A Navy Jumper for Thanksgiving – Simplicity 1325

 

How was your turkey day? Mine was filled with friends and family, kids running around, and lots and lots of food – all the things that make Thanksgiving such a great day! I came prepared this year with a new jumper that disguised any kind of post-turkey-and-pie digesting that was going on after dinner. And because a husband who’s full of turkey and gravy is a happy husband, I finagled a couple of snaps of my new jumper combo after dinner outside at my in-law’s.

 

 

I planned on making this outfit for Thanksgiving last year, but realized when I went to cut out the navy blue twill I bought to make this jumper, I bought the yardage for the tunic length and not the dress length.  Sadness ensued, but that twill ended up as a Lonetree Vest instead, so all ended well. This navy stretch wool suiting by Theory (love!) from Mood has been sitting in my stash since a trip to NYC last December; I brought a swatch of the original twill with me to see if I could find it in store again, but I ended up trying to color-match it to other fabrics since it was out of stock.

The dress is really straight-forward to make, just a sleeveless lined bodice with a bias-cut skirt attached.  I tissue-fit the bodice to see where the bust darts would hit and they seemed to be fine, no adjusting necessary, but in retrospect I could have benefitted from the bodice being taken in at the center a bit to tighten up the fit, this would have allowed the darts to fit around my bust a little nicer and not look so poke-y – there’s a bit of room in there.

 

 

The zipper gave me a stupid hard time…and boy, do I mean stupid.  It was just one of those things, you do something that you’ve done a bunch of times before with no problem and for whatever reason, you just can’t get it right (I mean hello, I have an invisible zipper tutorial on my blog and I couldn’t get this sucker to work, smh).  The alignment is slightly off at the top of the neckline and the waistline and even though I tried two or three times to get it right, I gave up and said to myself, “better done than perfect.” Sigh.

 

 

Since my closet is predominately black, and a lot of my shoes are black, I wasn’t sure how to wear a navy blue dress.  I thought going out to find shoes just for this dress was silly, so I turned to my favorite fashion research site, Pinterest! Even thought I’m in the “navy blue doesn’t go with black” club, many Pinterest fashionistas swayed me to give it a try and I ended up pairing my jumper with black booties and maroon-colored tights.  I figured that the maroon broke up the navy and black and served as a bridge between the two, making the choice in colors intentional, not one of those “I got dressed in a dark closet and couldn’t tell the difference between navy blue and black” situations.  French ladies wear navy and black all the time, and because I love French fashion, maybe I’ll give this a chance in the future…

 

 

Pattern: Jumper and Top, Simplicity 1325
Fabric: Jumper – Theory stretch wool suiting; Top – Saint James knit, both from Mood Fabrics NYC
Tights: Hue (similar here)
Shoes: Vince Camuto (similar here)