoming summer months.

I had to make a few changes to the pattern to get to where I wanted it, mostly in the length of it and the leg shape.

I knew the body would be longer than I would want it just from looking at the sample images. To get the fit right I cut out my size and basted it together (without the sleeve) to try on. After that I chose to shorten the pattern by 2.5cm.

It’s easy to shorten the back – I just took out the length from the back bodice piece. The front was trickier as it’s cut all in one. I knew this would happen beforehand though and incorporated this into my plans!

I cut the front into two at the same point as the back i.e. at the waist. Once I took seam allowances into consideration, I took 0.5cm from the upper part. Now I had a front bodice and front leg.

With this extra seam, it gave me the opportunity to add a channel along the waist to run the belt through as opposed to just using belt loops!

After that it was just a case of sewing the front back together again and carrying on with the construction as normal!

I tapered the leg from the knee down taking the seam in by 2.5cm on either side.

Overall, I don’t think the instructions were particularly good and I abandoned them after the button placket. But it used methods I’d done before and I think it was quite straightforward to put it altogether. It was mostly just hard trying to manipulate so much fabric!

One thing to note though if you’re making this yourself – sew the sleeves in flat before sewing up the side seams. It worked a dream for me!

And here it is!

It’s quite roomy on the shoulders which works on me to balance out my hips – it’s almost a dropped shoulder but not quite. I added pockets to the back leg on top of the chest and side seam pockets just ’cause you can’t have too many pockets… I forgot to mark on my pockets placements so I marked them on when I did my test fit. I think it worked out better because of that!

What I didn’t take into account with my fabric choice was that this shade of blue with this texture of fabric actually looks like proper workwear! 🤣

I’m calling this mechanic chic…

(I laugh but I actually love it and I’m just going to just rock this colour! Next time though, I’m thinking a short sleeve version in beige or rust!)1