Challenge: Using the fabric we have selected for you, challenge yourself by making a unique garment and working with a material you may not have used before to create one well-made garment. You can use a pattern of you choice to construct your garment. 
You will be judged on creativity, functionality, craftsmanship, and fit. 

We were all sent the same fabric for this challenge.  A polyester chiffon and I totally forgot to take pictures of it.  It is a panel print and we received two panels.  Shams took a good picture of the fabric for her blog. You can see it here.

I'm not going to lie people I was not excited to see this fabric. My first thoughts, Wow this is hideous.  Sorry (not sorry) just want to be honest with you all and if I can't be totally honest on my own blog then I don't know what I'm doing here.  It's nothing I would ever pick out for myself so I had a real challenge here.  Feeling uninspired my husband suggested I make pajamas.  I thought that was a great idea because I wanted something different as I figured everyone would make a flowy shirt or dress with it.  I thought a little harder and wondered if a jumpsuit might work.  Not quite pajama status but something I could lounge in all day at the house.  If the mail man happened to come to the door delivering a huge box of fabric I could totally answer it without looking like I just rolled out of bed.  I know I risked looking like a convict with all the stripes so I went to Pinterest to ease my fears.  I was quite surprised to see a lot of striped jumpsuits (the non convict style).  But the style of jumpsuit I was most attracted to was this one...

To create this look I did a mashing of patterns.  For the top I used Grainline's Scout Tee.  I wanted a contrasting solid neckline like my inspiration picture so I altered my pattern to do so.  I've done that once before and talked about it here.   I also added an invisible zipper to the center back.  For the bottoms I had a jumpsuit pattern already, McCall's 6083 so I used those bottoms but shortened and tapered them in so they weren't so full.  The waistline is elastic casing and I did the same for the leg hems.  For added detail I tacked on bows to the legs and waistline.  It's fully lined with white polyester lining.  The inside seams are finished with french seams and on the seams like the armholes, serged.

I think the hardest part of working with chiffon is cutting out the pattern and getting a good press on your seams.  When sewing any seams I made sure and used A LOT of pins to keep things in place.   I used a 70/10 microtex needle.  Thanks to my handy dandy Schmetz app I will never sew with the wrong size needle again.

I'm not really as mad as I look in this picture.  Despite the print I really do like the style of this outfit.  I  know part of the challenge was to work with a fabric you normally wouldn't and make something wearable...mission accomplished.

I have to say my jumpsuit served it's lounging purpose for the day.  Vito even got in on some lounge time.  Oh who am I kidding, all day, every day is lounge time for that Pug.

Did ya'll see who the winner of the LBD challenge was??  No??  Well it was little ol' me! 

Click here for original blog post on this dress

A big thanks to everyone for all your support and votes!  I really didn't have a clue what I was getting myself into when I joined this challenge.  It has been really fun but has also taken up a lot of my time and been a lot of hard work. I have learned a lot, cussed a lot and came pretty close to tears so winning this challenge is a big boost to my "sewjo" and just motivates me to push myself even harder in the next challenges. (So full of doubt it's been seriously hard to drag my butt off the couch the last few days).  After work today I thought I'd treat myself with some celebratory fabrics. (who am I kidding I didn't need to win any challenges to buy this fabric but it sounded like a good excuse).

The buffalo check flannel will become an Archer, the purple stretchy boucle a Ballet dress and the cotton scissor print I will be using for my muslin (hopefully wearable) for the next challenge.

I also couldn't pass this boney guy up...it's was the polka dot bow that sold me.

Hope everyone is having a great week!  Any big plans for the weekend???