A Waterfall Cardigan and the Sadie Top

I’m really sad that my black waterfall cardigan is falling apart. (The fabric is starting to disintegrate, not just the seams.) I’ve looked at how it’s put together and the construction is a bit more complicated than I feel I can copy, but I might revisit that idea. McCall’s 6084 resembles it most closely. I made one up yesterday in the blue mystery fabric from Walmart:

This definitely is a wearable muslin. The neckline is tricky, so it was good that I made those other two jackets first. The Little Somethin’ Jacket pattern suggests seaming the back neckline before sewing the shoulder seams rather than trying to sew them as one long seam, pivoting at the corners. I did the same thing with this jacket. I sewed the neckline and shoulder seams on the machine before finishing them on the serger. What isn’t obvious in the photo are the long darts at each front shoulder, which I also sewed on the machine.

My black cardigan fits me closely—which I like—so I found my size on this pattern but then went down a size. This still fits more loosely than I want. I prefer my shoulder/sleeve seams to sit on my shoulders, not drop off. I think I can fix that by re-serging those seams and taking them in a bit. That should help to pull up the sleeves, which are also too long and which I narrowed a bit. This fashion trend of big floppy sleeves only works for people who never do things with their hands, like cook or play the piano.

The front is also much longer than my black cardigan. On someone shorter than me, that would be a problem.

I need to decide how to finish the raw edge. My black cardigan’s edges aren’t finished at all—which is okay on a knit fabric that doesn’t ravel—but I’d like to neaten these up a bit. I think I will do a simple three-thread narrow edging on the serger in matching thread, either flat or a rolled hem. I can probably also shorten those front edges at the same time. The sleeves were hemmed on the coverstitch.

Three yards of fabric for $8 and I got a cardigan out of it.

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The second project I completed yesterday was the Sadie Top from Seamwork. I chose this pattern because it is similar to a Liz Claiborne tunic I bought last spring. Also, Seamwork patterns are drafted for 5’8” models, not 5’5” models like the Love Notions patterns. I was curious to see how they fit my 5’7” frame.

I’m happy with it. (Obviously, it had not been hemmed yet when I took this photo.) That oversized funnel neck can be pulled down to be more of a cowl, which is how I would wear it. I like the banded sleeves. The shoulders are just a smidge too wide, and I have fairly broad shoulders. I think I may have to start using smaller sizes at the shoulders on some of these patterns and grading out at the bust.

I’m not sure this was the best fabric choice for this top. I was going for something similar to the fabric in the Liz tunic, which is a textured horizontal rib knit. This is also a textured horizontal rib knit, from Joanns, but it doesn’t have quite the same drape. It behaves almost like a ponte. I think it would make a great jacket fabric and I’d be inclined to buy more if it came in colors other than muddy earth tones and sad pastels. (This is a creamy white and not my best color, but I could get away with it.) I like the overall pattern, though, and probably will make it again.

Or maybe I just need to suck it up and copy that Liz tunic and my black waterfall cardigan directly.

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Teri commented yesterday that if this were knitting, I’d likely be fielding comments from people admonishing me for using “cheap” yarn instead of expensive natural fibers. The knitting universe—and the quilting universe, for that matter—are full of fiber snobs. My criteria for whether or not to purchase fabric is “How does it feel?” I’ve gotten some awful fabric at quilt stores and some nice fabric at Walmart. That blue fabric in the waterfall cardigan feels no different than something I would find in RTW at a department store. I’m also not going to make a muslin out of $32 a yard fabric.

Nothing is as black and white as people would like to make it out to be.

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It got cold enough to snow here yesterday, and now all the mice are trying to get into the house. I was reading e-mail yesterday afternoon when a trap near the bookcase behind me went off. The chickens got a snack. The husband re-baited the trap and it has another victim this morning. That spot is near the front corner of the house, so they must be coming in somewhere over there. Pretty much the entire perimeter of the ground floor is booby-trapped, though. If the first trap doesn’t get them, another one will.