The Making of My Wedding Jumpsuit: Sewing

I recently shared my pattern and fitting process for my wedding jumpsuit, and in this post I’ll deep dive into my sewing journey.

I first marked my pant waistline darts on the wrong side of my fabric using a frixion pen.

I stitched them in place and pressed towards the center front / center back, and then serged my inseam and side seam edges separately. Since I wanted the zipper in the back of the pants, I pinned and stitched both my side and inseams right sides together.

Once my seams were all pressed open I then serged each crotch seam separately.

I stitched my crotch seams together starting at the front waistline to the crotch point and started to pin my invisible zipper to the center back edge.

With my piping foot in place, I installed my invisible zipper.

Ta da! My invisible zipper.

I wasn’t planning on a front pant crease, but thought to give it a go and I’m so glad I did. Now it was time for a pant fitting.

So remember when I shortened the pant hem and tapered in the leg? Well, I may have done both a little to much. At this point I wanted to still think about re-cutting it, but wanted to see how it looked with the lace top first.

So with my bottoms done (at least this version) I set aside and grabbed all my lace bodice pieces.

My first step was to finish the top edge of my center front lining piece. So I double turned and stitched in place.

To make any topstitching invisible from the right side of my lining I decided to hand stitch it turned once again to the wrong side.

If you listen to Sew & Tell podcast you may know of my hate for hand stitching, but for my wedding jumpsuit I totally embraced it. Luckily there wasn’t too much.

Just love this shot of my hand stitching!

To put the pieces together to act as one layer, I basted inside my seam allowances around the piece.

Then I pinned my side front pieces together with the corresponding lining pieces.

Once they were basted together I also serged the princess seam edges separately.

Now it was time to put the front pieces together, so I pinned my first princess seam right sides together.

Then I pressed my seam allowances open.

Love it so much already!

Before I attached the sleeves I wanted to finish the hems. I decided to actually finish them with bias strips. So I grabbed some of the satin used for my pants portion and cut 2″ wide strips on the bias.

I pressed the strips in half wrong sides together first and then pressed each edge towards the center fold. Then I wrapped and pinned around my sleeve hem edge.

I slowly and carefully stitched my bias strip in place close to the pressed upper edge.

Really love how this finish looked along my sleeve hem.

I first pinned my front sleeve armhole line right sides together with my front bodice armhole and stitched together.

This is where all my cutting layout work with the lace really paid off with that perfect match up and spacing of the flowers with the seam.

I also stitched my back armhole edges and then serged each side and sleeve seam separately and pinned my side seams together.

The view from the back – couldn’t wait to try it on before attaching to the bottoms.

It was perfect. At this point I pinned my bodice to the pants to see how it looked together as a whole.

I still didn’t love the leg line and length with the bodice pinned, so I decided to do a re-cut of the pants.

I taped on some additional paper and added on a couple of inches to the bottom, and about 3/4″ on each side.

For the open back edges I was planning on trimming the lace to make a scalloped edge, but it just didn’t look as good at the top one. Then it came to me to finish the edge just as I did for the sleeves, so I used a rotary cutting and ruler to make a straight line.

Then I pinned and stitched on my bias leaving an overhang at the top to sew the snap to.

Really liked the look of this!

While I was sewing up my second re-cut pair of bottoms I decided to install an exposed zipper instead of an invisible. I just wanted to be safe in regards to dancing and sitting in my wedding jumpsuit and this zipper just felt more secure. I also love the pop of gold!

After I stitched my bodice to just the front of my pants and everything looked good, I serged my allowances together and then finished the back waistline edge of my pants.

So in love with my jumpsuit.

After some fittings I determined a good place to overlap my back edges and hand stitched my snaps in place. I also had to sew my pant hems and I was so nervous about getting my fingerprints on the white fabric so I wore gloves to keep things nice and white.

To prevent visible stitching I sewed the snap to the excess bias strip and then flipped it down and further secured with a few more stitches. I put my jumpsuit in a garment bag in anticipation for the big day…

I also whipped up my over skirt to go over my jumpsuit for the ceremony. I basically cut a large rectangle and wrapped it around my body then pleated where I thought it looked good, and then sewed it to another rectangle as the waistband. For the party portion of the wedding I took my over skirt and it was jumpsuit time.

Happy Sewing!

Meg