Sew easy and stylish in black & white!

There should always be a room for experiments! Knowing that, I still try to avoid combination of black and white for some unknown reason. Although it is classy and easy to wear I could never bring myself to a decision: to try or not? And here we go, perfect reason came along – July is a MonoSewn month!!! I am continuing with easy sewing patterns, because you don’t need to complicate a lot of things. For knits and sweater like materials I always try to use simple patterns, the reason why is because the fabric is already stretchy enough and mostly isn’t solid, so the simpler is the pattern the higher is the rate of success 🙂 Plus, don’t forget, simple does not mean ugly. Not at all! 🙂

Okay, this is a simple yet quite sophisticated combo: layered chiffon skirt and knit sweater with interesting shoulder detail. You can wear it with a matching bra, or as I did – with a contrasting tank top underneath. I also made a “Mono” necklace. Also, here’s another outfit that used the same patterns. If you decide make these garments please remember to make sweater ONLY out of stretch fabric like jersey knit or anything with high amount of spandex.

Patterns: Burda sweater #108, 4/2012 and self drafted layered skirt.

Sweater: This is the technical picture of another sweater from Burda’s website, but it is the same pattern scheme, omit the band at the bottom. Measure your shoulder length, then figure out how long you would like it to be – draft a rectangular. Your sleeve opening should be about 21-23 cm (7″-9″), your wrist opening about 9-12 cm (4″-5″), length of sleeve about 55 cm. Put those measurements on the tracing paper, draw a diagonal line from wrist opening to a sleeve opening. Draft two body pieces (2 rectangular), and 2 sleeve pieces on fold. I also added an elasticated band on the sleeves, just because. You don’t need to do that 🙂 Stitch all together and your sweater is ready!

Skirt: measure your waist, mine is 18″. This will be your elasticated waist band. Then use approx. twice as length as of your waist length if you want a big puffy skirt, if not, use about 10″-15″ more. I used a length of  28″. For all three pattern pieces: 1st layer of chiffon, 2nd layer of chiffon, 3 layer of cotton use the same width ( 28″ in my case). Then depending on how long you want your skirt draft 3 rectangular, with height difference in about 2,5″ difference. Then layer the skirt: cotton lining underneath, then longest chiffon layer, then shortest chiffon layer. Gather them up by running through with widest basic stitch you have and then gathering them up. Add an elastic waistband.

Materials: sweater knit, white chiffon, white cotton, elasticated band

Additions: handmade necklace, find it here

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