Reversible collared shirt

This piece was conceived when I saw this grey jumpsuit by Mimi G.  I have to say I love that look, so much so that I almost bought the pattern,  but then at the last minute I couldn't bring myself to do it.  I knew I'd have issues getting it to fit, and there's always the question of how a form fitting jumpsuit is going to look on MY body as opposed to a model, so in the end I decided to draft it myself.

There were also a couple of changes I wanted to make.

1. I wanted long sleeves.  I have one jumpsuit which is pants length and short sleeve and it never gets worn as, if its warm enough for short sleeves I generally don't want long pants and vice versa...so I need long sleeves.
2.  I wanted it to be warm enough to wear by itself without having to put a jumper over it - obviously this is for practical purposes.  So I wanted to make it double layered.

I started with my basic raglan sleeve, princess seam top pattern, cut the sleeve full length and straight  and cut it out of a black knit fabric that I had in my stash.  I then cut my basic flared pants pattern out of the same fabric put them both on together and pinned them together at my waist line. I had to do a few fitting tweaks, added a center back seam to remove pooling in the small of my back etc. then once I was happy with how it fit I basted it together and trimmed all my seam allowances back.  I then took apart all the seams except that one at the waist and used the material to create the two pattern pieces as per the Mimi G pattern.

I then went looking for a material for the second layer and came out with the beautiful turquoise paisley knit fabric that I used to make L's dress here.  I cut out the pattern pieces up and sewed it up....and that's where the problems started.  I will say here that the jumpsuit fitted perfectly - it was exactly what I wanted......and it looked terrible on me... nope nope nope not going there.

Well what a waste that was.  I folded up the pattern and put it away - I'm not sure why I kept it even.  But then what to do with the half finished jump suit?  I did not want to waste all that beautiful material, so I cut the whole thing in half.  Now I had a shirt and pants.

I wanted to finish off the top first.  I went back to my trusty New Look 6704 and used the collar and stand pieces to finish off the neckline.  I used the paisley fabric for all of the collar and placket pieces. Getting the bottom of the placket to look good from both sides wasn't easy and I'm not sure my result was the best possible - I think I need to buy a Henly shirt pattern so I can figure out how to finish off this style of shirt.

The neckline is pretty low cut so I used a bead to hold it together.

I added as wide a band as I possibly could to the bottom as by cutting it off at the waistline the shirt is now pretty short.

I turned the end of the sleeve in the paisley material back onto the black side to create a cuff on the black shirt.  And we now effectively have two shirts - one in the paisley material and one in basic black with collar, bottom band and cuffs in the paisley fabric.

In the end I managed to make a wearable shirt out of this so that's something.  The pants are still sitting in my sewing room.  I'm not sure if I want to make them up for me - or cut them down and give them to L?