I made these culottes, oohhh, about a couple months ago.  Standing in front of the mirror, Vito sitting next to me, I had a meh moment.  "Are these really my style?" "Where will I wear these?" "Do they make my butt look big?" Vito quickly got up and exited the room.  With every intention of getting pictures for the blog I laid them on my ironing board as a reminder.  Yep, they laid there for two months until I finally got sick of  working around them.  My second go around in front of the mirror had me questioning my antics the months before.  I actually like these a lot.  

                                                Pattern:   Megan Nielsen Tania Culottes

                                                Fabric:     Rayon Challis

                                                Notions:  Invisible zipper, Interfacing

The combination of the circle skirt and rayon fabric make for the most comfortable attire in the 90 degree temps we've been having.  No worries about peeling yourself out of your sticky sweaty pants at the end of the day.  The only worry I had was a strong gust of wind and a neighbor driving by at the same time.  

I cut a small of version 2, the knee length, but in the end due partly to personal taste and partly to gravity they ended up more like version 1, the mini skirt.  After letting the finished skirt hang for a good 24 hours you can see how crazy wonky the hem turned out.  It is rayon cut on the bias after all.

 

I cringed when it came time to think about taking my scissors and trying to cut a straight hem.  Luckily Instagram peeps came to the rescue.  I hung it up in my door frame making sure that it was level.  This allowed me to tape each side to the frame so that the hemline was stretched out making it much easier to see if the hem was level or not.  Boy I had a really hard time trying to explain that.  Hopefully the picture below better tells the story.  This is after I cut on it for a while with one eye open.  

 

Instead of marking where I wanted my hemline I went ahead and cut it while it was still hanging in the door because I just found it easier to do.  Easier to do but still nerve wracking.  It may be a little off in the back but in my opinion it turned out pretty well.

    

Although it took me longer (first timer here) this pattern can be made in about a couple hours.  I'll probably add about a half inch to the waistline next time for more breathing room.  These pictures were taken right after eating at Outback so I'm doing A LOT of sucking it in.

I would like to make a more work appropriate version of these.  The pattern calls for light to mid-weight fabrics but I can't help but think of making them in up in a wool and pairing them with tights for the winter months.  Ah these 90 degree days got me dreaming of winter already!

 

I have one more outfit planned for summer then it will probably be time to think about my Fall wardrobe.  I recently read Marie Kondo's book "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up" and my entire closet got "kon mar'ied".  I need to replace a few LOT of things and I've been considering creating a capsule wardrobe.  Have you created a capsule wardrobe? Any tips or advice on where to start?