Cherries and Polka Dots

Ah, cherries! I don’t think I’ll ever get sick of them. I really can’t resist a good cherry print for summer. And if you throw some polka dots in the mix…

I bought this fabric at the Stoffenspektakel. There was only a 2 metre piece left, and I hemmed and hawed for a couple years before deciding on a pattern for it. But after making my flamingo dress, also from a small yardage, I immediately knew I had to use the same pattern for this cherry fabric, Woman W88 (a vintage pattern I bought on Etsy).

The pattern actually uses quite a lot of fabric, but I’ve only been using the bodice and strap pieces, substituting a gathered skirt the width of my fabric (x2) for the voluminous skirt of the pattern. I’m definitely planning on using the skirt of the pattern in the future, but this substitution has proven very useful when dealing with smaller yardages.

I did not make a lot of changes compared to my first version, only tiny modifications. First, I finished the neckline with a narrower bias tape. I’m not sure this was such a good idea. It looks good, yes, and I was able to topstitch it in place instead of slip stitching it, but it also means that I had to cut the hidden ends of the straps way shorter (thus more prone to fraying) than on my first version.

I also didn’t add the cute little strap bows this time. I felt one dress with these bows was enough, and I didn’t want it to be too obvious that I had two dresses that were exactly the same but for the fabric. For the same reason, I changed the shape of the pockets, too, from rounded to square.

One small fit problem I hadn’t noticed on my first version is that the waistline is maybe a touch too low. Another small fit problem I hadn’t noticed on my first version, probably because it was hidden by the bows, is that the two front neckline darts do not sit perfectly flush to my body. It’s barely visible (even less in the pictures), but a possible improvement to keep in mind for a future version.

Because there will be future versions of course. It’s the kind of pattern I can see myself sewing over and over again, changing only the fabric and small details.

Retro Stripes

Nine months ago, when I had just made this dress, I wasn’t sure I’d wear it a ton. I loved the fabric (still do), but the shape was just not ideal on me. I felt like it hit a weird spot between lose in some places and tight in other places. And I liked it from the front, but I was bothered by the fabric pooling at the back. I also didn’t want to add darts to a T-shirt dress, so I decided to wear it anyway.

It has not become my favourite dress, but it has become one of my most worn garments nonetheless. Especially in the summer, when the weather’s warm enough to wear it without tights: it’s my go-to dress for lazy summer days. I also wear it in winter, with tights and a cardigan (usually this one), so it really is a year round dress. And I don’t ever think about its imperfect fit when I wear it.

To make it I used Sewaholic’s Renfrew top, which I simply lengthened. Now I know not to do that again. I also shortened the sleeves, got rid of the sleeve bands and made my own, much narrower, neckband. All hems were serged, then turned and topstitched with a double needle. Since I was using white thread, I made sure that the topstitching fell on white stripes. I didn’t topstitch the seam allowances of the neckband down.

The fabric once again came from the Stoffenspektakel. It has a lovely texture that sort of reminds me of vintage crochet; I love it!

I don’t have a lot more to say about that dress which is essentially a T-shirt (and I think my sixth version of the Renfrew pattern) so I’ll leave it at that. See you next week!

Ciré Jaune

Even more than a pair of jeans, a rain jacket had been desperately missing from my wardrobe. I bought some K-way fabric at Les Tissus du Chien Vert some time ago with the intention of making a Minoru jacket, but then I changed my mind when I came upon Kwik Sew K4015.

This pattern was very easy to sew, but even though it’s perfectly possible that the problem was due to an error or miscomprehension on my part, I suspect there is a mistake in the instructions regarding the way the main fabric sleeves are attached to the lining sleeves (step 8 for anyone making the jacket): there was no way I could turn the jacket right side out following these instructions. I unpicked the bottom edges of the sleeves and reattached them my own way (which I’ve seen in several tutorials such as this one). Aside from that part, the instructions were very clear.

Fitting wise I just had to lengthen the sleeves as much as possible by sewing the sleeve bottom edges with a 0,5 cm seam allowance instead of 1,5 cm. Other than that I made no changes, and on any future version I’ll be sure to add even more length to the sleeves at the cutting stage: most of the time they are okay with only that added centimetre, but I could do with a couple more when I’m on my bike. If I ever sew this view of the jacket again, I might also lengthen the front pieces to make them as long as the back (and in that case I’d also lower the side slits): I’m not a fan of the asymmetry there.

I’m in-between sizes and I chose to make a size S, the upper size, because I was going to interline the jacket with polar fleece. I’m glad I did, the jacket would clearly have been too tight otherwise!

The (white) fleece interlining, in addition to adding warmth of course, had the advantage of stopping the lining from showing through the main fabric. You can still see it through the pockets (aren’t they a cute shape, by the way?) and hood, which I haven’t interlined, but I think it would have been much more of an issue had it been showing through the whole jacket.

To interline the jacket, I simply cut the body and sleeve pieces in fleece and basted them to the corresponding lining pieces, then treated them as a single layer: the lining being a simple cotton (the same I used for this skirt, but with bigger dots), I felt it would be simpler to handle than the main fabric.

And indeed, any fabric would have been easier to handle than that beep of a fabric. It’s by far the worst fabric I’ve ever had to work with. I mean, it’s great quality, but it was an absolute nightmare to sew! It was close to impossible to get an even stitch length since it kept sticking to the machine, argh! I thought I was never going to get a decent looking jacket, but once I stepped back I realised this didn’t really affect the general look of the garment.

I used metal snaps to close the jacket, and I like both their look and their practicality. The whole jacket is so practical, I’ve actually been wearing it way more than my Quart coat, which I didn’t see coming! It’s light yet warm, casual yet cute, and it’s such a relief wearing it when it starts raining.

I have no intention of making this view (B) of the pattern again any time soon, but I do have a piece of Liberty set aside for View A, which doesn’t look like much on the envelope picture, but I’m sure has the potential to make a very cute little quilted jacket!

Enregistrer

Enregistrer

Enregistrer

Enregistrer

Enregistrer

Enregistrer

Enregistrer

Pastel

Yes, another gathered skirt with giant pockets; yes, two new Ondée sweaters! I know, I know…

What can I write that I haven’t written before, especially since the fabric I used for the Ondées is the same as for my first version, only in different colourways, and the fabric of the skirt is the same as for last week’s culottes, only with vertical stripes instead of flowers? I also used the remnants of the culottes for the pockets and the covered button, so really, nothing new under the sun. I even bought the fabrics in the same place.

Oh, but wait, I did use a new pattern for the pockets of the skirt! Burda 06/2015 #103a is a gathered skirt, so they only provide you with measurements, no pattern pieces, except for the pockets. I used my usual gathered skirt measurements instead of the pattern measurements, but I did use the pocket piece! I love those pockets: I can literally fit a cat in each one! Now if only my cats would cooperate.

I have been more into skirts that fall below the knee lately and I would have liked this skirt to do so, but I didn’t have enough fabric left after straightening the grain (I lost about twenty centimetres, grrrrr!), so this length had to do. Judging from the crazy amount of times I have worn this skirt in almost four months, I think I might survive the trauma.

I have realised since making the two Ondées (and two others after that, oops!) that I should have cut at least a 38 at the shoulders instead of a 36 like I did. It’s funny how at first you don’t see something, and then you notice it and it’s all you can see. I am now the proud owner of ten too-narrow-at-the-shoulders Ondées! Now that won’t stop me from going on wearing them. Also, being the positive person that I am, I see that as an opportunity to sew ten more! Silver lining and all that…

Enregistrer

Enregistrer

Enregistrer

Enregistrer

Enregistrer

Sunny!

Hello, it’s me again! Once more with two garments for the price of one, which makes a total of five garments in a week, gasp!

It’s been so long since I completed this skirt and top that I don’t even remember which came first… The only thing I remember is finishing them a few days apart and realising how perfect they went together.

The skirt is my second iteration of Tilly’s Picnic Blanket Skirt. I can’t get enough gathered skirts; with or without buttons, I need them all. You wouldn’t believe how many pieces of fabric I have bought with a simple gathered skirt in mind (I think Mimolette is going to club me to death if she ever hears me answering ever again “Oh I don’t know, I was thinking a simple gathered skirt maybe?” to her asking me what I want to make with a fabric I like!).

So when looking for something to sew with the remnants of the skirt I sewed for my friend’s birthday (am I the best friend ever or what, sewing her a skirt only two years after her birthday?!), I didn’t dither and went for, well, a gathered skirt. With buttons, because I had spotted these cute ones at Tissus Passion and I was so happy to have found an excuse to buy them.

While we’re on the subject of buttons, I got the impression that, after a couple of months of wearing and subsequent washing, they had started to fade a little bit. I compared them with a spare one to be sure I wasn’t seeing things, and indeed, as you can see in the picture above, they are a shade clearer. Fortunately, the fabric (which I bought in Paris about four years ago) seems to stand up better to repeated washing.

I like the skirt a lot, but it’s the knitted top I’m most proud of, because it is my own pattern (details on Ravelry)! I had a clear idea of what I wanted it to look like and I made the pattern up as I went. The only radical difference between the finished top and what I had in mind is that I initially intended for the Swiss dot stitch to run on the whole sweater. But when I reached the part where I knit in the round, I realised this stitch couldn’t really be knit in the round. So I had to make a choice between seaming up the top afterwards, or knitting in the round with another stitch. I thought these garter stitch stripes looked cute with the dots, so I chose to go on knitting in the round with this stitch.

The yarn is Catania and I loved knitting with it. I did freak out when steam blocking the sweater though: with the heat, the yarn changed in texture and got very stiff and started feeling sort of brittle. Luckily, the change was only temporary and everything got back to normal as soon as the yarn cooled down.

I have worn this skirt and top a lot since I finished them four months ago, together and separately. The skirt is especially versatile: with its colourful flowers on a black background, it lends itself to being worn with or without tights, both in summer and winter appropriate outfits!

Mimosa Cardigan

Quick, before summer gets here and makes it unbearable to wear this cardigan even for a short photo session!

I haven’t worn it since I finished it two months ago, at first because I hadn’t blocked it yet, and then because even though the weather had not been very warm yet, it was still not cold enough anymore for me to wear such a cardigan. It’s now patiently waiting for its hour of glory on its shelf in the wardrobe, and I’m pretty sure I’ll wear it a lot come fall and winter. I mean, aren’t those circles of nupps adorable?

I don’t think I’ll wear it a lot closed all the way up like this though. I prefer it open; it looks less strict I think.

The lovely pattern is Tambourine by Julia Farwell-Clay, from Pom Pom Quarterly #12, and the yarn is Drops Karisma (colourway 52), which I can only recommend since it’s already my third time using it. I didn’t like the contiguous button bands of the pattern, so I changed them into ribbing I picked up and knit on afterwards. I explained this in more detail on Ravelry.

I also didn’t feel like sewing the sleeves to the body, so I decided to try and replace them with seamless set-in sleeves. After I had done my calculations, I took a look at these instructions and saw that the sleeves of size M used the same number of stitches, so I simply used those sleeves instead of the Tambourine ones. The sleeves are a little bit snugger than expected (it may have something to do with my gauge tightening when I knit in the round), but they are still perfectly comfortable, so no biggie.

I lengthened the sleeves a little bit, too, because with past knitting projects I often forgot that sleeves tend to creep up when you wear them and ended up with too short sleeves.

Even though I haven’t worn it yet for meteorological reasons, I’m really happy with the outcome. I wouldn’t go as far as saying I can’t wait for fall to arrive so that I can wear it though, because that would be much too ironic seeing as how all I can think about right now is summer!

Mama Mustard Cardigan

When I took a look at my me-made wardrobe before the start of Me-Made-May, I quickly realised that I was pretty lacking in the cardigan department. Cardigans are one of my staples, yet I only knit three of them, isn’t that crazy? So of course I decided my next knitting project would have to be a cardigan.

I still owned a store-bought mustard cardigan that went with virtually everything in my wardrobe, but it had started pilling and showing other signs of age, so I had been thinking about replacing it with a me-made version for a long time. I had some mustard merino yarn in my stash, so I browsed Ravelry by entering its gauge in the search parameters and I came upon Kelly Brooker’s Mama Vertebrae pattern. Aside from the fact that that name freaked me out a little bit (still does: to me it evokes scary creatures with a prominent spine – creepy!), I really liked the simplicity of the pattern, so I immediately bought it and got to work.

I was in-between two sizes and I chose the smallest one because I wanted a close fitting cardigan. I followed the suggestion of stopping the raglan increases early in order to get a smaller armhole and I didn’t cast on more stitches to compensate for the omitted raglan increases when I started working on the sleeves so that I’d get a closer fit on the sleeves. Also for that closer fit on the sleeves, I decreased two stitches every eighth row as suggested in the pattern. I really liked the fact that the pattern is easy to customise to get the fit you want, and also that it is written for four yarn weights!

I initially debated knitting long or 3/4 sleeves, and I opted for the 3/4 sleeves mostly out of laziness, but when I reached the 3/4 length indicated by the pattern, I felt like the sleeves hit my arms at a weird place, so I went on knitting until I felt like they were long enough to be a true 3/4 length. And of course after blocking I realised I had actually knit long sleeves… Happy accident!

Before blocking I was really worried about the number of stitches I had picked up along the neckline: even though I had used Jeny’s surprisingly stretchy bind off, the ribbing pulled the whole front of the cardigan in and I felt like no blocking would be strong enough to make it the right size. Turns out I was totally wrong: once the yarn was wet, it was really easy to get it to conform to whatever shape I wanted it to take.

So this is not the most original knitting project, but it fills a hole in my wardrobe and I can only hope I’ll wear it even half as often as that old store-bought mustard cardigan! Next on the list: a navy cardigan! Can you believe it’s been at least ten years since I owned one?