Friday, 17 July 2015

Teal merino cardie

While the northern hemisphere is experiencing heat waves we are suffering from polar vortex. I know that 5-10 C during the day is not really that cold especially compared to polish winters when temperatures are sometimes as low as -30. On the other hand the buildings here are often very lightweight - no insulation, no double glazing, no central heating which also means that inside is not much warmer then the outside.

I wanted to be prepared for the winter so I bought two pieces of merino in May - one really nice purple-pink patterned one and then some cheaper mix of merino and nylon to make a wearable muslin. I decided to make McCall's 6844 - lovely basic pattern that comes in four variations. I made shorter peplum one.
Sewing the cardigan was really easy. No issues there other than my fabric being quite resistant to pressing! My seams look wonky and just not right no matter how long I pressed and steamed. I should have used my walking foot too. The fabric was a bad choice for one more reason - the threads are really prone to pulling.
The cardigan is also not easy to photograph well. I tool so many photos wearing it and only very few look reasonably ok. Sigh... I didn't really make any changes to the pattern but next time I will. I'm going to choose smaller size, do a FBA, shorten the sleeves and shoulder seam. And make a belt with the same fabric. I think this pattern can be really awesome once I get fitting issues sorted. I also want to make it again (in both peplum and straight short versions) in plain fabric and use my nice patterned piece for a top. It might not happen this winter though - my sewing time is limited to weekends right now and my sewing queue is huge!