Made for Mermaids and Patterns for Pirates had so much fun on our last tour that we decided to do it again!  “Sew, What Do I Wear?” is back for another round, and this time it’s all about Valentine’s Day outfits.  Fun, right?

I wanted to make a dress, but I decided to shoot for separates because I thought I’d get more wear out of the pieces if I was able to mix them with something else.  So I went with the P4P Women’s Henley and the skirt hack for the M4M Mama Joy.  I’m a little bit pirate and a little bit mermaid and I’m totally okay with that.

I am pretty much in love with my new top.  The fabric is such a dream.  It’s a double brushed poly from Sly Fox Fabrics and I just adore it.  I super love polka dots but when I added the heart elbow patches, it completely sealed the deal for me.  I’m ashamed to admit that this is the first time I’ve actually used the henley pattern as an actual henley for myself.  I’ve made the placket for Bennett and Louis plenty of times at this point, but I kept making a basic tee for myself.

Times are a-changin’!  I love it so much.  The neckline makes for a fun change in my closet of tees, and the shiny red spandex didn’t really even fight me that hard.  I was worried.  But it played nice and gave me all sorts of heart eyes.

And heart elbows.  (Ba-dum-ching!)

For the skirt, I alllllllmost made this in a velvet.  But then I really wanted to have something that could work for multiple seasons and events, and velvet doesn’t exactly transition well in the summer.  So I picked a basic black ponte.  So glad I did!

I’m just a little ticked at myself for not adding pockets.  Pockets, Katy!!  Why would you leave that out??

Mama Joy has these fun pleated skirts for the bottom portion of the dress/peplum.  And the ladies were so kind as to add some waistband measurements for us in their HACKS blog post, so we can have fun with just the skirt portion too. A basic black skirt is super useful to have in my closet.  I’m a little ashamed I didn’t have one leading up to this.

^^^apparently I forgot to unpick one of the pleat stays.  So don’t judge my shoddy work too harshly, haha.  This is what I get for being my own photographer sometimes.

I’m not going to lie to you guys though.  We don’t really “do” Valentine’s Day.  No gifts, no fancy dinners out.  We worry about having to top ourselves the next year if we’ve done something grand, so instead we do nothing.  Haha.  So most likely, this outfit together won’t be rocked on Valentine’s Day but I totally plan on wearing this top with some jeans while we eat dinner at home with the kiddo.  Totally legit.

And what you’ve been waiting for, the breakdown of it all:

Top: Patterns for Pirates Women’s Henley | Polka Dot Brushed Poly from Sly Fox Fabrics | Red Spandex details
Skirt: Made for Mermaids Mama Joy (skirt hack) | Black Ponte

Before you go! Take a look at our lineup this week!