Today, I have two creations to share with you, using the Fibre Mood Carmella Jumpsuit pattern.

Neither of which look a whole lot like the original, which makes this even more of a fun post. That’s right, I actually got into some wacky hacky action with Fibre Mood Carmella Jumpsuit pattern.

I’ve hacked the Fibre Mood Carmella, which, in its original form has a proper boiler suit vibe to create a mash up with the wide legs of the Amy Jumpsuit from Closet Case Patterns.

And, for good measure, I also used the Fibre Mood Carmella bodice to create a boxy oversized linen shirt.

Soooo, let’s get started!

Carmel-Amy Jumpsuit

Fibre Mood Carmella Jumpsuit + Amy Jumpsuit, well it has to be my very own Carmel-Amy!

I used site 42 of the Fibre Mood Carmella pattern as the starting point for my jumpsuit.

My Carmella + Amy Jumpsuit mash up is made out of the regular weight navy milled linen from The Fabric Store.

As I knew that I was going to be making a muslin, I didn’t try to get too technical about mashing the patterns together.

I started to by adding 1.5 cms in length at the waist of Carmella because I generally find that my torso is a little longer than jumpsuits are designed for (lesson learned the hard way over the course of several painfully pinching jumpsuits).

Then, when I got to the leg pieces, I basically just placed the leg pieces of the Amy Jumpsuit (which I’d already sewn here) on top of the Carmella Jumpsuit leg and went for it.

I smoothed out a few lines and used that as the starting point for my muslin.

The other key change was to drop the long-sleeved shirt sleeve for a very oversized sleeve, designed to be sewn with a very wide folded-over cuff. Because, you know, who has time for a separate sleeve cuff.

Sewing the muslin of the Carmel-Amy Jumpsuit

I don’t often make muslins but, even for me, major pattern hacking like this is definitely muslin territory.

I had an old linen fitted bed sheet, I’d been holding on to. My sandpaper-like feet had, over time, literally sanded an enormous hole into our sheet, sending it to retirement.

Well, it had a perfect last hoorah as my muslin.

From the muslin, there were clearly a few changes to be made.

I needed to add a little more room into the jumpsuit from the waist down and especially at the widest point of my legs. I needed to lengthen the top of the back leg pieces while shortening the bottom of the back bodice piece so that, instead of a dropped waist, the two pieces met at my natural waist. I increased the pocket size by 1 centimeter all around and placed them 1.5 cm lower on my chest (although I think they could still go down another centimetre). I made some minor adjustments to the yoke, as the shoulders were feeling a bit too wide and pointy for me.

I also added in extra room to create a channel at the back waist for the addition of elastic. Adds to the “mechanic boiler suit vibe!”, right?

And, well, I think that’s about it!

Confession, I didn’t add the collar of the Fibre Mood Carmella to my muslin because I was totally being lazy. But, when I saw it without the collar, I realized that I actually liked the look of it as a simple v-neck.

I felt that this gave it a clean, minimalist look which was totally doing it for me!

So I decided to use this neckline and posted a little video about it on Insta stories, when it was kindly pointed out to me that maybe that neckline in navy could look a bit like medical scrubs. Who knew we’d be worrying about fashion associations like this in 2020!

As I wasn’t 100% sure about the neckline choice, I decided to heed another suggestion I got on insta, which was that, perhaps, the bodice of the Fibre Mood Carmella would make a good shirt!

So join me, for a moment, on a shirt interlude! I promise we’ll get back to the Carmel-Amy Jumpsuit, but you’re following my sewing journey precisely as it unfolded on this post!

Fibre Mood Carmella Jumpsuit hacked into a shirt

Indeed, when making my muslin, I was pleasantly surprised by how the Fibre Mood Carmella bodice, in particular, had a lovely shape as an oversized shirt.

And, over on pinterest, I’d been pinning boxy oversized linen shirts for a while now.

So I set my jumpsuit muslin to one side and decided to whip up the Fibre Mood Carmella bodice as an oversized short-sleeved shirt, this time testing out the collar to see what I thought of it!

This shirt is made in heavyweight linen in the Duck Egg colour from The Fabric Store. The heavyweight linen is actually a tad too heavy for this make and it would have been better in the regular weight but, you know, gotta use what we have!

I really like the final Fibre Mood Carmella Shirt, which feels like an awesome bonus project.

But, while we’re on the topic of shirt-making, can I just say that I feel like the burrito method for attaching a yoke is somehow my sewing nemesis?

I’m no new-comer to shirt making, but I still find myself getting really confused by this step – although it is magic when it work!

I ended up having to flip between the Closet Case tutorial on this topic and the tutorial by Thread Theory which goes with their Fairfield button-up. Each of them, on their own, had steps which still left me confused (e.g. please, please use fabrics with visible right and wrong sides when sewing photo tutorials!!!), but by reading the two of them side by side – I could muddle through!

Sewing my Fibre Mood Carmella Jumpsuit shirt did enable me to confirm, however, that I was going to go collar-less for my jumpsuit. It also helped me me to refine the fit around the shoulder, by removing a a small amount from both the height and with of the yoke (about a cm in each case). I also made equivalent modifications to the armscye.

So, with a lovely new shirt, new mods and confidence in my neckline choice, I jumped back to my Carmel-Amy jumpsuit.

Sewing the Fibre Mood Carmella Jumpsuit

It actually felt really good starting to sew my final jumpsuit with the confidence of both the muslin and the shirt under my belt.

I redrafted the neckline and created a facing for it, thus leaving me with all I needed to get started.

When sewing, I often just feel so excited and inspired that I tend to rush, rush, rush, because I so very desperately want to see what this is going to look like!

Is it going to be a sewing win or not?

Sometimes, that tendency to rush, doesn’t exactly bode well for the finished garment.

Thanks to the muslin and the shirt, I felt that I knew what to expect and this enabled me to relax and enjoy the process!

I don’t have a lot to say about the sewing process. Since I was hacking things a lot, I didn’t really use the instructions, but I feel that all-in-all, this project came together surprisingly quickly.

Even with the muslin step.

The use of elastic at the back waist is probably one of my favourite additions to the Fibre Mood Carmella Jumpsuit. I did this by adding an extra inch overlap to both my back bodice and back leg piece and using this overlap to create a channel. Thanks to my muslin, I knew exactly what length of elastic needed to go into it, which also simplified the process. No need to “test out” the required length of elastic like in my recent elastic waisted trouser adventures!

But my favourite feature of all on my Carmel-Amy has to be these lovely wide legs. I really adore the shape of the legs on the Amy Jumpsuit by Closet Case – it is my definition of wide legged perfection!

In the end, I think I don’t have much more to say than “I LOVE THIS DAMN CARMEL-AMY JUMPSUIT”.

Aren’t successful pattern-mashes just soooo rewarding.

And, yes, in navy, my v-neck does look a little like scrubs.

But I’m thinking of it as homage to the heroes out there keeping us alive while I have the luxury to be contributing by merely staying the f#@k home and sewing.

So I don’t have much more to say except that Fibre Mood Carmella and the Closet Case Amy Jumpsuit make a pretty winning combination in my books.

So, what’s your favourite pattern mash-up ever?

Oh and, finally, a little P.S! If you like to get your blog hits through Bloglovin’, feel free to follow me over there: you can find me here. And you can find me on Instagram here.