Purple Linen Zadie Jumpsuit

Friends! Today is the two year anniversary of this blog! I started this blog after weighing the pros and cons for a long time and mostly thinking I didn’t want the obligation of a blog. It felt like out of nowhere on April 11, 2018 that I finally realized that I really did want an online space to call my own, to write many more words about things than is appropriate/permitted on social media, and to post way more than a couple photos of a garment! So that very day I made a website, figured out how to host a blog on an external domain through WordPress, and made my first post. And here we are two years later! I thought it was fitting to celebrate by FINALLY making the Paper Theory Zadie Jumpsuit (yes, I am ridiculously late to jump on this bandwagon) using fabric I bought in Finland a little under two years ago.

To the surprise of no one, I love the Zadie jumpsuit. I don’t think I’ve read a single negative thing about the pattern online, and instead found countless gushing positive blog posts and Instagram posts about it, which is always helpful when trying to decide whether you want to try a pattern! A Zadie was not the intention for this fabric when I bought it, though. I went to Finland and Iceland in July 2018, and I bought this fabric at a Finnish chain called Eurokangas when I was in Savonlinna overnight for an opera festival (I was mainly staying in Helsinki with my friend Fanni and doing day trips from that home base). Eurokangas had SO much linen in so many beautiful colours and different weights that it was really hard to choose just one piece. I was trying not to overload my suitcase with tons of stuff because I didn’t want to pay lots of duty or have an overweight suitcase. I chose this purple midweight linen with the intention of making it into a Closet Case Fiona sundress but when I did a muslin of that pattern it was NOT my style at all, and I was having a lot of fit issues anyway. So the purple linen hung out for a while longer until I found out about the Zadie and thought it would be a perfect fit.

I scandalously didn’t do a muslin of this. I know! A jumpsuit! That risky category of garment where you can give yourself painful wedgies with bad fit! But I had read so many blog posts about it that I felt like I didn’t need one. My measurements (37.5″/29.5″/39.5″) put me in a size “13” (aka between 12 and 14) according to the size chart for the Zadie, but I made a size 10. I took 1″ of length out of the top along the length/shorten line, 1″ out of the rise in the pants, and 1″ off the bottom of the hem. I’m verryyy happy with the fit based on those adjustments. (I’m 5’4″, for reference.) I actually made the fit adjustments to the pattern pieces a few months ago but then didn’t get around to actually cutting my fabric until a few days ago, now that I’m blazing through all the sewing and knitting projects because I’m not allowed to leave my house. Which, for the record, the midst of a global pandemic is not how I envisioned the circumstances of my second blog anniversary! (I mean, not that I envisioned what the world would look like at this point at all, I think I made it seem like I’m giving this mildly nice event a lot more weight than it deserves.) Current Megan was very excited when she pulled out the fabric and pattern and realized that Past Megan had already done fit research and adjustments. Thanks, Past Megan!

The Zadie came together quite quickly because, like many of the things I’ve been sewing lately, it doesn’t have a zipper or buttons or any of that time-consuming precision-requiring stuff. It’s a true wrap, which I had never seen before in a jumpsuit, which has you leave a gap in the side seam for the inner tie to pass through (a technique I’d seen before). You can see where that happens in one of the photos below. I appreciated how neatly the pant section attached to the bodice, making a lovely continuous diagonal line to the bodice extensions that make the wrap overlap. You can’t even see the join when it’s worn because the ties cover it up! I wondered if the overlap would make the front crotch look weird, but I really don’t think it does. You can see that area in the photos below, and it just makes a nice sort of drape-y effect. Also, before I forget: I LOVE the slash pockets on this! They’re very roomy and the perfect size to actually fit your whole hand in but still be able to touch the bottom so you don’t absolutely lose all the things inside of them. They also lay nice and flat, which I wasn’t sure if they would because of the wrap.

The neckline/front edge is finished with bias binding (a pattern piece for this is included in the pattern), and instead of tucking it in the back like you might’ve done before with a neckline, you iron it into a double-fold and then sandwich the raw edge with it before top-stitching it down. I thought I would have more issues with missing the edge of the back when sewing from the front, but the only places I missed were at each “corner” where the ties attached. I just hand-stitched the small areas I’d missed down along the inside of the waist tie, and then when the ties were folded back and stitched down, my hand-stitching got completely hidden anyway. I’m honestly pretty proud of my top-stitching along the binding, which you can see below, so I do wanna take a quick moment to brag. (I mean, it IS my blog anniversary, after all!) Also, fully have to acknowledge that I didn’t have matching serger thread and couldn’t be bothered to change it, so I have this fun electric blue all over the inside of my jumpsuit. I’m honestly not mad about it, I think the colours go together pretty well and we’ll pretend it was planned because ~*fashion*~.

So here we are! Two years! No regrets about starting the blog, it was definitely the right decision and I’m very happy I went for it. Here’s to more sewing and knitting and traveling and baking and writing lots of words about it all!