Yup. I made another green jumpsuit. Yup, I realize it’s two in a row. But this one is completely different! Aside from the fact that it’s green. And also a jumpsuit. But this one is velvet! Which I’ve never sewn with before. Plus it’s a knit instead of a woven! See? Completely different. I bring you: a velvet Deer & Doe Sirocco jumpsuit!
If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’ll know that I’m a big Deer & Doe fan. The Sirocco caught my eye when it was first released, but I ended up going for the Pensée dress in that collection first. I made that back in April of 2019, but it turned out to be a bit of a flop for me – I rarely wear it, and always find myself choosing other things instead of it. As mentioned in that original blog post though, Sirocco was on my radar. I was trying not to buy new releases immediately unless I planned to make them immediately, so I only bought the pattern a few weeks ago. My motivation was that I have a piece of blue velvet from a year ago that I intended to make into a wrap dress but my muslin of the intended pattern was not good, and it has languished in my stash ever since. It occurred to me that Sirocco might be a good choice for the blue velvet instead, but didn’t want to risk my nice fabric on it. Everything came together when I was at Fabricville looking for linen for a friend’s project and saw this dark green crushed velvet on sale! It was ~$25 for the fabric for the whole jumpsuit, which was a good price for me to be willing to make a hopefully-wearable muslin of Sirocco. Which is the garment you’re looking at today!
I honestly expected to have to make way more fitting adjustments to this than I did. The last time I made a Deer & Doe pattern with a faux wrap front was a fitting NIGHTMARE. I had resigned myself to the same labourious process this time, but I think the fact that it’s a stretchy knit instead of a woven, and it isn’t for an event where I’ll be photographed extensively made both the fit and myself more forgiving. I used to make a size 38 in Deer & Doe, but since I started climbing and swimming and my shoulders have gotten bigger, I’ve been finding that 40 is a better starting point for me. Taking in the waist is easier than trying to adjust shoulders and sleeves after the fact. My measurements are 37.5″/30″/39″, or at least they were the last time I checked. The only thing I altered was the length of the legs. It occurred to me at the very beginning of it, when I was cutting it out, that I’d probably need to shorten it, but I completely forgot about that when I got to hemming and hemmed it without trying it on. I blame the fact that I was on a very wholesome crafting Zoom call with friends. I tried it on in anticipated triumph, and then had to take it off to cut the legs shorter. I ended up shortening it by 4 1/8″ and I’m 5’4″. I’ll shorten it at the lengthen/shorten lines next time I make it (I noted this on the envelope for Future Megan) in order to better preserve the shape of the legs, but I’m not mad about how it turned out even after chopping off that much at the hem.
One of the features of the pattern that I really like is the pockets! The design has a really lovely diagonal pleat that parallels the line of the pocket, although this velvet makes the pockets way more invisible than I anticipated – see below! Since it has slash pockets cut on the bias in a stretchy fabric, the pattern has you insert a piece of clear elastic into the seam. I stretched it very slightly while I attached it and like how it’s laying when my hands aren’t in the pockets. No gaping at all! I also don’t have any gaping at the neckline, which is very satisfying. The neckband on the Sirocco is stretched as you sew it, so I think that helps a lot. I couldn’t find a twin needle in my sewing box even though I swear I had a couple, so I just zigzagged the entire thing, including top-stitching. I’m still really embracing that quarantine mindset of making do with the things I actually have in my immediate vicinity. I thought I was going to run out of the green thread, but then I found another small spool in my thread drawer when the first one ran out! In the past I would’ve just assumed I didn’t have any more instead of doing a real search, so this was a good lesson.
Something that I was lucky to already have for this project was my walking foot. My sewing machine came with one, and I already had it set up because I’ve been intermittently quilting my giant elephant project (it’s coming along, it’s just hard on the neck/shoulders to work on). It was really helpful with this slippery velvet and I think it would have been easy for stuff to get misaligned without it. Even with it, I found pinning the layers sometimes tricky with how the nap made it get all shifty or decide to stubbornly not move when I wanted to line up the edges better. This was my first time sewing velvet, and I was very careful about nap direction when I cut it out. I also serged all of the seams inside – my serger is old and occasionally cranky so I don’t like to do construction on it, but it’s good for doing a finishing pass on all fabrics, whether knit or woven. The serging definitely cuts down on the amount of fluff from the finished garment!
The funny thing is that while I made this as a trial for my blue velvet, I don’t think I’ll use my blue velvet for a Sirocco! I had a very positive experience with the pattern, but the reality is that I don’t think a girl needs more than one velvet jumpsuit, especially in the exact same pattern. Does anyone have any ideas for the blue velvet? I really want to make it into something so I can wear it!
