Sewing Bee Round 1 - Living Coral Cardigan

Once again it's time for the Pattern Review Sewing Bee.  This year they have moved it to January February so it's been a good 16 months since the last one.  Just enough time to get over the angst of the last one!

The Bee began on Jan 12th and at 9am I was eagerly awaiting the announcement of the first round - and as usual with these contest my first thought when I read the brief was Noooooo! I hate the colour Coral.

But then I read on  in the second paragraph it said" Before you start hunting down coral fabric for your cardi, stop for a minute and think of what feeling it invokes in you when you first look at that color or read its description."   OK ...I can do this....so what do I think of when I hear Living Coral - for me it's definitely the Great Barrier Reef in Norther Queensland.  We went there a couple of times as I was growing up.  The first time I was just able to snorkel on the reef and that was a really cool experience but then the second and third times I was able to go down on a scuba dive and that was a truly fantastic experience.  I loved being down under the water seeing all the fish and the coral....but I also remember thinking that it wasn't actually as vibrant as I had imagined from seeing photos.  The deeper you dive down the less light there is and the more muted the colours become.  It's still fantastic, but not as bright.  So when I think of a reef I think not only of the bright colours that you normally associate with coral, but also more muted grey blues.

Now to the fabric stash to see what I had....Not a lot - in fact I didn't have a lot of knit fabrics in a cardigan weight at all.  A couple of knit fleeces but that was it.  Ok to the fabric store it is....Unfortunately I couldn't find exactly what I was looking for there either.  I tried a number of different stores in order of likelihood they would have something.  Once I hit the last store still having found nothing I knew that I had to but something here or I'd get nothing!

I was really hoping for something in a blue grey colourway to match the water colour at depth but they really didn't have anything.  They had a couple of fabrics in the actual coral colour but they weren't that inspiring, but then right at the back of a bunch of rolls standing up I say a knit fabric that was listed as Neoprene......that scuba diving suit material.  It was in a dull grey colour but something about the idea of using a neoprene fabric for a coral challenge just seemed right to me.

I took a closer look at the fabric and realised that it's not actually a really neoprene fabric.  Neoprene is a rubber material that is coated on one or both side with a knit fabric.  This was technically a scuba knit fabric, two layers of knit fabric with the back side a very fine knit that resembles the hand of the real neoprene.  Perfect that way there is no question about whether it is really a knit material or not.

So I now had my main material, but it was a bit boring really. I needed something to brighten it up a bit.  I took another look at the sweater knit fabrics and noticed one that was a boucle type material  - white with stripes of pink, purple and orange through it - from a distance it really did read coral - even the texture seemed about right so I decided to go with that with the plan of using it in one of the panels of the cardigan.

Once I got home with my fabric it was time to come up with a final design. I had the idea in my head that I would colour block the coral on the front.

 But when I put the  two actual fabrics together I had a feeling that it just wasn't going to work.

So I came up with the idea of making the entire cardigan out of the grey and then using the coral colour to make actual coral appliques to go over the top.

As far as patterns go I decided to try and create a cardigan based on my basic raglan knit T shirt pattern.  This pattern has side seams that angle from just behind the arm hole forward which creates a really nice swing to the Tshirt.  But I knew I couldn't use the pattern as is - it's a bit tight through the shoulders even for a Tshirt.

I had just made myself a moulage using Suzy Furriers craftsy courses so I started with that made it into a raglan sleeve then used the basic shape of my knit pattern to get the shape I wanted from the armhole down.  I also used some sizing off my Burda bomber jacket pattern especially to make sure my arm hole and sleeve were wide enough to go over other clothes.

I wanted this to be a long cardigan but the requirements for the Bee specified that the cardigan had to be between hip and knee length so I kept it to knee length.  I cut my pattern down the front and added front button bands extending into the neckband.  Once I had my pattern figured out I made a muslin out of old upholstery material.  I had to do quite a bit of tweaking to the raglan seams  before I could get them sitting OK and something about the sleeves didn't work - I tried to add an elbow dart into the sleeve and I think something went wrong as the sleeve never did sit right.

 One thing that did come out differently to what I expected was the angled front seam.  Because my cardigan is longer than my original t shirt the wrapping of the back piece comes right around to the front now and this ends up creating a pouch along  the bottom of the angled seam, but I really liked how that looked so I decided to leave it - It also made a perfect place to add a pocket.  I did this buy cutting a second piece of the front panel, cutting it off at an angle at the height I wanted, turning over the top edge to create a finished edge and then sewing it into the back seam and front band seam with the original panel.

After playing with my muslin for a day or two I finally had to say close enough and start with the real thing.  It went together quite easily - Well except for the serging of the seams around the pocket.  My serger did not like trying to go through three layers of this thick scuba material.  I finally managed to get it to work by trimming away most of the inside seam allowance, but it still didn't end up pretty.  Still I managed to get the front and neck bands on neatly with nice topstitching so most of the inside looks pretty good.

I pinned my buttons in place once the coat was constructed and was less than enthused.  By buttoning this coat up it ended up making it look really frumpy.  I tried many different button scenerios and finally come up with the idea of putting two buttons opposite each other over the bust and linking them together with a piece of elastic - a basic frog.  This looked much better.

Now I just needed embellishments.  I st down at the computer and started researching images of staghorn coral.  I started trying to copy some imaged but soon gave up and just started free hand drawing in stalks of coral.  and This is how I went about cutting out the coral too.  Just cut it all free hand and pinned it in place where ever it felt like it would go best..  I quite like the way the coral grew on my coat.  I put a pocket of coral over each pocket in the front and then a big out cropping at the lower edge of the back extending up to just above halfway.

Each piece of coral was hand stitched on which was really painful - especially as this fabric frayed like crazy but I finally got it all stitched on, all the stray threads trimmed off and put on my coat.....

Coral Pinned in place ready to be hand stitched.

It still wasn't there.  It was the dull grey colour that was bothering me.  I needed to be blue.  That's when I remembered a pack of fabric spray paints that I've had sitting in my laundry room for quite some time.  I went and checked them and yep there were two cans of different coloured blues in there.  I did a couple of tests of what the paint looked like on the grey fabric (there is still blue spray paint on my kitchen table) and decided to go for it.  But...I didn't want to get the paint on my coral...what could I do.  Why didn't I think of this before I stitched all the coral on?

Oh well I have to do something I grabbed an old bathrobe and started cutting up strips of coral to go over my real coral.  It took forever to pin all the pieces in place and even then I didn't get everything covered perfectly, but it was good enough so I took my cardigan outside very gently and started spraying.  I didn't have much paint, just two small cans but I got an Ok coverage.  It was a bit patchy, but I figured it's just like the patched of light filtering down through the ocean to light up the coral!

This is much better.  I'd like to do more blue, maybe one day I'll be inspired to cover up all my coral again and repaint it, but for now we just have some dappled light.

Then came a couple of days of waiting - and reading about other coral cardigans before I could find out.. Did I get through?  stay tuned!

Teal and Purple Cable Cardigan

This jumper has been a long time in the making - well over a year.  It began about Dec 2017.  Our local yarn shop was closing down so of course I had to check out the closing down sales.  In doing so I found this wool.  It is some of the most scrumptious wools I've felt.

The wool is Mirasol Qulla.   Its a blend of Merino Wool with Mulberry Silk.  There were only 4 skeins of the colour that I really loved - Ibiza Blue which is really more of a Teal colour.  I grabbed all of them, and then grabbed another 2 skeins of the Violet Hill colour as I figured I would need than more than 4 skeins for whatever I wanted to do.

I had to finish up another project before I could get started and then I had to figure out what I wanted to do.  I grabbed a set of needles and started knitting a swatch to see what different type of stitches looked like in the yarn.  I think I tried about 4 or 5 different stitches before I found one that I loved,  It was a series of interlocking cables.  Each cable was 4 stitches wide and there were about 10 cables.  Now I just had to figure out how to use this. 

I didn't want that to be the whole thing, just an accent so I came up with a design that included a cardigan with a cabled edge running around the bottom edge up both sides of the front and then up and over a hood.  So now I had to test whether I could turn a corner using the cable detailing  - so I picked my swatch back up and tested that. 

Yep that works  Now how am I going to use the purple accents - I came up with the idea of adding a smaller row of cables inside the blue cables, so  had to test that.  Yep I love that - but my swatch is now well over a foot long and still growing!

But for the time being I had my cable idea so I got on with that.  I had recently made the Paprika Patterns Jasper hoodie sewing pattern and really liked the fit on it so I decided to use that as the basis for my new cardigan.  I traced out the pattern and incorporated the side panels into the front and back as well as I could.  I then removed all seam allowances and I had a pattern that I could try and follow.  I measured how wide my cables swatch was and marked that off on my pattern and measured just how long I would have to make my cable.  I started at center back and knitted the cables till I reached the front corner, then turned the corner and knitted up the front of the cardigan.  When I got to the shoulder I measured how long I needed to go around the hood and knitted that, then back down the front of the cardigan, turned again at the lower front and back around to the back.

I think I knitted that cable for a good couple of months - it go quite boring after a while, but finally it was done.

Now I had to figure out what I was going to do for the rest of the sweater inside the cable.  I picked up my swatch again and started trialing things, moss stitch - nope, seed stitch - nope....in the end I decided that I really did like the look of plain stockinette stitch next to the cable.  Once I decided that I still had to decide on what needle size to use.  Size two was too tight, size 4 was too loose - so I had to go out and buy a size three circular needle - yep just right.  Now to actually swatch for gauge.  By the time I finished my swatch was the size of a sweater front and no I'm not kidding - I really wish I had taken a photo of it - it was a work of art in itself.   Unfortunately it had to be sacrificed later.

After a bit of maths to figure out how many stitches, increases, decreases etc I needed, the two front pieces were knitted up during a number of my sons baseball games - I mean it's three hours of sitting in the sun watching 9 year olds try and hit and catch a ball I needed something to do.  They didn't take too long to do, but the back piece when I got to it was a real plodder - have I finished yet?  As I was working I started worrying about how well the sweater would hold it's shape as the stockinette stitch doesn't have a lot of structure to it and so I came up with the idea of knitting another purple cable to run up the side seam and back down the seam of the arm just to provide that little bit of structure needed and I'm glad I did  - it really does make it better.

The sleeves were knitted up slowly over the summer and the side cables started and then we hit a snag.......I ran out of yarn.  I was totally out all yarn and I still had half of a purple side cable, cabled cuffs in blue and purple and the hood to complete.

I went searching on the internet to try and get some more but the best I could do was $50 for two skeins....that's more than I spent on the rest of the yarn....

And so my cardigan sat in the corner of the room for a good couple of months until one day, visiting my local fabric store Fabric Place Basement - I saw a couple of skeins of mirasol yarn in what looked like the right teal colour.  Obviously I didn't have any of my yarn with me to test, but on sale for $14 I couldn't go past it.  The only problem was - they had the teal, but the purple they had was definitely a darker purple than what I used.  I decided to buy it anyway - I figured I could always return it if I didn't use it.

Once I got it home I realised that whilst it was the same brand it wasn't quite the same wool - this was   Mirasol Sulka Legato which has the same merino and silk, but also adds a bit of Alpaca in as well.  But the Teal colour was an almost perfect match to the Ibiza Blue so I decided I would just go with it.  The Plum purple was definitely very different to the violet Hill however but I came up with the idea of using the violet hill on the outer cable band and up the side seams and then use the plum on the sleeve cuffs and the sleeve seam.  Hopefully that way I'll look more deliberate - it's a design feature not a mistake!

I ripped back my side cables to the right length and then started work on the sleeve cables in the plum, which is when I realised that the plum was just a bit thinner than the violet so the cable that it made was a bit smaller - so to compensate instead of using three cables I used 4.

I found out the teal colour was also thinner than the original, so rather than use the new yarn straight away I decided that I would rip out my swatch and reuse the yarn in that.  I managed to do both cuffs and start the hood before I ran out!

I was quite proud of my hood design.  In order to get the curved hood I used lots and lots of short rows.  I knitted the first part straight just angled out at the side seams, then did short rows on either side of the rectangle to shape it into a curve.  From there I did short row wrap and turns to the apex of the hood and then went back and picked them all up creating a beautiful curve to the back of the hood.  Finally I decreased again at each side to get the front curve.  There was definitely some good Maths going on there.

And Finally it was ready to be sewn together.  That took me a good couple of days first sewing the back and front pieces together at the shoulders then setting in the sleeves flat, then I sewed cables down the front side and the sleeve side and then down the other side of the cable down the back of the sleeve and the back of the sweater.  Finally I sewed on the front band, sewed the hood to the back neckline and the cable up around the front of the hood.  long, tedious, but in the end rewarding as my jumper was completed.

I tried it on...the front has a tendency to sag..oh no  I was originally planning on just using a shawl pin or similar to close it up but once I saw it on I knew that I was going to need a zipper up the front.  Hopefully that would stabilise the front and also keep it done up.

After a trip to the fabric store for the right length zipper (and some coral knit fabric for my sewing bee entry) I hand sewed the zipper to the front edges.  I was so tempted to just sew it in with the sewing machine, but in the end I decided that since I'd spent over a year knitting it I could spend the extra hour to so making sure the the zipper was exactly where it was supposed to be hand stitching it in and I'm glad I did because it turned out beautifully. 

When it's done up you can't tell that there is even a zipper there and I was right it does make the front hang better when it's open.

The inside of the zipper doesn't look so great - and one day I might even get around to sewing a facing over the inside of the zip.

But for now it'll just have to live as is as I've spent enough time working on this I want to spend some time enjoying it!

2018 Hits and Misses

Each year, Gillian of Crafting a Rainbow starts a #sewingtop5 series.  Every year I go through and mentally assign my top 5 hits and misses but this year I wanted to actually put it down in paper.

So here goes.

What have I made

Total 40 items for myself
12 items for others

The breakdown of Items is shown below (doesn't show all the Christmas gifts I sewed for family and friends)

I made quite a variety of items, but dresses were the clear winner.  I've found that I'm getting a lot more comfortable wearing dresses these days and it's showing in my sewing room.

So out of my 40 items what were hits and what were misses.

Top 5 Hits

Jasper jumpers - These get worn all the time and are a definite hit
Jasper dress - This dress has been getting a surprising amount of wear this winter  I like having something easy wearing that isn't pants.
Lined jeans -If I do want to wear pants these are definitely my first choice.  The combination of flannel lining and elastic waist is a definite winner.
Pink bra -  Well I finally managed to get a comfortable easy wearing bra.  I just need to make a couple more of these now!
Grey ankle shoes -  I made quite a few pairs of shoes this summer but these were the definite winners I love the comfort and style combined.

Top 5 misses

Refashioner boots - These really didn't work at all.  I wore them once but never again.  They have since been put aside to be redone.

Purple Velvet skirt and top - Whilst I really like this outfit unfortunately it never actually get's worn.  Which is a shame since I love this fabric.  Maybe I just need to make a concentrated effort to actually wear it - or at least parts of it

Red black plaid dress -Not yet blogged- Whilst there are bits of this that I like it ended up looking too much like a bathrobe to be actually wearable, plus I stuffed up and put one placket on the front of the sleeve rather than the back- it feels really weird.  I'm still trying to figure out how I can modify this so that it is wearable.

Red velvet - I think I've finally figured out what is wrong with this.  I think the neck band is just a bit too short and it makes the whole thing seem like it's strangling me.  Maybe I'll try and remake this next year so it actually get's worn cause I love this fabric.

Blue Plaid button up shirt - Also never blogged mainly because I've only worn it the once.  It fits fine but just never gets worn, maybe when it warms up a little it'll come back out of the closet!

There are a number of other pieces that don't get worn too much that could have gone in here, but I chose these ones as I had the highest hopes for them, thus they've fallen the farthest.

Reversible Jasper Dress

So take two on the snuggly dress quest.

Ever since I got the Paprika Patterns Jasper pattern I've been wanting to try the dress version I've even had the fabric set aside for it of a year now.  Well I finally got around to making it.  But I couldn't just make it plain - oh no I had to go and make it reversible.  The blue fleece fabric that I had earmarked for this dress I felt would make a really plain dress - it's one of the reasons I put off making this for so long - I wanted to do something to jazz it up a bit but could never figure out what.  Then one day when I was going through my fabric stash I looked over and saw a piece of flannel plaid that worked quite nicely with the blue and thought about using it as a contrast on the cuffs and bottom band, but then I had the brilliant idea of making a second dress out of the plaid flannel and making a reversible dress, tying the two together at cuffs, bottom band and cowl with a contrasting black fleece. Yes!

 I originally wanted to make the hooded version, but I wasn't sure how the hood would work reversible with the opposite side showing through so in the end I decided on the cowl neck instead.

The fabrics are all Sewfisticated Fabric finds.  The blue and the black fabrics ares knit on one side and fleecy on the other and have little to no stretch.  I have no idea what the fabric content is on these.  The plaid is a 100% cotton flannel.

I used the pattern that I modified when I originally made my Jasper sweaters.  It's basically a size 7 width but the lengths of front and back are cut down to account for my short torso and the sleeve adjusted accordingly.  I then added the dress length back on

I was a bit worried that by putting pockets in both dresses it would end up a bit bulky through the middle section but it's turned out surprisingly nicely.  I really love the way the pockets in the dress/sweater work - and have stolen them a couple of times for other projects too!

The two dresses were made separately and then put together to add the black cuffs, band and cowl.  For the cuffs and cowl I sewed the two layers of the dress together and sewed one side of the band to the blue side of the dress, I then turned under the other seam allowance, folded over the cuff/cowl and topstitched the cuff/cowl in place.

The epaulet for the cowl I made one side blue and one side plaid and then just twisted it at the neckline so he corresponding side is shown.  A button was sewed on each side to complete the look.

The bottom band I had to think about for a while.  I didn't want to attach it in the same way as the cuffs and collar as I was worried that one fabric might bag more than the other and end up baggy/saggy around the bottom so instead I sewed the lower band entirely to the blue dress, keeping the plaid dress separate, then with much contorting and twisting and turning sewed the plaid onto the other side of the front band - that just left a stretch of band at the back that had to be hand sewn onto the plaid to finish the dress off.

I am totally happy with this dress and can see it becoming a winter staple I've already found myself reaching for it regularly - and I can even wear it two days in a row - one on each side.    I love that due to the two different layers its super snuggly - now to make that pair of fleecy leggings to wear with it for even more warmth.

Drafting Leggings

Sometimes it feels like everyone else in the world, except me, loves leggings.  I don't know why but I just don't like wearing leggings.  I find them totally uncomfortable.  For me there are a couple of problems - first they are not warm enough - I am always cold - a thin pair of leggings just does not cut it in the warmth department.  Then there's something about the way the fabric feels tight around my calf - though that one could just be cause I'm not used to wearing them.  But then they never stay up around the waist and I feel like I'm constantly adjusting them and hitching them up.

However I do love the look of a winter dress with leggings and boots and I would love to be able to wear something like that so I started thinking about why I don't like my leggings. Is it just that the ones I have don't fit me properly?  I only have store bought leggings most of which seem to be too small for me - even the 3XL pair I bought last time seem too small.   So maybe its time I drafted a pair of leggings that would fit my body!

To begin to process I grabbed a number of plastic bags and a roll of duct tape.  I then covered my body from my waist all the way down one leg in plastic and started wrapping the duct tape around and around.   Since I only had limited duct tape I figured I only needed to do one leg - I'm generally pretty symmetrical - at least for these purposes.  I just tried to make sure that I had good coverage around the crotch area so I could get that fitting properly.

Once I was all wrapped up I attempted to draw straight lines down the outside and inside of my leg as well as the back and front of the leg, and horizontal lines around my calf, knee, thigh, crotch and waist.  This was not easy by myself but I think I managed pretty well (It might have been easier if I could find a pen that would write nicely on the duct tape).

To get my duct tape double off I ran a pair of scissors down the outside of my leg (as I knew I wanted my leggings to be seamed down the outside of the leg rather than the inside).

With my duct tape now free of my body it was time to try and make a pattern out of it.

As I played about with different seam placements I ended up cutting the pattern down each of the vertical lines which I'm a bit sad that I did now as in the end I decided to go for just the outside seam and I think my pattern would have been a bit more accurate if I hadn't had to patch it back together.

The pattern certainly looks weird!

Once I had a pattern it was time to try it out.  I used a piece of burgundy lycra material with minimal stretch so I started with the pattern pieces as is - I didn't add any seam allowance just had the material taken out in the seam as negative ease.  Unfortunately the piece of fabric wasn't wide enough to fit my entire pattern on so I ended up cutting the pattern diagonally from crotch to the outside of the knee on the front of the pattern (the red line in the picture below).  I tried to add in a gusset too but that failed miserably.

I sewed up the resulting fabric pieces and found out it was still a bit too big so I had to go back and take out about 1" off both side seams.

So how does it fit - it seems to be pretty good, maybe a smidge tight around the calf, good around the thighs, but it does still have terrible wrinkles around the bum - I was really hoping to avoid them with this pattern but it looks like no.

 So I decided to try again.   This time with a piece of rayon stretch terry.  This time I cut the pattern diagonally from the crotch to the outside of the knee on the back of the pattern and no gusset in the crotch.

I added a bit of width to the calf and due to the seam now being at the back through the problem area those wrinkles diminished a bit - I think one more teak on that area and we should be all good. 

Having said that no one is ever (apart from these photos) going to see the bum of these leggings - they will always have some form of dress/skirt over them so I may just call it as it is.

 Now for the big question - comfort.  Well these are definitely more comfortable than the store bought ones.... They stay around my waist better with only a little bit of hitching up required (I've still never found a pair of pants store bought or home made that don't need to be hitched up every time I stand up) but I still don't like how they feel around my calf - and even the second black pair is still not warm - warmer yes but not warm.  during my last trip to the fabric store I found some sweatshirt material with lycra and I'm thinking that my next pair will be made out of this.  We shall see how that works out.