Hi! This is Andrea from @mouthingpieties on Instagram coming in hot with a fun hack for an off-the-shoulder knit jumpsuit.
I’ll show you how to mash the Lollapalooza Top and the Sincerely Darcey pants into a jumpsuit that will take you between seasons and look great doing it. All you need is the Sincerely Darcey Pants pattern and the Lollapalooza Top. I’m new to hacking and mashing patterns myself, so I promise this won’t be too daunting. Let’s get started!
Here’s what you’ll need:
4-5 yards of light to medium weight knit fabric
Sincerely Darcey front pant
Sincerely Darcey back pant
Lollapalooza front bodice
Lollapalooza back bodice
Lollapalooza sleeve
Lollapalooza sleeve ruffle
3/4 inch elastic
pins or clips
Before we begin, I highly recommend making a muslin for this pattern mashup, especially since the Lollapalooza pattern is designed for wovens and the Sincerely Darcey for knits. We’re going to be making the entire jumpsuit out of knit fabric, so we’ll be removing a few inches from the front and back of the Lollapalooza bodice pieces at the fold line to account for the stretch in our knit fabric. Doing so will also make it easier to attach the top to the pants, which we’ll be lengthening at the front and back rise. I chose a nice medium-weight Liverpool option to give nice drape and recovery to the jumpsuit. If you want your jumpsuit to have a more oversized, blousy fit, I recommend using a lighter knit like bamboo or rayon spandex and going up a size or two in the Sincerely Darcey pants. I wanted a more close-fitting look, so I used my normal size.
Let’s start with our alterations to the Sincerely Darcey pants. We’re going to be connecting the SD pants to the Lolla top as if it were the Lollapalooza skirt piece, so first we need to lengthen the waist by several inches so it will comfortably meet the top at the waist. To do this, cut both the front and back pants pieces along the front and back rise shorten/lengthen lines. I have a short torso, so I added five inches here, but depending on your measurements, you will likely want to lengthen the rise by approximately 6 inches.
Now we need to measure the width of the pants pieces so we can determine how much width to remove from the Lollapalooza bodice pieces. We want the bodice and pants pieces to be close to the same width so there’s no puckering or gathering at the waist - the elastic will do that for us. My pieces measure approximately 9 inches, so I’ll want to aim for a similar measurement at the bottom of the Lollapalooza bodice.
Alright, now we can move on to the Lollapalooza pattern pieces! You’ll be making the same changes to both the front and the back bodice pieces. The sleeve and sleeve ruffle pieces will remain the same. From the side seam of the bodice pieces, measure out the width you took from your pants pieces and mark your tracing paper accordingly.
This next step can be done a couple ways depending on how you want your jumpsuit to fit. Since I have a narrow upper body and wanted a closer fit, I drew a straight line up to the top of the bodice pieces along the waist marking.
If you have a larger bust or want a more blousy look, you may want to grade the Lolla top instead of removing the same amount of width down the entire bodice. If you’re going to grade the bodice, you’ll want to remove width from the side seam instead of the fold line.
Again, there’s a lot of personal preference to be had with this hack, so play around with your pattern pieces to get them how you’d like.
Now you’re ready to cut your fabric!
Assemble the Lollapalooza top per pattern instructions through page fifteen. Once you finish attaching the sleeve ruffles to the bodice, put the top aside and grab your pants pieces. Sew them according to the pattern directions. Remember, we’re omitting the waistband and attaching the pants directly to the top, so once you have the pants hemmed, we’re ready to move on!
From here, you’re going to follow the directions for attaching the Lollapalooza skirt to the bodice, except with the Sincerely Darcey pants instead. With right sides together, matching the bottom of the bodice to the top of the pants and lining up the side seams, sew all the way around the top of the pants. Now you have a jumpsuit! Just a couple more steps and we’re finished.
Continue following the directions for the Lollapalooza top. You’ll use the same amount of elastic for the waist and neckline as the charts specify.
I hope you enjoyed this mashup as much as I did! If you decide to make a Lolla/Darcey hack, I’d love to see it! Feel free to follow me on Instagram @mouthingpieties (https://www.instagram.com/mouthingpieties/). Happy sewing!