Ever since Megan Nielsen released her Tania Culottes pattern, I’ve been curious to make a pair for myself. Like many separates patterns though, I had trouble visualizing what top I would wear with them. When Heather Lou released the Nettie bodysuit, then, it seemed like the perfect match. I planned to put these two together back at the beginning of summer, but it took me until August to get them finished. Then it took another month or so to finally get pictures of them.
This is a bit of a different look for me. Personally, I love my legs. I’m not trying to be all vain by admitting that; I have plenty of other body hang-ups, but my legs are definitely not one of them. Just because I love my legs, though, doesn’t mean I think I need to have all of them exposed to everyone all the time. I prefer to keep my skirts below the knee. Shorts, however, are another matter. These culottes are something in the middle between skirt and short, so I’m okay with them being above the knee. The volume makes them rather prone to fly-ups, so I wouldn’t wear them in a windstorm. The bodysuit is a little bit of protection, but I’d rather not flash that portion of it if I can help it.
The Tania pattern doesn’t go up to my size, so I graded up by drawing outside the lines of the largest size, about as much as the distance between the middle/largest sizes. That isn’t a very scientific way to alter a pattern, but it worked well enough for my purposes. I added about 3 inches to the length because I think as-drafted they would be too short for my personal comfort preferences.
I used a rayon challis from my stash for the culottes.The fabric stretched while hanging before hemming, and I did a better job evening it up on one side compared to the other. Only time will tell if this will bother me enough to make me eventually fix it.
I think my Nettie is overall a little too big. I sized up as Heather Lou recommended, but then I used a 95% cotton, 5% lycra, (Laguna cotton, again) and it has good stretch and good recovery and probably didn’t need to be sized up. I think I’ll go with the originally recommended size for my next one.
I’m not sure that the proportions of this outfit really work for me in the most traditionally flattering way. Maybe the longer length of the skirt compared to the original pattern as well as the short sleeves on the bodysuit aren’t really working together. I have thrown my favorite summer sweater on with this outfit (I need to post about that sweater) and it seems to work maybe a little better than the short sleeves here. I haven’t tried this outfit with tights yet, though as the weather cools down, I think I’ll need to. Overall I think I like it though. It gives me something different to wear as an alternative to my usual dresses or skirts.
Stash-busting stats: 41/50. 86 yards
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