The purple suit-dress

When I was in college I bought a pretty little cheap suit at TJ Maxx.  I got rid of it at one point, but I still miss it.  It had a jacket with a flounce all the way around and a pencil skirt.  I would certainly wear the jacket now, but the skirt probably didn’t fit the best.  Most pencil skirts with suits were too big in the hips and too small in the waist for me.  Not exactly comfy.

After cutting this purple fabric all up, I came realize that it is a bit of a nod to that suit.  This is a one-way stretch synthetic knit.  It is a bit heavier than a normal knit.  The skirt is my standby, of course.  If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.  

The top is the top of a dress pattern with a few modifications.  I had to take the top of the back in a bit (several inches), add a little bit to the bust (commercial patterns are made to fit a standard B-cup) and I elongated and flared the top pieces to become…well, a top.  I did make a muslin of the top to be sure it fit before cutting into nicer fabric.  Here is that magnificent creation out of a $1/yd fabric that I found.

This top is supposed to be lined and made out of woven material.  With using a knit, I didn’t want to line it.  Instead I made sleeve and neck facings and called it good.  I was having a hard time deciding if I wanted to use the zipper on the back or the side, or really if I needed one at all.   The fabric only having stretch one-way made me assume that it probably would need a zipper.  I did a quick seam down the back and tried it on, and it fit without a zipper.  Yay!  I made the seam stronger and then measured for my facings.

All together, here is my little suit-dress (the color is closer to the picture above).  Not really a suit, but with it being two pieces it isn’t quite a dress, either.  I like how it turned out, and that I can use the pieces independently, too.  I bought a floral top at Express and it matched really well with the skirt.  Now I need to go through my closet and purge those items that don’t fit all that well.  I have several and it is time to get rid of them.

Action shot…with sun flare!  Can you tell I was home alone taking these pictures?  Well, not truly alone.  The kids were inside eating mac and cheese for dinner while I got some pictures.  It was hard finding a place where the sun wasn’t shining hard and the lighting wasn’t splotchy.  I finally settled on backlighting with this spot on our little hill.   We also have GREENERY here (please ignore all the weeds)!  Yes, it is warm enough to have some growth coming on.  In the last few weeks we have definitely had an explosion of growth.  Yesterday it was a whopping 85 degrees.  It felt wonderful.

Hope everyone had a great Memorial Day weekend!  We spent time with family and friends and need another few days to recover.  That would be nice, wouldn’t it?? 😉