Autumn Sewing #1: Easy & Repeats

As usual I am sewing a little ahead of the season so that I have clothes ready in my wardrobe when the weather turns. Also as usual, I've started off with some of the easiest items on seasonal sewing queue.

First, a couple of easy three-quarter length sleeved knit tops. For a while now I've been using a knit top pattern that I adjusted from a very basic New Look pattern back in 2014. It's worked reasonably well but when I was thinking about sewing some new tops I knew I wanted to incorporate the extra shoulder and rounded back adjustments I've started to make this year. I was also slightly concerned that there were some peculiarities in my pattern arising from the many adjustments I've made to it over the past few years. I therefore decided to start afresh with a new basic pattern. I picked out the knit top variations in Ottobre 02-2007 as a starting point.

Ottobre 02-2007 knit top variations. I made pattern 2, except not the split cuffs.

The good news was that there wasn't an enormous difference between my previous top pattern and the Ottobre pattern. The sleeve I was using had gone a bit wonky, and at some point I ended up with a strangely long and pointy curve at the lower edge of the back bodice armhole. These anomalies aside, it wasn't a million miles away. Also, happily for me, it turned out that there was a really close match between the Ottobre pattern and my very favourite RTW t-shirt. I was glad I had compared the old, new and RTW, however, because whereas normally I find a 44 is a good size choice for me in Ottobre, my preferred size/ease is much closer to the 46 in this particular pattern, which, after my fit adjustments (square shoulder, rounded back, overall bodice length) I duly cut.

Versions 1 & 2 of Ottobre 02-2007-02, in white and stripes.

I made two versions, each of these from a single metre of fabric. In the case of the plain white version, I didn't even quite have a metre, more like 90cm and mis-shapen to boot, which is why it ended up with contrast binding and cuffs on the sleeves, and also with a centre back seam. The striped fabric was extra wide (180cm rather than the usual 150cm) so the pattern fit on with no problem even after I stripe matched the sleeves.

Burda 04-2010-114 in turquoise gingham

Next, I repeated a shirt pattern I used earlier in the year, Burda 04-2010-114. This may be surprising because I didn't have the best time making that first version of the shirt and it isn't anywhere near my list of favourite garments for the year so far. In addition to my everything-that-could-go-wrong-went-wrong sewing experience, it's worn much less well than I would like, mainly due to interfacing problems. I used too much of the wrong sort of interfacing and this made the collar and cuffs too stiff. Then the interfacing bubbled in the laundry after about the third wash. That said, all the problems I have with that shirt are really down to sewing error: the actual fit of the shirt is the best I've achieved in a woven top so far. The pattern really only needed one minor adjustment (shortening the bust dart) before I made it up again.

Some details: finished collar (much better this time!) and the bias yoke

I made the same minor construction change as before and did a doubled yoke because I love the clean finish that gives you on the inside. I cut the exterior yoke, as seen above, as well as the cuffs on the bias for a little visual interest (and to save me from having to pattern match at the yoke seam!). The sewing went so much better this time, and I absolutely LOVE my finished shirt. At some point I will have to buy some more plain navy fabric and redo the first shirt.

Latest of many StyleArc Estelles, and a close-up of the fabric (right side = navy/grey stripe, wrong side = plain navy)

Finally, I swore I was going to retire my StyleArc Estelle pattern but when I bought this navy striped ponte I couldn't imagine making anything else with it. I loved my previous Estelles literally to death: two of them finally went into the recycling just last week when I had to admit that they looked absolutely worn out.

My next project: dark navy raincoat fabric, green crepe de chine lining & Burda 6772 view B

I've still got a couple of easy-to-sew wardrobe holes to fill before autumn arrives but next up is a more complicated autumnal garment: a raincoat. I'll be using Burda 6772. If you follow me on Instagram, be prepared for the deluge of posts about it! :D

Some progress, at least

October has been, on the whole, very dull. The weather has been mostly grey and wet, I have recovered disappointingly slowly from last month's major health setback, and in general very little worthy of note occurred. I didn't sew at all the first two weeks of the month as I really didn't feel well enough to do anything that wasn't lurk miserably under a blanket most of the day. However, the second half of the month was MUCH better and I was much more able to do things.

I decided that in order to get back into a sewing routine I would pick out all the least taxing projects from my autumn/winter queue, in terms of physical and mental effort required. While this approach was very successful from getting-back-into-sewing point of view, I have to admit that it makes for very dull blogging. Honestly, most of my 2017 sewing output so far has been deathly boring even to me -- I'm hoping the end of the year improves a bit!

Top row: StyleArc Estelle cardigan in green ponte, Butterick 5704 PJs in checked shirting. Bottom row: Burda 01-2017-124 PJs (simplified) in hideous red fabric and my t-shirt sloper in green.

Briefly, then: the four things I made this month were:

1. Another StyleArc Estelle cardigan, in dark green;
2. A green three-quarter sleeve t-shirt using my basic t-shirt sloper;
3. A pair of my TNT long PJ trousers, Butterick 5704, in a blue checked shirting fabric,
4. A simplified version of the wide-legged PJ trousers I made at the start of the year (Burda 01-2017-124), without the piping or separate cuff pieces. I described these on Instagram as hideously ugly and seriously UGLY! Yet, I love this pattern and the fabric is silky and delightful to wear, so I don't really even care that the colour is a revolting tomato-y red, weirdly tie-dyed and overall fug. :D

I think I am going to retire the StyleArc Estelle pattern for now as I've made it six times. I've loved the ones I've made and they've all been in constant rotation. One of them, in plain black, I wore out in under a year and it has already gone in the recycling. Two of the others are likely to follow shortly as the fabric is starting to look shabby. As much as I like my remaining Estelles and the pattern in general, though, I think I'd like to make a different pattern now.

The only other thing I have to say about making these four things is that I briefly came to loathe my recently purchased overlocker while sewing the knits. I was having SO MANY problems with it. It kept missing stitches and the thread kept breaking, so I was having to rethread the loopers every few minutes. You know how it is when you're ill and tired and not at your best overall; little annoyances seem a thousand times more dramatic and difficult than they really are. Well, I was so much in that state of mind that I was literally crying over the stupid overlocker because it just wouldn't WORK. I felt like I had tried EVERYTHING -- different thread, different tension settings, completely rethreading the machine a million times, checking all the settings, etc etc etc. Then, paging through the instruction manual "Troubleshooting" section, I realized I hadn't tried one of the most obvious things of all: changing the needles. Two minutes of effort to do that, and hey presto, everything worked perfectly again. I felt like such an idiot! /o\ The only positive is that I got a LOT of threading practice and could now probably thread that machine in my sleep!

Overlocker-related dramatics aside, now that I am back on track a bit I have been making plans for November. First up, I want to make some more knit tunics to go with leggings for lounging around the house. I've got four new-to-me patterns all picked out and ready to start tracing, fabric and notions lined up and ready, and I'm keen to get on with those garments. I also picked up both my cross-stiching and knitting. And, over the course of several of the recent lurking-feebly-on-my-sofa days, I did a little more fine-tuning of my wardrobe plans and spreadsheets, which I will probably write about a bit more soon. One of these days I might even post my years-in-draft post about my colour choices!

The perils of an ill-timed sneeze and other stories

A few things to share from this month so far:

First, a Wishlist Challenge entry! Back in April 2013, I made a top with a printed viscose fabric that I loved. It was a simple New Look woven tee pattern with a dolman sleeve and a scooped neckline. I decided to french seam it but, as this was right back near the start of my garment sewing adventures, did so sufficiently ineptly that sections of the seams shredded after about the third wash.

The original top that I made in 2013

This would not have been a total disaster, except past!me decided that the thing to do would be to disassemble the top by violently unpicking the side seams so that they ended up badly shredded but then cutting through the bias binding at the neckline, etc. rather than unpicking it. Er. What? Why?! At any rate, I squirreled the remnants away in the hope that I would find a way to make use of it at some point in the future, and put "find a way to use that pink floral viscose!" on my Wishlist.

Plan A: something like this Burda pattern (06-2017-123A)

I was inspired to get on with this item on the list by one of the Plus patterns in the 06/2017 issue of Burda. I couldn't actually cut the pattern out of the fabric that I had, but I decided I could definitely make something similar with the pieces I had plus some plain ivory viscose. This had the advantage also of allowing me to cut off the raggedy remains of the previous seams. So, that was Plan A, with a mental note to possibly come back to this pattern and make it up properly in the future.

Alas, Plan A was not successful, for the most ridiculous of reasons. I was nearly finished, and it actually looked great, but then disaster struck. As I was overlocking a shoulder seam, I suddenly sneezed violently and I guess in the process pressed hard on the foot pedal of my overlocker. The whole overlocking situation suddenly got out of hand and I ended up cutting a MASSIVE hole in the fabric near the shoulder. Let this be a lesson to all of us: if about to sneeze, remove your foot from the foot pedal!

Plan B: Burda 05-2015-124

After sneezing some more and then nearly committing violence because after all that work I couldn't believe I'd done something so comically stupid (because no, seriously, who creates wadders by SNEEZING?) I moved fairly swiftly on to Plan B. Plan B involved a pattern I'd previously earmarked as a possibility for this project, Burda 05-2015-124. This is a regular sized pattern, and I made my usual size 44.

This is one of those patterns that it would be really easily to just completely ignore in Burda. The styling of the modelled version is really not to my taste, and the line drawing kind of looks like nothing -- a box with sleeves. But, as is often the case with Burda, it has some great little details. The seamline at the bust creates a nicely shaped dart. The hemline shape is also really pretty. In a drapey viscose fabric, it doesn't look nearly as boxy on as the line drawing.

Burda 05-2015-124 made with remnants of the pink top + contrast ivory

Sorry the photo is so dark! As you can probably JUST ABOUT see, I had to retain the stripe in the lower body section down the side seam from the Plan A version of this top, which is not part of this pattern. I don't think it's too intrusive, but I really had no choice. I also managed to squeeze out enough bias tape to do a contrast binding at the neckline. The only thing I don't really like about the finished top is the neckline. I just omitted the keyhole neckline because I dislike them, but I thought the width of the neckline would fit easily over my head anyway. However, I forgot that I find Burda necklines are often too wide and/or too low, and this neckline is just a LITTLE too wide. If I cut this again, I will have to alter that.

Despite sneezing fits, this was eventually a success, and I am really pleased to have this fabric somehow back in my wardrobe!

Burda 06-2017-126 (images from Burdastyle)

Next, I was idly flipping through my copy of Burda 06/2017 I'd left out from when I was formulating Plan A, and decided to move right on to a Magazine Challenge and make up 06-2017-126. I know, it's yet another wacky top from Burda, but look how adorable the model looks in her top! And I rather like the weird little back drape! 

My sad attempt at Burda 06-2017-126

 However, did mine turn out that cute? No. No it did not. I had every possible problem with it. The fabric fought me every step of the way and point blank refused to go through my overlocker (why, I don't know, I tried for a solid HOUR to get it to work, but the thread snapped after 2-3 stitches no matter what settings I tried). I moved to my regular sewing machine and a stretch stitch, which was better, but then I discovered, 75% of the way through construction, that I had attached the upper and lower back pieces incorrectly, and much unpicking, recutting and redoing followed. Then I screwed up the neckband had to unpick it. I was just thinking about how to rescue the neckband when little seeds of doubt about that back drape feature and the knit fabric I had used made me decide to try the top on, neckband problems and all and... no. A WORLD OF NO, in fact. It didn't drape nicely as in the image, it just sort of sat there and looked like a misplaced lump of fabric in my centre back. Ugh. Sad to say, this went straight in the recycling bin.

To be fair to Burda, most of these were problems of my own making, but if you happened to want to make this top, I STRONGLY recommend a VERY slinky, drapey knit. Mine seemed drapey enough when I picked it out for this pattern, but it really wasn't. Also, this is again what I would call a typical Burda neckline, which is to say: very deep and very wide. If I had finished it, I would have had to wear something under it.

Summer PJs

In desperate need of a unicorn chaser, the next time I went into my sewing room I decided to make something VERY EASY. Thus: summer PJs. The bottoms are my TNT Ottobre sleep shorts (Ottobre 05-2011-02), and the top is a men's tee pattern, Knipmode 07-2017-22. I like my sleep tees large and baggy, and women's patterns are always too fitted for me to be comfortable in to sleep. I tried a simple pattern off the internet previously without much success, but since I had this Knipmode pattern available I decided to use it. I really like it and will use it again, although I need to bring the neckline in a little (again!) It's a very dull entry in my Magazine Challenge for this month, but hey, it's a pattern from this year's magazines! Good enough for me!


The last piece of July's news is that, after a couple of little windfalls, I decided to go mad and replace my overlocker. My old one was second-hand from eBay. I bought it in 2012 for £50, and I've used it a LOT, so it didn't really owe me anything. Recently, I've been getting a bit frustrated with it for various reasons. I was idly looking to see what there was in my price range on my preferred vendor site for sewing machines, spotted a discounted ex-display model and, well, you can guess the rest of the story!

New overlocker!! And my first project with it, a StyleArc Estelle cardigan in a reversible black/grey knit

Once I learned how to thread the machine and practiced a bit to get a feel for it, I wanted to actually make something. I have next to nothing left in my summer sewing queue and no knits at all, so I dragged this unseasonal project forward from my autumn sewing queue: yet another StyleArc Estelle cardigan, this time in a two-sided knit, dark grey on one side and black on the other. Having made four of these previously, I could really focus on getting to know the overlocker while I sewed. It came out really well, and was definitely a good pattern to pick to practice with the new machine, because it has a bit of everything -- long straight seams, curves, a couple of little fiddly bits. I probably won't wear it until autumn, but it won't come to any harm hanging in my wardrobe for few weeks extra.

Overall, I am SO PLEASED that I upgraded my overlocker. The stitch quality is MUCH better, it's a LOT quieter and it's easier to use than my old machine. It isn't particularly easier or faster to thread, but there's nothing particularly complicated in the threading either. It's a little different than my old one, but not so much that it wasn't fairly obvious what I had to do. I did have a couple of false starts with the threading, but honestly, if you can thread a new-to-you overlocker right the first time then I am just going to start shouting WITCHCRAFT! WITCHCRAFT! at you anyway.

And.. that brings me up to date! :D This week I am working on bags, and cutting out a pattern for my August Wishlist item because I want to put some serious thought into pattern placement on my fabric. That wishlist entry and finishing up a jacket are all I have left in my summer queue, which is timely since I plan to start sewing for autumn in mid-August. More about all of that in due course!

Back in the saddle

Thank you to everyone who left comments on my last post. I usually try to respond to comments straight away but my success rate in doing so the last few months has not been good. If I don't get around to replying straight away it always seems weird to come back to responding to them a fortnight later. So, yes, sorry for not responding, but your thoughts are honestly much appreciated!

Leaving aside the state of the world (which is frankly awful) on a personal level my news is almost all good (again!). I suddenly started to feel better about a week after my last post and over the last 10 days have started to feel as well as I have all year. Things are definitely looking up! :D As a result of feeling so much better, I resurrected quite a few of my summer sewing plans and got stuck in.

As I often do, I eased myself back into sewing by working on some easy knits with familiar patterns, starting with two t-shirts:

Two easy tees. Pink is Cosy Little World Jasmin; Red and white is Ottobre 02-2013-02

I actually cut the pink tee out a month and a half ago on a rare good day but then never felt up to doing anything with it. The pattern is the Cosy Little World Jasmin Tee, which was a pattern I used for the first time last year and made three times. I still love the two blue tees I made with this pattern and wear them often (the third one I made using a cheap white knit and, even though I pre-washed the fabric, it shrank and distorted horribly the first time I washed the finished tee, boo).

The red and white tee is made using a pattern I was obsessed by in 2013/2014 but haven't made since January 2015, Ottobre 02-2013-02. It's a really nice little kimono sleeved top that is intended to catch and puddle at the hip. I added a little rolled over cuff to the sleeves.

Neither of these came out perfectly -- the pink has a little mistake in the neckband, and I managed to just catch the tiniest snippet of the fabric of the red and white one in my overlocker blade and had to do a little repair. I would have preferred if they had come out perfectly, of course, but I'm not going to worry about invisible-from-a-metre-away mistakes on inexpensive t-shirts.

StyleArc Estelle cardigan in a slightly weird hole-y knit

My last easy knit for the summer was made using a slightly weird olive green knit. I dithered about what pattern to use but to be honest it should have been a no-brainer. I absolutely love the StyleArc Estelle pattern, and have worn the three I've already made to death. This version probably doesn't have quite the same all season usefulness that the previous three versions have had, seeing as how it's full of holes, but I still think I'll get a lot of use from it this summer. The hole-y fabric was actually the cause of my only problem making this garment, insofar as it took a very long time and three complete re-threads of my overlocker to find the right tension settings at which it would actually, you know, sew the damn thing together and not snap the threads/stop stitching/snarl up. I got there in the end, but not before I earnestly considered what would happen if I flung either the overlocker or the pieces of my cardigan out the window of my sewing room.

My new cross-stitch kit is underway

Next up: Garment-wise, the next thing I want to make is a couple of fairly straightforward woven tops. I need to spend some time tracing patterns though before I can get started with anything properly interesting (and I promised someone I would trace a pattern for them as well, so I must get on that ASAP). I've also started my new cross-stitch kit, the very first little bit of which you can see above. More generally, though, I am just sort of picking up the threads of the rest of my life that I let fall in March-May, so I feel busy busy busy all day at the moment after months of barely getting out of bed. Time passes so much more quickly when you have stuff to do, so I'm really enjoying it :D

Under the wire

As usual I am keeping track of my goals for the year as each month goes by, but really the less said about my "achievements" in September compared to those goals, the better! For various reasons, September was really stressful and I coped with this in two ways: EAT ALL THE THINGS! and BUY ALL THE FABRIC! The result of this is (a) a lot of stomach ache; (b) my fabric shelves overfloweth; and (c) my budget and stash busting plans are in severe disarray. Ah well, I am sure there are worse coping mechanisms!

Luckily for the structural integrity of my fabric shelves, I did also made a bunch of things. Some of them even turned out really well. My cobalt blue Jalie jeans were by far the best thing I made in September, and possibly even the best thing I've made all year so far despite the sewing flaws. I absolutely LOVE them and have worn them a lot this month already. I also really like my Grainline Linden sweater with the lace overlay  and I'm glad I thought to make it.

However, I was definitely protesting too much in my last entry about the wearability as it stood of my Butterick 6388 sweater dress. In the end I took scissors to it and trimmed the size. I took about 8cm out of the width from just below the bust and then, because I was being lazy and didn't want to re-do the hem, I tapered back out to the original width at the hem. This makes it rather A-line, but I'm OK with that. The moral of this story is: I should definitely have bought the smaller sized pattern envelope, alas. I want to use this pattern again, but I am going to have to grade it down in order to do so, or else suck it up and buy a second copy in the right size.

Before and after of B6388 as modelled by me

I also started and finished making a super easy StyleArc Estelle yesterday. This is a pattern I made twice in September 2015. I really like and still wear both of the versions I made then and so the possibility of making it again came to mind when I wanted to add a draped/open cardigan in black to my wardrobe this month. As usual I sort of dithered about repeating a pattern rather than trying something new: on the one hand, novelty! On the other the certainty of knowing a pattern really works and goes together easily! This time, easy repeat won. I do love the Estelle pattern: just three pattern pieces, four if you use the optional pocket (which I never do), and it all just fits together so nicely and looks great when finished. The fabric in this case is a textured black ponte knit. I could maybe wish it weren't quite so polyester-y but it'll be fine.

StyleArc Estelle in black textured ponte knit

So that was September! As far as October goes, I've got big big plans, as always. Three things I definitely want to do: (a) finish my current knitting project, which has stalled, as usual, at the sleeve stage. Why am I so reluctant to knit sleeves?!; (b) work on my twisty sleeve/shoulder width fitting problems and see if I can make a bit of progress there; and (c) outerwear! outerwear! outerwear! We're having an unusually mild autumn, but I really am going to need a jacket at some point!

Another Estelle and Operation: Outerwear

StyleArc Estelle, version 2

I decided after the success of my previous StyleArc Estelle at the weekend to make another almost immediately.  The only change I made was a small square shoulder adjustment. It's not obvious from this photo, but that has reduced the wrinkliness around the shoulder substantially.

I kind of went back and forth on using this black and white floral lace print ponte. I'm not, generally, a big wearer of prints, or florals in particular, but I nevertheless bought this fabric right at the beginning of the year with some plan in mind (I forget what now). However, when it arrived I decided it was not quite the right weight or texture for whatever Plan A was. Plan B was always a cardigan, although originally I thought to make more of a jacket type thing. I had nothing definite in mind though and was happy to divert it into my second Estelle. The problem with using it with this pattern was that the wrong side -- which is plain white -- shows, and I wasn't entirely sure it would look okay. As it turns out, I kind of like the wrong side/right side contrast in the waterfall collar especially when it's sort of neatly falling as in my photograph above. However, on evidence of wearing it today, sometimes it flaps open in movement and it's all a bit glaringly wrong-side-on-show. So, I am still a bit undecided about what I think of that.


As documented for the previous version of this cardigan, I did a handful of not-especially-complex fit adjustments to get the pattern to work for me, and while I was working on them I found myself wondering why, when I am actually now reasonably competent at some of my key fitting adjustments, I am so hesitant to get started on my big autumn project, Operation: Outerwear, or, wanting to sew some kind of coat or jacket.

Ottobre 05-2012-05 jacket that I am planning to make (but not yet)

In fact, I have always planned to make TWO pieces of outerwear in what remains of the year: a corduroy blazer, for which I had identified an Ottobre pattern from 2012, and a more casual jacket in cotton moleskin to wear with jeans in the winter, for which I had picked out a pattern from a 2010 issue of Burda. Originally, I was going to make them in that order, and indeed I have previously mentioned the Ottobre blazer as part of my autumn sewing plans. However, after really thinking hard about what is holding me back from starting that project, I've decided that it would be better to reverse my plans, and possibly also do a third project in between.

The main thing that has been slowing me down is worrying about fitting. The thing with fit is that it is ostensibly why I sew: I hate coat shopping because my upper body is a poor match to most RTW standards and I really struggle to buy coats that work for me unless I look at specialist "large busted" manufacturers like Pepperberry, who I find to be largely overpriced for the quality of the goods. However, I feel like if I am going to sew for fit, I actually have to do a REALLY good job of it before I can really justify the effort/expense/learning curve of sewing outerwear.

Burda 08-2010-110, or the jacket I am planning to make next

This is just dumb. There are no sewing police going to come take my machines away if the fit I get is no better than the fit I get from RTW. Then, the fit of, for example, my current formal winter coat is TRULY awful. I mean, it's actually one of the most uncomfortable items of clothing I own. I put up with it because, to be honest, it was the best of many similarly or more uncomfortable coats that I tried on at the point when I was comparison shopping for a coat. So, I am pretty sure the bar for good fit is tragically low in the case of outerwear and I should worry less about it. Worse case scenario I just don't improve on the horrible fit I get from RTW, as I can't actually see how it could get worse. I don't think I'll even have to do that good a job at fitting to get a much better fit. Also, I need to START somewhere in order to get better. So what if I make an ill-fitting jacket? I walk around in an ill-fitting coat all the time at the moment, so that won't change, and I certainly won't get to the point where I can make an actually well-fitted jacket unless I try to make one and improve from there.

As to the expense and time, well, it goes without saying that I could get a coat for less money and effort than it will take for me to make one -- such is the way of our fast fashion dominated world. It occurred to me as I was adjusting my cardigan pattern that actually it would be a favour to myself to acknowledge that I don't really sew just for fit or utility. I actually do sew because I like it. I think it would be kind of fun to put together a casual winter coat this autumn, and I am therefore going to do it because at the moment joy is in rather short supply around here as this long boring illness continues to take a toll on my morale.

All that said, I have been put off making up the Ottobre pattern first because I think there's probably a more sane learning curve to follow -- the Ottobre pattern has this three piece princess seamed front bodice that I couldn't 100% figure out how I was going to FBA, plus a waist seam with darts that all needed to line up, all on top of the the basic things that I haven't done before that I'll need to learn to make a lined jacket/blazer like, oh, putting a lining in, just as an example. Plus I was planning to make it from cord, which hates being pressed. By contrast the other jacket I'd picked out has a lot fewer pieces and is less complex overall, so I think it makes sense from a sewing perspective, if not from a seasonal wearing perspective, to make it first.

I think I might also make a quick unlined knit blazer with a princess seam in between the two woven jackets so I can get some of the fitting issues with the princess seams nailed down as well in a separate step. I have made an unlined, princess seamed jacket before -- more than one, in fact. However, that was the summer of 2013 and I was wearing quite a different size at that time. It will help I am sure that I have some idea of the alterations I need to make, but I can't just slap the old pattern pieces on top of a new pattern the way I do with more recent projects. I want a black knit jacket and I happen to have a suitable pattern, so it makes sense to throw that into the pile of outerwear projects.

All of which is a long-winded way of saying that having allowed amorphous trepidation put me off even starting my outerwear project for ages, I have now talked myself into a state of some excitement about making my winter jacket, and will be hopefully make some more progress in the next couple of weeks. First up: tracing the pattern and some initial adjustments before I make a muslin.

A very quick cardigan (StyleArc Estelle)

When StyleArc announced that they were going to start selling PDF patterns through Etsy I was genuinely excited. I had been so tempted on many occasions by their patterns but put off by the combination of single sized patterns, long distance mail costs and the lack of finished garment examples. At the time I concluded that my bank balance would quickly empty out into StyleArc's coffers as they release new patterns every month.

In fact, however, although I've picked up two of my most wanted patterns from their back list as the company gradually digitizes their pattern collection, this year's offerings so far have mostly left me cold. StyleArc, like Burda, seems to be highly trend conscious and therefore, also like Burda, if you don't like the current trends then you're just not going to be into the patterns. The result of this is that although I am waiting for one more historical pattern release (the StyleArc Issy, which I desperately want) I've really not found myself yearning after any of the new StyleArc releases particularly... until last month, when the Estelle ponte jacket came out.

StyleArc Estelle

This actually shows the power of the finished garment photos for me. I feel like if I made the effort I could almost certainly find a similar magazine pattern -- in fact, I know there is at least one in Ottobre and several variations on the waterfall cardigan theme in my Burda collection. However, as soon as I saw the modelled white version on the StyleArc newsletter, I wanted THIS pattern, immediately.






This is my first actual attempt to sew from a StyleArc pattern. I bought the package with size 10/12/14, and chose my base size (10) from upper bust measurements. Assembling the PDF was straightforward enough -- there are plenty of easy to follow markings -- but as usual before I got started I behaved like it was a task of monumental proportions. PDF assembly is easily the worst part of sewing from digital patterns, although it's never quite as bad as I build it up to in my mind!

StyleArc Estelle in blue pinstripe ponte

I am so used to blending sizes when I'm working in knit fabric rather than doing "proper" adjustments that I bitched to myself the entire time I was preparing a straight size 10 pattern, since I know I am very far from a straight size 10. I am definitely not willing to print out 2-3 versions of a single pattern, stick them all together and then compare them, but it would have been SO MUCH easier if I could have done.

Luckily, I have become pretty efficient at figuring out how a knit garment compares to my knit block so once I had the size 10 assembled I quickly pinpointed my main adjustments: a large-ish bicep adjustment and a 5cm FBA. I rotated the side dart the FBA produced out of the side seam and into the hem, and then redrew the side-seam to eliminate the tent-like flare this produces. The end result of that manoeuvre is a front piece that is basically a size 10 until the bust point and then blends to a size 14 from the bust point down. If I made it again I would probably do a small square shoulder adjustment. This is my most common adjustment that I make to patterns but the the nature of this particular pattern, with the big shawl collar etc, made it difficult for me to assess how far off StyleArc's shoulder shape was from my body shape, so I left it as is.

The fabric I chose is a lightweight blue ponte with a faint ultra-skinny stripe. It was inexpensive and I am not convinced it'll have great longevity -- cheap ponte bobbles and bags out so quickly! -- but it has great drape.

As far as sewing goes, StyleArc's instructions are brief and to the point, with some illustrations for key parts of the construction. They were very easy to follow, all the notches and seams matched beautifully and overall, it was an extremely pleasant experience to go from pattern to finished garment. I sewed the whole thing on my overlocker, ignored a couple of suggestions for seam finishing, left the hems and edges raw as suggested in the pattern (not my usual choice, but I genuinely think it looks good with this particular very stable ponte that I used) and, in fact, sewed the whole thing in an under an hour including futzing with a tension problem on my overlocker.

I don't think this photographed well at all (but this might be just that I am struggling with taking photos of myself when my body is very drastically showing the toll of my most recent bout of illness). I actually LOVE how it looks on, and the first time I tried it on I instantly though about making it again in another piece of ponte that I've been hoarding for a while. I like the shape of the angled hem and the way the waterfall section falls over my (larger than average) bust. I could live without the many and varied wrinkles through the shoulder, but that's mainly the square shoulder problem -- it's amazing what even a tiny adjustment will do for that.

In conclusion: This was a really fast project and I LOVE the outcome. It was also an interesting introduction to actually making up a StyleArc pattern for me. There was certainly nothing about the experience, other than my irritation that I couldn't do a straightforward size blend, to put me off buying or making more StyleArc patterns (if and when the trends that they follow swing around to things that are more my style, of course!)