After producing a Cameraman Jacket and a Cambie, a girl deserves to return to her knit stash and churn out some quick tops, yes? I tend to prefer fast production items in general, but I also like to keep it balanced around here. After making these three things in one week, I'm now cutting out a muslin (huh!) for a lined jacket that'll probably take awhile. It's a jacket for myself, don't worry.
For everything I made, I used two patterns I have no idea why I own in the first place. I agonize over what to get from pattern catalogs during the Joann sales -- really I do -- and then I choose stuff like McCall's 6288 that's kinda a snooze fest (aside from the crazy shoe styling, what):
Like I need a pattern for an elastic waist mini skirt or another racerback tank top? I dunno, guys. It happens. But at least I got good use out of the raglan sleeve tee here. I made it twice, in fact:
Savor (or not) this rare moment of me wearing jeans on my blog. Ugh, nothing's worse than jeans. But I do have to fit into society and society often tells me to wear jeans. Fine -- I'll make an oversized sweater thing to hide the fact that store-bought jeans do not actually fit me at all. To do this, I just cut the side seams way huge, dropped the armpit seam, widened the sleeves and added overall length.
The pattern has you attach the neckband so that it's wrapped around the seam allowance to the outside and stitched in place there. I knew that would be a wonky disaster for me so I just did my usual Renfrew routine. It works easily most of the time, but I still found myself researching coverstitch machines on the Internet over the weekend. Hold me back. Can anyone chime in with their cheers or jeers regarding coverstitch machines? I can't really afford one (or its accessories, geez) but I'd like to know if it's worth saving for, especially as someone who's kinda obsessed with sewing with knits.
I like the design element of these stripes at the raglan sleeve seam. I eased the wide sleeves into fitted cuffs to mimic the sweatshirt look and so I could push them up to my elbows, as is habit.
The third item I made this week was a houndstooth cardigan. I love the color, and I'll probably always love houndstooth, but for some reason I don't like the cardigan itself very much. I still wore it to work with pants (again, rare):
Good morning, rusty fire escape. I'm trying to find different spots for "modeling" that will actually enable me to take photos on weekdays, since my usual spot is too dark in the pre-work hours. This feels like a failed experiment. You all deserve better effort from me.
The pattern I used for the cardigan is New Look 6735. Yep, I paid real live money for this pattern.
Next in my queue: some enormously flared elastic waist pants as above, I hope.
I cut the front band on the bias for the helluvit, and again added cuffs so the sleeves would stay pushed up. Left off the buttons but maybe the cardigan could benefit from them. Since houndstooth seems too classy of a print for a slumpy cardigan, maybe I can just make the whole thing waist-length, shorten the sleeves and wear it with skirts only? We'll see.
So how do you usually follow up your more tedious and time-consuming projects? Grab some questionable patterns and bust out some half-assed knit tops? (Anyone?) Or tackle something else equally challenging?
