Sweater to Cuter Sweater

More sweaters! When I ran across this one I *loved* the color and the silk/cashmere fiber content. It was only slightly too large for me so I couldn't dramatically remake it into anything else, but the boxy shape was not flattering and it had the inevitable turtleneck.

I wanted to do something to embellish it a little and make it more interesting without detracting from the gorgeous color and making it too fussy to wear often. I started by cutting off the turtleneck. Luckily, because of the way it had been manufactured I cut along the line between the finished neck and the ribbing and didn't have to do any finishing to it at all. Then I fitted it by taking in the side seams and adding darts in the back--because of my round belly/swayback shape back darts are generally the best way to define my waist.

Now it was time to embellish! My first plan was to do a bib with ruffles at the side, something along the lines of this, but then I decided that was a little too fussy and decided to go with straight ruffles. The fabric is an olive/bronze silk dupioni from stash (same fabric used for the underside of the cuffs and collar on my Butterick 4985 blouse).

This was very easy to do! First I put on the sweater and marked where I wanted the ruffles to start and end. The middle ruffle ends right about the lower center front edge of my bra, and I arranged the side ruffles so as *not* to end at the, ahem, bust apex.

Next, I cut strips of fabric 2 1/2 inches wide and about two and a half times as long as the final ruffle length, serged the edges, and turned under in a narrow hem.

I put single rows of gathering stitches in the centers of the ruffles, pinned the bottom in place, and gathered. I used the selvage for the bottom edges of the ruffles, and folded the top edges over the neck. I sewed these down with a narrow straight stitch. The hardest part is making sure that the edges of your ruffle haven't curled into your stitch line. Lots of pins are needed!

Now it was time to deal with the sleeves. I've been having a thing about sleeves the past several months. I just cannot have plain boring sleeves. I don't know why they're bothering me so much! These sleeves were too long so I couldn't leave them as is. I wasn't inspired by the thought of just shortening them. Finally I hit on the idea of echoing the front ruffles at the sleeves.

I marked the ruffle placement and pinned in place. I found my seam roll pressing ham invaluable for this task, but for those who don't a paper towel tube will work splendidly. I tried to gather the sleeve simultaneously with sewing on the ruffle by just bunching up the fabric but this worked only moderately well. I should have gathered the sleeve first, then sewed on the ruffle. I ended up going in and stabilizing the sleeve gathers by hand-sewing them to pieces of grosgrain ribbon.

I love my new top! I debated whether pairing it with the skirt for sweater-on-sweater was too incestuous, but decided I liked them together and this is what I wore on Tuesday.

Here's the photoset.





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Oh, and I have to clarify my review number! I am only hoping to get to 100 reviews as a cumulative total since I posted my first review in May 2006, not 100 for the year. That would be impressive! But I am not that impressive. I'll only end up with somewhere in the neighborhood of 35 reviews for the year, assuming I finish out my goal. Much more modest!

Finally! Knip Mode Gather Front Top

Among the Knip Mode issues Cidell loaned me was April 2008, home of the twist top that Melissa has been making. So exciting! I've wanted that pattern since the first version Melissa did, and she keeps making more. After a frustrating skirt experience over the weekend I needed a slam dunk to clear my palate and decided it was time to pull this out.

Knip Mode was an experience for me. Patrones is no problem because I speak enough Spanish that I can read the directions nearly as quickly and completely as I read English. I also speak French, and German and English are related enough to get the gist of German. But Dutch shares very little with English and I can't get a word out of it (except luckily the color words are close enough that you know which pieces to trace out!); even the names of the pattern pieces are a mystery. I relied heavily on the explanation Melissa gave for putting it together, particularly the magazine photo on which she had drawn lines to show how the pattern pieces fit together. She is right, the line drawing for this was the pits!

I traced and sewed it in under three hours and indeed got my slam dunk. This was despite challenging fabric--it's a mesh knit underlined with a black cotton/rayon (?) knit. I bought the mesh knit a couple years ago knowing it would be awful to work with, but I really loved the print. It's impossible to keep it flat and on grain (this was my second project with it) but luckily it's lightweight enough that these issues don't show up as distortions. Unfortunately, the photos do not show the details at all because my fabric is both dark and in a busy print, so you'll mostly just have to trust me on how great this pattern is. But you can see that the shape is interesting and flattering, but still a very relaxed fit to accommodate that extra layer of insulation the body wants to accumulate during the winter.

I'll definitely be making more of these, probably at least one of them a dress as Melissa did. All the photos are here, and the review is here. My goal was to get to 100 pattern reviews this year. I have a backlog of at least 8 garments to review and I'm only four away from 100, it's just a matter of finding time!

Sweater to Skirt

So when I had my sweater buying orgy at the thrift store last month my main criteria were (1) 100% wool and (2) not ugly. I didn't stick to them entirely, but this sweater fit both the requirements. The quality of the wool was high and I loved the subtle tweed print. When I got home it went into a hot washer and the dryer to felt. When it came out it had shrunk by about 1/3 and was a nice thick fabric. The Second Time Cool book referenced in this post had recommended turning a sweater into a skirt by turning it upside down and using the lower ribbing as the waist. I liked the look of the lower ribbing way too much to hide it at the waist so I used it as the hem.

The skirt was so easy that I didn't think to take any pictures in process. I cut off the sleeves and neckline and then cut across the shoulders under the neckline so it was straight. Most of the side seams are just the original, and at the armscye slit I shaped the seams to fit my hips, as seen here. I further shaped the waist by making darts in the back, as seen at left. Because the felted wool is so thick you absolutely must cut them open and press them down. Luckily, felted wool will not ravel so there's no danger of your skirt falling apart.

I had to do something to stabilize the waist so I found a coordinating fabric in my stash, cut a strip 5 inches wide, folded in half wrong side together, and serged it on to the waist. I pressed the seam as flat as I could upward, then folded the strip down over the seam allowance and hand-stitched in place. The thick felted wool doesn't show the stitching so it was really easy. The waist is way more bulky than I would like but I'm not sure what a better solution is (except to use the ribbing, which doesn't felt the way the rest of it does). I could use a wide jersey waistband, but that would just transfer the sweater bulk line to my hip, which wouldn't do me any good either. I hand-stitched the zipper in, butting the raw edges of the former armscye seam together. Again, no need to finish felted wool! It would have been too bulky to turn the edges under.

And voila! This was an incredibly easy project that could be done by someone without a sewing machine and the skirt is both warm and cute. My cost was probably around $5 for the sweater and the zipper.

Hot off the Sewing Machine

I have been so procrastinate-y about posting actual completed garments here and on PR! Geez! So here is an outfit hot off the sewing machine. I started the skirt several weeks ago but just finished it last night, and I made the blouse mostly over the weekend and did a tweak to the fit last night and I'm wearing the outfit today for the first time. They don't get fresher than that.

The blouse is Butterick 4985, which I previously made for Spring/Summer with the flutter sleeves. I had made a bunch of fitting notes on the pattern pieces so for this version I added two inches(!!!!) across the back and scooped out from the front armscye so that it wouldn't be tight across the back. These went well toward solving the back tightness issue.

Cidell suggests that I shorten the shoulder seams on blouses as well, which I didn't do here but will try in the future. I should have added neck darts, I think, to counteract the two inches of width (I also added these to the collar so it would fit the new neckline). It doesn't matter with this style, but if it were a traditional collared blouse where the ends of the collar are supposed to meet it might be too obviously gapey around the neck.

This is my issue with fitting blouses, though. You can't just change one thing, you have to go through this whole litany of changes and I find that boring and frustrating. I am not a perfectionist, as you know. I'm all about volume. I love having a huge closet full of fabulous clothes. I'm not saying it's a good thing, but things don't generally get worn more than five or six times in a season. It's just not worth it to me to spend hours of not only time but concentration and frustration and the maddening pursuit of an impossible target to get it perfect.

I also added a fair amount of width at the hem. This made me look like a marshmallow. I love my white goddess dress, but apparently off-white just does not work on me. Especially not shiny off-white that emphasizes my pear shape. I don't think that the white and blue floral version of this makes me look so large around the middle, so I think it's the shine. That's a bit of comfort because then I don't feel like I "wasted" the fabric by choosing the wrong pattern. Shiny off-white is going to magnify my middle no matter what. I took it in at the front/side front seam and it is improved. In the pictures it doesn't look bad at all so I'll average how I look live in the mirror with how I look in the picture and decide that I look ok.

When I made it the first time I was taken by the idea of doing an in-seam buttonhole at the empire line, but didn't think of it in time. This time I did it. I sewed the bust/lower blouse seam on the right hand piece from the edges in 5/8 inch for the seam allowance, left it open for about 3/4 inch, and then continued on. Inside I serged the top and bottom together as far as the unsewn opening, clipped the fabric, serged the top and bottom pieces separately, and pressed open. I trimmed the seam allowance between the front and facing very small at the buttonhole, and made a buttonhole in the facing (which is one piece). I should have left a longer opening so I could have the button further in, and not have the seam allowance in the way. Next time. I'm really pleased with this detail

I also cut the inside collar and cuffs from a contrast fabric, mostly just because I didn't have enough of the pinstripe silk. The silk was purchased from Paron at PR Weekend 2007, I took only a little over a year to get to it, which isn't so bad considering how old some of the other things in my stash are! I have imminent plans for the green velvet from Kashi from the same trip, so I'm on a roll. If I actually make the navy wool skirt I will have used up all the fabric from that trip (the maroon jersey turned into a horrible, horrible wadder that I should eventually review)! That would be amazing. The navy wool skirt may have just moved up a few notches. For the collar and cuffs I used an olivey/bronzey silk dupioni from stash that had previously been tapped as the inside collar for BWOF 06-2008-105, yet another months-old unreviewed project.

The skirt is from another thrift store sweater. More details on that later.

All the photos of both iterations of Butterick 4985 are here. The review is here, and I'll update it soon (I hope). I think I will enter the Endless Combinations contest with this, the other blouse I have almost done, the skirt I made for Germany, and the yet-to-be-made green velvet skirt and whatever else I can get done by the end of December so that gives me an incentive to actually do reviews!

My Favorite Colors

Cidell and I had discussed the flyer for Joann's Black Friday sale and she mentioned she wanted to get the big 120 spool thread holder they had on sale for $14.99. I recently acquired a spool holder for serger thread (and planned to get another with my next coupon) because the cones are just too big to keep in plastic bins like I keep my regular thread, but was ambivalent about a spool holder for regular thread. And incidentally, to put to rest any fears that I am not thinking about sewing day *and* night, I dreamt about serger thread the other night. I had read in one of the serger books that you should switch out spools between your loopers and your needles because the loopers use a lot more thread and that way you won't run out of thread on two cones and have plenty left on the other two. So in my dream I was serging a lot, apparently, and was coming to the end of the spools on my loopers. I was so annoyed with myself that I hadn't switched out the cones, and what was left on the looper cones was more like rags tied end to end than thread and it kept clogging up my serger. Bizarre.

Anyway, I got to Joann and the more I thought about it the more I wanted to thread holder. My thread situation had been having all the spools in a plastic box, but they were pretty much outgrowing the box and I never knew quite what I had. It would be nice to know what colors I have and not have to root through dozens of spools to find the best match. I couldn't find the holders and was a little disappointed, so I asked an employee and she showed me where they were. Yay! I was also able to use my coupon on another serger thread holder *and* the 20% off purchase coupon, so I did well. I didn't get any fabric, only a few notions and the thread holders. Luckily, the Joann near me has only horrible fabric. People show projects made of cute knits that they allegedly purchased at a Joann; ours has no knits at all.

I had just sorted my Fabric Mart buttons--and let me say if you are OCD, and I mean this in the clinical diagnosis sense, not the colloquial sense, I do not recommend you get these bulk buttons because it's very hard to determine in which category to place some of the buttons. In this grouping there were a ton that were similar but not quite the same (and not even interesting to boot!). Unlike that obsessive, dull task, sorting my thread by color was fun! And the result is so pretty!

I thought I'd have more red, I had no idea I had only one spool of one color of orange, I need to stop buying black thread and start buying white thread, and obviously teal/aqua/turquoise is my favorite color because that is the only complete row!

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On the way home from Thanksgiving at the parents of a friend, I convinced my neighbor/dear friend, with whom I'd ridden to said Thanksgiving, to stop off at my office so I could pick up my heavy hat block and bring it home. Yay! I decided to start with one of my least favorite of the hoods, which was sort of a taupe-y green in a boring way (the lower most one in this photo). I really didn't like the color much but I thought if I could add a little yellow to it I'd like it better (observe that I have a whole category for yellow-green thread). What could I use? Turmeric! Turmeric dyes everything yellow, even plastic containers, so surely it would add some color to wool. Sure enough, it worked great. I threw in some roving too, to see what would happen. It makes an awesome bright yellow!

I put some water on the stove to simmer, added a bunch of turmeric, and tossed in the hood. That was it. Let it simmer for about ten minutes, rinsed it out and pressed out some water, and popped on the hat block. In From the Neck Up I'd read that you should hold the hat in place on the block with a band of elastic so I sewed the ends of some elastic together and stretched it on. In the morning the hat was still very wet, so I turned on the internal heating element for a little while and the hat dried pretty quickly after that. Unfortunately, the ribs of the elastic left markings on the hat, so I sprayed it with water, protected the hat felt with a piece of heavy wool, and stretched the elastic over that. It looked good this morning.



In home millinery, I have learned from the book, one generally cuts off the brim and blocks the crown and brim separately. I don't have any brim blocks and am kind of just playing around at this point, so I'm going to see what I can do about molding it as one piece. It's very fun.

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Thursday was Thanksgiving, of course, and on Saturday I made hundreds and hundreds of cookies with my girlfriends. We have an annual cookie baking day and we are out of control. We make nine kinds of cookies, and huge double and triple batches of each: snickerdoodles, rollo cookies, chocolate crackles, peanut butter whirls, sugar cookies, gingersnaps, chocolate chip, lemon bars, and coconut balls. It takes about 8 hours and is completely exhausting but very fun. Sunday night I made myself Thanksgiving dinner to have for lunches this week. Other than the Tofurkey roast, it's quite traditional: mushroom gravy (the secret to a good vegetarian gravy is lots and lots of red wine), mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes (this year I roasted them with parsnips and onion), cranberry sauce (cranberries, a grated apple, an orange, oj concentrate, and a little honey), and apple-cranberry pie (from Cooks Illustrated with the vodka crust).

In between times I managed to do some sewing. I'm pretty much done with Butterick 4985 in the silk pinstripe. I'm just trying to figure out how *not* to look like a marshmallow in it. And I have a good start on BWOF 10-2008-118 in a silk print, though I ran into a pickle while cutting and found I had miscalculated in my mock layout and did not, in fact, have enough fabric (I came up with a solution). "All" I have left is buttonholes and buttons, hem, and some hand sewing on the cuffs. This should take me a good three hours to finish because it always does when I'm "almost" done with a blouse.