Part II of the Outfit Along: The Cardigan

Thanks a lot for all your lovely comments about my Outfit Along Dress. I'm glad you love it as much as I do. As promised, I am going to show you the matching cardigan today - my pink and girly Hetty Cardigan!

Pattern: The Hetty Cardigan from Andi Satterlund. I had the materials for the cardigan at home already and decided to knit Hetty instead of Myrna. Also, both Hetty and the dress have an eyelet pattern, so a perfect match. But Myrna is on my knitting list as well, so you might see it in the near future :)

Wool: Berroco Blackstone Tweet in Wild Rose. I was lucky and got the skeins for 54% off from the Loop Knitting Shop. It was the first time that I knitted with an expensive wool. Being expensive I thought the wool would be of high quality, but there were hard bits entangled in the thread. 

Construction: Me and Hetty were no friends during construction :( Although the lace pattern is really easy, you have to focus quite a lot and when your thoughts slip a moment you easily make mistakes. I had an especially hard time with the 2nd sleeve. Whereas I had no problems with the 1st sleeve, I somehow miscounted the lace pattern on the 2nd one. My lace pattern shifted by 5 stitches and that meant that the beginning of my row started not at stitch one, but somewhere in the middle of the lace pattern. I only realised after having finished the sleeve cap shaping and couldn't convince myself to rip back. In the end I changed the lace pattern slightly for the 2nd sleeve. Luckily, you can't see it and I think nobody is going to stare at my sleeves and count stitches, haha. 

Finishing: I unraveled the neckline and hem line twice, because I was not happy with the fit. In the end I finished the neckline and hem with a stretchy bind-off. I was a bit scared that the hem would stick out from my sway back as happened with my Agatha Cardigan. But it fits perfectly :) To bring out the beautiful lace pattern, I wet blocked the cardigan. It took 2 days for the cardigan to dry and I had a hard time to be patient and wait!

Buttons: I wanted to use some lovely white buttons that I brought from Kiev with me. But I was one short, because I bought the last 7 they had in the shop. The pattern calls for 8 buttons, but I was determined to use only 7. It didn't matter how determined I was, it wouldn't have looked good with seven buttons only (the spacing between the buttons was perfect for 8 but not 7).  As I didn't want to risk a gaping button band, I settled for self-cover buttons in the end. I got the buttons and fabric from Charlie for my Birthday in March (Thanks!) and I'm super happy to finally use them. They are playful and look great with the cardigan :) 

Have I worn it yet? Once, but only inside the house because it was a bit chilly. The weather is so lovely hot in the UK at the moment, that there is really no need to wear cardigans. Instead I finally wear my handmade summer dresses, yeah. The cardigan is a bit scratchy, although it got already a bit softer after its first wash (for the blocking).  

Do I like it? Yes, I finally do :) Seeing it on these pictures makes me happy. It does go perfect with my new sandals, doesn't it?!

I hope everybody is getting on with their projects for the Outfit Along. I for sure can't wait to see all these lovely outfits, color combinations and patterns! Inspiration! I really enjoyed to participate in the Outfit Along 2014. Thanks so much Lauren and Andi for coming up with such an amazing idea. I usually make my cardigans for garments I have already made, but I never planned both before and worked on them simultaneously. 

Part I of the Outfit Along: The Dress

We have amazing 26 degree C in London today, so perfect time to take my Outfit-Along Dress out for a walk! I only finished the zipper and hem this morning - and yes my sewing machine is working again! Apparently, a broken needle caused the bobbin tension to go all crazy and the guy from the sewing shop had to adjust the little screw on the bobbin case. Now she is behaving again :)

Pattern: As most of you might know, I made this dress for the Outfit Along 2014 hosted by Lauren and Andy. I decided to make Simplicity 1803, which is the dress Lauren recommends to make. I could have made another pattern, but I couldn't resist this amazing dress pattern. Actually, when I was fitting the bodice last week with Thea, we realised it is super similar to the Cambie dress from Sewaholic (that's what I was fitting on Thea). So I can cross the Cambie from my to sew list.

Pleats and eyelets.

Fabric: I got this fabric from Leschas mum the last time we went to Kiev. It is an eyelet cotton that was very beautiful to sew with. Because of the eyelet I had to underline the whole dress. I used a off-white cotton lawn I had in my stash for ages. I had only 1.30 m of the eyelet and managed to squeeze the dress out of it, yeah! I had even less from the lawn and thus had to cut the skirt underlining 10 cm shorter.

Alterations: As always, nothing fits me out of the envelope and I had to make two (only!) muslins to get the fit right. The pattern has princess seams, which should be easy to fit. I say should, because that is not the case for me. To avoid tediously fitting the princess seams, I just took the already fitted princess seam pattern from my Simplicity 1882 dress. Luckily, both dresses are armhole princesses and it was easy to transfer the changes. I only had to tweak the princess seams in the first muslin and voila they fitted :)

I also did a sway back adjustment and took out 1" at the centre back seam, tapering to nothing at the side seams. My armholes were also gaping, which meant I had to do a round back adjustment of 3/4" to get that gape closed. Lastly, the side seam was angeling forwards and thus I graded the bodice front to size 12 and the bodice back to size 4 (!) at the waist. It is straight now, yeah! That meant I also cut the skirt back in size 4 and the skirt fronts in 12! This was a bit scary because I was worried the skirt would not fit over my bum. But I hoped that it would fit because the skirt is originally gathered.

Straight side seams and pleats

Construction: I first underlined the whole dress: bodice and skirt. For the skirt underlining, which was 10 cm shorter as the shell, I first finished the hem with my overlocker before stitching it to the shell pieces. I didn't attach the hem, because I wanted it to float freely and not to appear bulky.

I followed Laurens tutorials, which were amazing!!! The pictures are so detailed and great to follow! So if you are going to sew the dress, I can only highly recommend Laurens tutorial! I decided to pleat the skirt as suggested by Lauren. Because of the eyelet fabric the dress looks quite elegant and I think a pleated skirt looks much more elegant than a gathered one.

Then was the questions, what kind of zip should I use? I decided against an invisible zip because the fabric would have been bulky. Also I have read several stories about breaking invisible zips which makes me a bit more cautious. So a lapped zip it was - my first lapped zip, which didn't get in that easy at all. It took me some unpicking and handstitching before it looked ok and I am still not 100% happy about the overlap.

One of my shoulder is lower thus I shortened one of the straps when pin fitting the dress.

Do I like it? I love it. I think it is a nice little summer dress (although some people might argue it looks like a wedding dress - hi mum) that will get plenty of wear as long as it stays warm here. I imagine it will look great with my knitted cropped jumper. And I can tell you already it looks great with the knitted cardigan for the outfit along. You will see it soon :)

Will I make it again? For sure! I have a beige fabric with a button pattern in my stash that I think would look great. But then I would go for the version with the short sleeves. I haven't muslined the sleeves yet and from experience I know, that they will change the fit of the shoulders massively. So it will take some time...

How are you getting along with your outfit-along? Or have you ever sewn/ knitted two pieces that you knew would go perfectly together right from the start?

Thrifting luck: Indian fabric

We do have a couple of charity shops where I live and I like to go there to buy old duvet covers that I use as muslin fabric. I am fitting a shirt for Lescha at the moment and my gosh the pattern pieces are just massive. I am on my fourth muslin and you can imagine how much fabric you need to assemble a long sleeve mens shirt. But at least, I am almost done now and can soon cut into the real fabric.

The cotton fabric

When I went to the charity shop I did not only buy duvet covers, but was extremely lucky and found some beautiful fabric. For just £6, I got three meters of this amazing pink cotton/poly-cotton and two meters of a pink chiffon. The start and end of the cotton piece is decorated with colorful and golden flowers - I just love it. I think the fabric was intended for a making a sari, because it said Indian fabric on the price tag.

Golden flowers

The chiffon is pale pink and looks like the sides are batiked in blue. It is decorated with the same flowers as the cotton fabric. 

The chiffon on top of the cotton.

I haven't decided yet, what I am going to make with them. A dress obviously. But should I combine the cotton and chiffon in one dress or should I make a dress from the cotton and a thin summer scarf from the chiffon? What do you think guys? Any ideas?

I am playing with the thought to participate in Laurens and Andis outfit along. I think the cotton fabric would make a perfect Simplicity 1803 dress. In my mind I see a pink bodice and a skirt with flowers printed all over it :) I haven't bought the pattern yet, but I am tempted. As for the knitted cardigan, I am going to knit Andi's Hetty Cardigan in pink wool. 

What about you? Are you participating in the outfit along?