pattern mash-up: easton cowl-neck tee and kensington knit skirt

Jen is visiting from the Advisors Circle to show off the sophisticated dress she made using the Easton Cowl-neck Tee and Kensington Knit Skirt patterns.

Do you remember this post about creating glammed-up loungewear? I was really excited about that idea.

When the Easton Cowl-neck Tee came out, I thought it would make a perfect jazzed-up, comfortable dress that could meet that dressy loungewear vibe. As I started to ponder the idea, I realized that blending the tee with the Kensington Knit Skirt might be the perfect solution.

I purchased a soft stretch crushed velvet in black for the task. I put off trying this project for a while, but then I finally got the motivation when I saw Masha’s post about her velvet turtleneck maxi-dress.

I’ve made both the tee and the skirt in the past, so I started with the sizes and adjustments that I’ve made for each.

For the Easton, I used a size small, A/B cup with the shortened length and a slight adjustment to the waist width. [Note: You can read Jen’s fitting saga for this pattern here.] For the Kensington Skirt, I used the size 6 with no adjustments.

To create the dress, I first adjusted the skirt pattern pieces to meet my needs. I folded the waistband in half because I would only need the front half for the dress. Then, I taped it to the top of the skirt, overlapping 1/4” to accommodate the seam allowance.

Normally, I might try to align the waist of the skirt where the natural waist was on the tee, but I knew that the skirt sat lower on me than my natural waist. So I tried on my tee with my skirt to see where the skirt waist met the top. I aligned the center of the skirt with the fold for each of the tee front and back pattern pieces to make one long front and one long back pattern piece, overlapping where I marked for the waist.

From there, I traced the pattern, adjusting the waist curve to be a single front back pieces, each cut on the fold.

The rest was pretty simple, just like stitching up a longer version of the Easton using the tee instructions. I ended up taking in the waist a little after initially sewing it together because the fabric had more stretch than the prior fabrics used. I love the result and the dress is extremely comfortable.