Pre-script: I finally put some posts up about my polka dot Marfy 1913 and the Rosemary and Wine sweater wot I made two and one months ago. Click on the pictures to read them. Go ahead. I'll wait. Or don't. Your call, really.
It has been cold for so long here, that on Monday during March Break when it went up to 12 degrees (Celsius, baby), it was cause for celebration. Except I spent most of it inside making a sweater for colder temperatures and hoping I'd be able to wear it. Which is probably why the temperature dropped 10 degrees the next day and has stayed around freezing for the rest of the month. Oops. My bad.
I took these pictures by the lake at the beginning of my abbreviated macarondonnée on the first day of spring and let's just say I should have left the gloves on. The harbour was solid ice and there was a brisk wind. It was chilly.
I need to learn to use my power wisely.
I have been wanting to make a long blue wool version of the Swoon Scarf-neck cardigan since The Somnolent Dachshund posted her gorgeous teal merino version just after I posted my waist-length cream version. Because that's how it works: you post a sewing idea, Isteal pay homage to it.
Hang on. Since I got the idea for this sweater from MaciNac, you can blame her for the cold. Yeah, that's it: blame a random Australian for weather patterns on the other side of the planet. Butterfly effect, baby.
She needs to use her power wisely.
Anyway, my version is emphatically not merino wool, although I would love some of that if my fairy godmother wants to send me some*. It is a sweater knit made of some kind of acrylic blend from Textiles on King (I assume it's acrylic blend; it melted during the burn test and initially it presented a lot of static, which it should not do if it is made of one type of material because the electrons won't want to be pulled out of their atoms, right?). It feels, however, like wearing a hug and I want to wear it pretty much every day. Also, the static issue seems to have disappeared. Sadly, it's already starting to pill. Win some, lose some.
This is a size small with long sleeves. I usually shorten sleeves because of my Tyrannosaurus arms, but because the sleeves are close-fitting, I decided to leave them as written. I used French seams, which was kind of a mistake because this knit is quite thick, and hemmed it (because sweater knit = must hem, it seems) by using my edge stitch, pressing the resulting curliness with a lot of steam, and then folding the edge over and stitching. The sweater went together as nicely as usual and the instructions are great, so you should totally make one too. However, there are some slight issues I should mention.
Since I chopped up my pattern last year to shorten it, I decided it would be easier to just print it out again. And I forgot that the last five pages of the pdf file are out of order (at least from the version I downloaded last May), which matters if you only need to print out the pages for the small size, say, in which case according to the layout you don't need the last three pages. In truth, you need the last two pages, but not the three pages before that. (Unless they've fixed this; I would suggest checking your pdf to make sure.)
The other issue was something I noticed the last two times but assumed it was my fault. This time, I know it's not me:
The front and side seams don't match up properly at the bottom. When this happened on my other two Swoon cardigans, I assumed it had something to do with how I shortened it, but I checked the pattern pieces this time and... weirdness. It's easy enough to fix: just trim the front pieces to fit, although it means you lose the nice angle in front. I will fix this on the pattern for future versions (I have one more short version planned for spring).
March Break means I should have been spending most of my time catching up on marking, but my fabulous "cut stuff out at school in readiness for later" plan meant that I could sneak in a quickie. My first ever t-shirt! It was far too chilly to be wearing just a t-shirt, and my fingers were starting to complain, so you get only one picture.
This is the free Cake tee. It's a kimono tee with a waistband, but I don't like those, so I just hemmed it at the bottom. Using her connect-the-dot method of pattern sizing, I cut a size 30 taking it to a 26" waist and what I thought was the right length of 20". I made a mistake there because I forgot to account for the fact that I wasn't putting the waistband on. As a result, it's too short, as you can see in the picture above. Yeah, it's not tucked in. That's how short it is. It's like a 90s baby-tee and not in a good way. I'm also having a problem with the neckband flipping up, but I think that's because I didn't trim it down before finishing the edges.
I'm waffling between putting the band on because it's short enough that it really bothers me; and not, because that would mean unpicking stretch stitch. I'll probably add the band because wearable is more important to me.
Will I make this tee again? Maybe. I'm not keen on the way the kimono sleeves stick out under my cardigan, but that might be because the tee material is a fairly heavy knit. I'd like to try it again with a thinner knit more suitable for layering, but I'm fairly sure I prefer tees with cap sleeves. My next white tee will probably be Cake's Bonny tee (sans sailor collar).
Hey, I hear you cry, you made two new things! That means you've cleared a whole bunch of the UFOs from the bookcase of shame, right?
Right?!
Right! I did, as it happens. I dealt with some of the issues on my Down in the Electric Avenue silk Anna (making the zipper more invisible and binding it being the biggest), took out the poof and fixed the hem on my cherry Sorbetto hack, and dealt with seam finishes on the Gabriola, resewed the darts on my other terribly practical white skirt, and moved the button and hook on my Thurlows. Go, me.
So, yeah. Sorry about that extra-long cold snap. I'll just wrap this cardigan around me a little more tightly.
*Somebody send me a fairy godmother, STAT!
It has been cold for so long here, that on Monday during March Break when it went up to 12 degrees (Celsius, baby), it was cause for celebration. Except I spent most of it inside making a sweater for colder temperatures and hoping I'd be able to wear it. Which is probably why the temperature dropped 10 degrees the next day and has stayed around freezing for the rest of the month. Oops. My bad.
I took these pictures by the lake at the beginning of my abbreviated macarondonnée on the first day of spring and let's just say I should have left the gloves on. The harbour was solid ice and there was a brisk wind. It was chilly.
I need to learn to use my power wisely.
I have been wanting to make a long blue wool version of the Swoon Scarf-neck cardigan since The Somnolent Dachshund posted her gorgeous teal merino version just after I posted my waist-length cream version. Because that's how it works: you post a sewing idea, I
Hang on. Since I got the idea for this sweater from MaciNac, you can blame her for the cold. Yeah, that's it: blame a random Australian for weather patterns on the other side of the planet. Butterfly effect, baby.
She needs to use her power wisely.
Anyway, my version is emphatically not merino wool, although I would love some of that if my fairy godmother wants to send me some*. It is a sweater knit made of some kind of acrylic blend from Textiles on King (I assume it's acrylic blend; it melted during the burn test and initially it presented a lot of static, which it should not do if it is made of one type of material because the electrons won't want to be pulled out of their atoms, right?). It feels, however, like wearing a hug and I want to wear it pretty much every day. Also, the static issue seems to have disappeared. Sadly, it's already starting to pill. Win some, lose some.
This is a size small with long sleeves. I usually shorten sleeves because of my Tyrannosaurus arms, but because the sleeves are close-fitting, I decided to leave them as written. I used French seams, which was kind of a mistake because this knit is quite thick, and hemmed it (because sweater knit = must hem, it seems) by using my edge stitch, pressing the resulting curliness with a lot of steam, and then folding the edge over and stitching. The sweater went together as nicely as usual and the instructions are great, so you should totally make one too. However, there are some slight issues I should mention.
Since I chopped up my pattern last year to shorten it, I decided it would be easier to just print it out again. And I forgot that the last five pages of the pdf file are out of order (at least from the version I downloaded last May), which matters if you only need to print out the pages for the small size, say, in which case according to the layout you don't need the last three pages. In truth, you need the last two pages, but not the three pages before that. (Unless they've fixed this; I would suggest checking your pdf to make sure.)
The other issue was something I noticed the last two times but assumed it was my fault. This time, I know it's not me:
The front and side seams don't match up properly at the bottom. When this happened on my other two Swoon cardigans, I assumed it had something to do with how I shortened it, but I checked the pattern pieces this time and... weirdness. It's easy enough to fix: just trim the front pieces to fit, although it means you lose the nice angle in front. I will fix this on the pattern for future versions (I have one more short version planned for spring).
March Break means I should have been spending most of my time catching up on marking, but my fabulous "cut stuff out at school in readiness for later" plan meant that I could sneak in a quickie. My first ever t-shirt! It was far too chilly to be wearing just a t-shirt, and my fingers were starting to complain, so you get only one picture.
This is the free Cake tee. It's a kimono tee with a waistband, but I don't like those, so I just hemmed it at the bottom. Using her connect-the-dot method of pattern sizing, I cut a size 30 taking it to a 26" waist and what I thought was the right length of 20". I made a mistake there because I forgot to account for the fact that I wasn't putting the waistband on. As a result, it's too short, as you can see in the picture above. Yeah, it's not tucked in. That's how short it is. It's like a 90s baby-tee and not in a good way. I'm also having a problem with the neckband flipping up, but I think that's because I didn't trim it down before finishing the edges.
I'm waffling between putting the band on because it's short enough that it really bothers me; and not, because that would mean unpicking stretch stitch. I'll probably add the band because wearable is more important to me.
Will I make this tee again? Maybe. I'm not keen on the way the kimono sleeves stick out under my cardigan, but that might be because the tee material is a fairly heavy knit. I'd like to try it again with a thinner knit more suitable for layering, but I'm fairly sure I prefer tees with cap sleeves. My next white tee will probably be Cake's Bonny tee (sans sailor collar).
Hey, I hear you cry, you made two new things! That means you've cleared a whole bunch of the UFOs from the bookcase of shame, right?
Right?!
Right! I did, as it happens. I dealt with some of the issues on my Down in the Electric Avenue silk Anna (making the zipper more invisible and binding it being the biggest), took out the poof and fixed the hem on my cherry Sorbetto hack, and dealt with seam finishes on the Gabriola, resewed the darts on my other terribly practical white skirt, and moved the button and hook on my Thurlows. Go, me.
So, yeah. Sorry about that extra-long cold snap. I'll just wrap this cardigan around me a little more tightly.
*Somebody send me a fairy godmother, STAT!
Thank goodness the weather had been improving! I like both your cardi and your top - totally up my alley.
ReplyDeleteBut now I need you to explain this science bomb: "It presented a lot of static, which it should not do if it is made of one type of material because the electrons won't want to be pulled out of their atoms, right?" <---- Uhhhh.... you assume I know things I don't. Explain, please!
Ahem. *adjusts glasses and slips into teacher-mode*
DeleteSo, charging by friction (like rubbing a balloon on your hair or when you rub your wool socks across a nylon carpet) happens when you have two different materials and the electrons from one jump to the other. In my examples, hair and wool have a weaker hold on the electrons in their atoms than the latex in the balloon or the nylon in the carpet, so when you rub them together, electrons will get pulled from the hair to the balloon. Then the hair will be positively and the balloon negatively charged. Opposite charges attract, and that's static. Same thing happens in your clothing.
However objects made of the same material have the same hold on their electrons, so there won't be any movement and therefore, no static. The presence of static on my sweater tells me that the material must be some kind of blend.