Delving into my sewing patterns: V1164

Following on from my previous post on my sewing pattern stash, I had the sudden urge to look at a Vogue pattern with interesting Dolman-style sleeves.  I am not at all convinced that these suit my figure but I wanted a look.

I didn't find it* and got a bit frustrated until I came across another pattern that I bought because it has raglan sleeves and wraps over at the front.  I thought this would make a great pattern to make up in all kinds of different fabrics.  Unfortunately I failed to see that this is for knit fabrics only.  Darn.  That's not what I was after at all.  I don't sew well with stretch fabrics.

V1164

This looks like it could be a really flattering style and I haven't made anything like this before. I won't find out what this will look like on me until I make it up and try it on.

For my muslin, I found a cheap pink stretch fabric left over from another project (that didn't turn out well, damn) and cut it out. And even sewed it up!  I am very pleased with that.

What I learnt from working with this fabric: there is absolutely no point for me to buy cheap and thin jersey fabrics: I hate working with them and they look saggy and cheap. And they don't wear well either because they wrinkle like mad.

I still have some fabrics that are almost as thin (in purple, grey and light pink) but I think they weren't as cheap and hopefully don't wrinkle as much. I'll have to check.  When I bought them I had visions of making long-sleeved T-shirt style tops as wardrobe staples. But if I don't enjoy working with them, nor like wearing them...

I should try those firmer knits instead. But then again I'd rather work with patterns for woven fabrics and erode my humungous stash of those. So there is no Ponte knit fabric shopping in my immediate future.

I did have to buy something for this project unfortunately: the front pieces of this need to be lined - to finish off the edges and to stablise them. I don't want to try a woven lining because I don't think it'll work and I had run out of stretch lining.  The pattern recommended stretch mesh or tricot. So I ordered a meter of light mesh. Who knows when I'll get that and if I'll still be in the mood for carrying on with this project.

The pink muslin showed that the style is promising: the V-neck looks good on me and I'll have to see how a slightly firmer fabric will behave in terms of fit around my middle and near the shoulders.

If I make this with short sleeves again I will want to lengthen the sleeves at the top by at least 1-1.5 inches.  I have enough fabric for long sleeves for the actual project. I just need that lining fabric first.

But even though I've run into this delay: it is really good to know that I made a start with a type of pattern I hadn't used before. That's exactly what I had in mind when I wrote the previous blog post. 

Brush strokes: mainly pink/purple and dark grey

Vogue 1164: View A in grey on the left has some darts near where the closure sits, View B in yellow doesn't. I tried the non-darted version in my cheap pink jersey fabric. The pattern of my project fabric would look a bit weird if darted so I will probably stick with View B (see 'Brush strokes' above).

Both views use the non-darted front pattern piece (2) for the lining.


*: I found the pattern since: it is V1239, Chado Ralph Rucci. This one:

V1239

I now think that this is also not suitable for me, because of the sleeves. Where they connect to the front and to the back is very odd: as far away from under the arm as may be possible to get. Very odd. Possibly an okay style for someone much less busty than me. So I will give this one a miss.

 

I would like to use this pattern to Frankenpattern the neckline part with another blouse pattern though (at least with rounded edges, not corners near the chin) - that line is beautiful.
 

Invigoratingly red

I haven't worked much with yarn or fabric in red.  My favourite colours are pink, royal blue, aqua or turquoise, petrol, purple, black, grey, silver and white.  And true red - but it's very difficult to find.

But I suddenly had the urge to get a red yarn to start a jumper with.

This is the result, well I should say the work in progress:

 

Isn't this just wonderfully colourful?  I find it very good for the soul to knit in a colour that works as a pick-me-up, so stimulating, so invigorating.  I really feel like this colour provides an energy that is making me feel better in the grey, the darkness and the cold temperatures of November.

I am very glad that I started this project.

Black and White neckline top

This is another top (I do seem to make them in batches oddly enough), and it is quite funny that I am blogging about this just after my quickest project, the electric purple mohair shawlette.  This one took the longest.

It is a 4 ply cotton top-down tee type top with raglan lines from the corners of the neckline down to the underarm grafting lines.

I had started this top something like ten, or maybe even fifteen years ago? It's been so long that I can't even remember.  I do know that after happily knitting away I put it down one day, and just never came back to it.  Up until a few weeks ago.  At first I thought this was something for frogging, I couldn't even remember what it was supposed to be. The black and white detail around the square neck brought it back to me and all thought of ripping this down for the yarn was forgotten.  I now also remember why I stopped: I got stuck on how to continue into the sleeves when I was only going to increase further at the raglan lines - if I had carried on I would have made a two-dimensional, unwearable piece.  It would have pinched in a really nasty way!

I was aware that I needed to do something to shape the armholes but I was completely flummoxed as to what. Last December I knitted the Elizaber Zimmerman 'Hurry up Last Minute Sweater', which could also be called The Wishbone Sweater (to be blogged about later, I want to dye it first), and the mystery of the underarm shaping was revealed to me: you need to cast on a number of stitches that will make about three inches (7.5 cm) to shape the area under the arms.  A temporary cast-on can work terrifically because you can pick up those stitches and just knit them off when it comes to working the body from them in the other direction, down to the hem.

At the stage of dividing the piece for the sleeves, I just left all the stitches on my 80 cm long circular needle (I love circulars, I don't use anything else except for DPNs for sock knitting or a doily until it gets large enough) - cast on those under arm stitches, then just knitted off the sleeve stitches as designated by the raglan lines followed by the cast on stitches, in the round. The circular needle is too long for a sleeve, but just pull it through whenever you get to the "beginning" of the round and keep knitting as normal.  If there is not enough stretch in the material then you may have to use DPNs but this may be a pointer to the fact that the sleeve is too narrow.  I made sure to feed a thinner circular through half the body every so often so I could try it on and see how I was doing, size-wise.

I was extremely lucky that, making it up as I went along, my choice of how deep I made the neckline meant that the sleeves are not too narrow.  That's just sheer luck though in this case.  Next time I do a top like this I would work out a rough sketch from the gauge and not wing it like I did here, blythely.

Another lucky thing was my choice of yarn.  This is a 4 ply 100% cotton yarn and of course I ran out of yarn within eight inches of the hem.  I thought that the yarn looked quite similar so I tried Patons 100% 4 ply cotton and I couldn't see a difference between them.  Generic cotton or not, that's extremely lucky I think!  Any other yarn and I would have to come up with something creative: picking a totally different yarn and probably colour to do the bottom of the body.  I did make sure to knit both the sleeves first, just in case!

Quite looking forward to the weather getting warmer so I can wear this and the other short-sleeved tops!