Lady Sewalot: Purple Culotte Playsuit

I'm a huge advocate of dresses. They are my favourite thing to wear. However, most of my social gatherings are spent on the floor playing monopoly and I tend to have issues keeping everything covered. This is where the miracle of culottes come in. Now I've made this playsuit, I'm not sure I'll be making a full skirt any time soon!

I drafted the culottes from Helen Joseph Armstrongs book on patternmaking. It was really interesting to learn that you use A-Line skirts as a base for culottes as opposed to the trouser block. Weird, huh! For the top half I used the T-Shirt block from Sew U Home Stretch by Wendy Mullin. To make the culottes suitable to wear as a playsuit I lowered the crotch by 1/2 inch. I also slashed and spread my culottes at the top so they'd match up with the waist circumference of the bodice part. I then stretched elastic the size of my waist into the waist seam to bring it in at that point. Before the elastic went in, the whole ensemble just looked wrong.

For the neckline and the arm holes I cut strips of fabric 1 1/2 inches wide and not as long as the actual neckline and the arm holes, folded them in half width ways, overlocked right sides together and pressed upwards a la Lady Skater which worked a treat.

What makes this playsuit so comfortable is the knit fabric it's made from. I think it's a single jersey of some kind, a remnant inherited from my Grandmas stash. I think I got the whole playsuit out of 1m or so. What's interesting about it is that there's a plain side and a sparkly side. After a heated debate with myself I went for the plain side because I want to wear it as much as possible and I just wouldn't wear it so much if it was sparkly.

The culottes were originally about 5 inches longer but it just looked wrong so I chopped it off. Perhaps if I made them fuller they would look more like a skirt and then they'd look okay longer. Something to try for next time, because of course there is going to be a next time.

And now I've said everything that I have to say about this playsuit and I'm going to bombard you with the pictures Emma, Darren and I took last night and had so much fun while doing so.