A confession. I am not afraid of flying. I am not afraid of spiders. But I’ve been suffering from a bad case of knits-o-phobia. However this month the Monthly Stitch ran a Sew Stretchy challenge, and I decided that it was high time for some exposure therapy. The first exposure was a disaster. I’ll EASE into this post by making it EASE-y for you to guess what the problem was.
Oh, is that a br-EASE blowing through the tr-EASE?
Pl-EASE shut the door or I’ll fr-EASE.
I dutifully cut the pattern as directed for my measurements. Five inches of ease in the hips? Yeah, sounds about right. The pattern is New Look 6097. The fabric is a nylon/cotton blend from Levana (love that place).
Now, there is nothing wrong with this pattern… IF you cut the size that has your bust measurement as the finished garment size (ie, zero ease).
I ended up having to take it in twice at the side seams, and lift the shoulders by an inch, and narrow the shoulders by half an inch. The first time I sewed the side seams I was careful to match all the stripes. By the third time… let’s just say they’re not perfect. Honestly, it was kind of a blitz and I’m lucky it turned out so well.
The other change I made (obviously) was to put a band around the neckline, and to cut elbow length sleeves. I also left the pockets off this version. Oh, and left the elastic out of the waist seam, and just fitted it a bit more snugly instead (it’s stretch fabric, after all). Final product: 9/10. The journey: 0/10. Version 2 was much simpler. This one is in a divine wool/silk/nylon blend from The Fabric Warehouse (their 40% off sale made it about $17/m).
I had an ‘oh no’ moment when I first tried it on, as it was a bit itchy, but I’ve washed it in conditioner and now it’s fine.
This one has long sleeves and pockets, and also has a band around the neckline. Next time I make this pattern (and I will make it again, we’re friends now) I’ll make the band shorter, so that it pulls the neckline in a bit more firmly.
So, no more knits-o-phobia! And the rumours are true, sewing with knits is QUICK. To prove it, here are two baby hats that took half an hour to make. Half an hour each? Nope, total!
Made using the lovely top knot baby hat tutorial. If you know a lot of new babies like I do, this is a great tutorial to add to your repertoire: you can make four hats from 40cm of 150cm-wide fabric.
The pink-and-white stripe is courtesy of Fabric-a-brac, and the red is from Johanna (thanks Jo!).
I kind of feel like I need another month of knits, to get them out of my system.
sixty six stitches 