Bank Holiday stitching

Oh, I do love a long weekend. Even when you don't really go anywhere, or do anything in particular, it's just so nice having 3 days in a row with no alarm waking you up. Bliss. It'd be ever-so nice if every Monday was a bank holiday, wouldn't it? *yawns*

So. I think I did an excellent job of being lazy this weekend, all in all (this was deliberate as I'm going to likely need to work every other weekend from now until Christmas), but I did also manage to do a wee bit of sewing. 

Having realised that the Sew Over It Shift Dress requires only 1m of fabric (if it's 140cm wide...if it's narrower than that, you'll be shit out of luck. Which is really goddamn annoying if you happen to have some gorgeous double gauze with a directional pattern that you had been hoping to turn into a shift dress. Just sayin'), I thought I'd whip up another one or two using the various odd bits of crepe or polysomethings I had lying around. And so, I present to you my Upside Down Owl Dress (complete with terrified cat who refused to leave my side during Saturday's epic thunderstorms #hatesthunder):

I changed the armholes on this by using the lines intended for the sleeved version (the pattern has a slightly different shape for the sleeveless version) - this gives me a tiny bit more width to go under the arm, which I like. It's more comfortable when I sit down or lean forward. I still think the shoulders might be too wide or something though - the next one I make, I'll hack into the arm/shoulder hole at the front and lose 1-2cm. But I like this and again, I think it works belted or not. 

I checked carefully before cutting it out that the owls were non-directional - and I am sure there are just as many upside down as there are right way up. And yet...I'm convinced it looks upside down! Grr. Maybe they are special Bat Owls that hang from trees upside down?? Let's go with that. In any case, this feels like pretty cheap fabric, so it's unlikely to have a long life-span, so the bat-owls probably won't bother me for too long. 

Now, the bigger bit of sewing I did was a merino cardigan. This is version 2 of my test versions of the Muse Patterns Jenna Cardigan. I made one in a thicker grey fabric the other week (sorry, no photos/post about that) and liked it enough to try it out in thinner merino jersey that my aunt in NZ sent to me last winter. This was a sort of dark fuscia/cerise type colour (which tbh, isn't really 'me', but I thought it would be a good wearable toile. It also - totally coincidentally - goes really well with the colours of the owl fabric). When I made this a couple of weekends ago in the thicker grey stuff, I liked the fit across the front and shoulders, but needed to take a good inch off either side seam, and close to that in the arms as well. This seems to me like I should go down a size, but then I'm worried about the whole boob/front fit thing. It's not such a big deal to hack up the sides, and besides, since every jersey does stretch differently, it's probably sensible to leave plenty of room for adjustment. 2 inches overall in the side seams seems a lot though. 

But. What these sorts of adjustments-on-the-hoof always mean, is that there is plenty of room for error. Like (hypothetically) cutting off too much in certain areas and making the damn thing too tight in the arms. For example... 

Extreme close-up...sorry about that. But - see what I mean about the arm snugness? Pretty gathering detail tho!

It's not unbearable, but this is pretty tight under the arms and on my pudgy upper arms. Possibly also in the waist, although probably with buttons that'd be ok. I haven't bothered with buttons or buttonholes, partly because I'm not really a button-up cardy person anyway (so they'd mostly be decorative and it's quite a lot of work for decoration and I'm lazy), but also because since this is a bit small, I'm not sure how much wear it'll get (and so again, lazy). So. Next version I might take a couple of incremental passes at the side-seam adjustments...to avoid the irreversible error of taking off too much. Ah well. You live and learn. 

Anyway. I made variation B (which has gathers and a yoke), waist length with 3/4 sleeves. There are a bunch of variations with this pattern (and I bought the 'expansion pack' version which means even more options) which is great  - we like options! I want to be able to wear these cardigans with dresses, so the cropped waist length made sense, and while I plan to wear the cardigan in winter, I always end up pushing my sleeves up, so I just figured 3/4 sleeve-length was sensible. Hurrah, the advantages to making your own clothes and getting to decide these things in the design phase!  

The pattern itself is great value for money because of all the variations (if you're buying it, just buy the bundle version. There's about 20 combos with that!). You can also just print off the pages that you need for your version, because the lovely Kat of Muse Patterns has designed the pdf layout sensibly to allow for such things. Bless her. The instructions aren't massively detailed so if you were sewing with knit/jersey for the first time, it might be a bit of a leap, but if you've made a few things on the over-locker or with this type of fabric, you'd be totally fine. Bar my fit issues, it all comes together really quickly. 

There will be more of these cardigans in my future I think. Just hopefully with a bit more room for my wings next time! 

How were your weekends? Make anything nice? Did you give yourself plenty of arm-room??