Thursday 29 March 2018

Chalk and Notch Pony tank and a sewing day!

I am whiling away time in New Zealand waiting for my Australian visa.  It's all pretty good, but my luggage...is in Australia.  So I am knitting.  But it's been over a month and I started to get a little itchy for some sewing.  I wrote up a friend who sews locally and she invited me over for a sewing day - something that she does weekly.

I prepped the Anima pants and the Pony tank.  She offered to show me how her serger worked and of course I was jumping with excitement!!  So a mix of a new pattern and an old pattern seemed about right.

Nothing to say about my Anima pants.  I have made this so many times that I could basically do the changes in my sleep.  What I could add is that the new, updated A0 pattern came out...literally 10 minutes after I got to my friends house...so I spent the next hour cutting and taping.  I make a size XXS, remove 10 cm of the length, remove the fly and the pockets.  And no drawstring.  For this version I went with tulip cuffs.  I added 2 cm width to each cuff and then visualised the tulip shape, cut all four ends together and then just sewed the edges shut before flipping it right side out.  I realised afterwards that I didn't need to add any width, because my overlap was the same amount as the seam allowance would have been.  So the cuffs are loose, but look great.  I love this little feature that makes my SERGED Anima pants the best ones I've ever made.






The Pony tank is basically as advertised.  I cut the size 2 based on my measurements.  There is a lot of commentary about how high the armscye is.  It is high.  I was all proud of not trying this top on before I applied the armbands.  Don't be like me.  I still need to fix them - I took it home and tried really hard to wear it and the armholes just are not working out.  Unfortunately stuff that has been overlocked...is not much fun to undo.  But it will happen soon!




Saturday 3 March 2018

Sew House Seven Toaster sweater in double faced merino

This is one of the final projects that I made last winter before going off to Nepal.  It hasn't been worn much yet but it was an easy make and I really like it, so I expect it will eventually gets lots of wear.

The fabric is double faced merino from the outlet fabric shops in Auckland.  It's dark olive on the outside and a more subtle dusty aqua on the inside.  I went with version 1, and size S.  I loved the inside colour but I couldn't think of any nice way to use it as accents, as the olive is very clearly an exterior sort of fabric - it won't catch on anything, but it's also not as nice against the skin, whereas the texture of the aqua inner is more like usual merino.







A raglan sleeved sweatshirt is pretty simple as sews go.  The fit is good, and I'm glad I didn't bow to temptation to make an XS.  I wouldn't make any changes to this pattern for fit.