As per my new usual, I made two of these.
The first fabric is a ponte. It's my first time working with ponte. I loved the idea of it and was really excited when I ordered it. (From Drygoods Design, who have so many amazing fabrics!) A problem with buying all my fabric online - I don't get to touch it, and I have to acquire a lot of fabric in order to even start matching fabric to patterns. I am trying not to hoard and it is frustrating to see the pile of fabric grow! (As always, I'll be moving soon enough.)
So it ends up I do not like ponte. It feels like cheap old polyester.
I made the XS and the long version of this cardi, best to make all my friends happy. I didn't make any changes. Up to the final step - attaching the front yoke, I did the entire thing on my overlocker without even ironing.
This is partly because I hate the Singer Fashion Mate with a passion. My entire review of this particular sewing machine is: don't get one. If you have one and like it, you have founts of patience beyond mine. Sewing with it is a trial. The feed dogs are lazy. Birds nests form from perfectly wound bobbins. Don't even consider buttonholes - the alignment is off and it will make your buttonhole in the wrong place, and that's if it's willing to make it.
Back to the pattern: you are told to sew the bottom edge of the front yoke, but then to fold over the yoke SA to the inside to get a clean finish. That means the inevitable terrible corner at the bottom front is present - multiple layers that won't sew together neatly. I recommend only sewing the front corner and leaving a very large SA at that bottom edge, in order to mitre or tuck in when you sew the front down.
Otherwise everything done smoothly. I topstitched the yoke down which doesn't look very good. Next time I'd probably baste the SA, iron it prior to attaching that front yoke, and then stitch in the ditch.
I found this a bit too long for my taste, and of course I continued to hate the fabric. I think in the right fabric the length would drape nicely but I was excited to move onto the short version.
As usual for Papercut, the arms are quite loose. Otherwise I was happy with the fit. I gave it to my climbing partner and she loves it.
Version 2 is the short version, in a heavy wool fabric with a kind of irregular "plaid" to it. It does stretch a bit but feels more like mechanical stretch. I didn't size down because I knew this bulky fabric would make everything fit more snugly. I considered changing the hem to a ribbing, but the sleeves are bulky enough not to need different cuffs, and overall I wasn't sure I cared enough to go hunting for such specific findings. I discovered on the short version that the pockets are basically in line with the armpits. That's just a fact based on the pattern pieces. Also, the fronts lie far open on me. I expected to love this short version, but even careful attention didn't help me to get the trifecta of the hem band, front band and body to match up - the front band was way too short to have a seam allowance below the level of the hem band. It took me ages to finish it as I just lost enthusiasm when it came to fixing these small final matters and applying the front collar, and it sat in a pile underneath my ironing board for over a month. I had been really excited about this, but completely forgot about that.
I finally finished it shortly before leaving (deja vu! Leaving again!) and honestly it's fine. I like it. But I'm moving, so I'm sending it to a friend. This was quite a lesson to me. Sometimes an item really does need time out to be a UFO, and you need that time to dissociate your hopes from the start of the project and the end result. But the end result is often still lovable! I was a bit sad to give this away in the end though my friend will hopefully get loads of wear out of it.
In order to fix it, I overlocked the hem band to the body at the level to allow the front facing to still be longer and overlap it a bit, so I could finish it. In this fabric it's hard to see any messes I made and overlocking is good for keeping things neat even when they seemed hopeless. My "topstitching" of the front facing band is laughable. Again, I think the whole jacket itself makes that an invisible issue.
This pattern hangs open a LOT in the front. There is enough fabric to close the front, but the drape and the hang are further out. I would add a button of some kind if I were to make this again. In the heavier fabric I think the short version is good and the size is great too - it's loose enough not to need different bands.
The first fabric is a ponte. It's my first time working with ponte. I loved the idea of it and was really excited when I ordered it. (From Drygoods Design, who have so many amazing fabrics!) A problem with buying all my fabric online - I don't get to touch it, and I have to acquire a lot of fabric in order to even start matching fabric to patterns. I am trying not to hoard and it is frustrating to see the pile of fabric grow! (As always, I'll be moving soon enough.)
So it ends up I do not like ponte. It feels like cheap old polyester.
I made the XS and the long version of this cardi, best to make all my friends happy. I didn't make any changes. Up to the final step - attaching the front yoke, I did the entire thing on my overlocker without even ironing.
This is partly because I hate the Singer Fashion Mate with a passion. My entire review of this particular sewing machine is: don't get one. If you have one and like it, you have founts of patience beyond mine. Sewing with it is a trial. The feed dogs are lazy. Birds nests form from perfectly wound bobbins. Don't even consider buttonholes - the alignment is off and it will make your buttonhole in the wrong place, and that's if it's willing to make it.
Back to the pattern: you are told to sew the bottom edge of the front yoke, but then to fold over the yoke SA to the inside to get a clean finish. That means the inevitable terrible corner at the bottom front is present - multiple layers that won't sew together neatly. I recommend only sewing the front corner and leaving a very large SA at that bottom edge, in order to mitre or tuck in when you sew the front down.
Otherwise everything done smoothly. I topstitched the yoke down which doesn't look very good. Next time I'd probably baste the SA, iron it prior to attaching that front yoke, and then stitch in the ditch.
I found this a bit too long for my taste, and of course I continued to hate the fabric. I think in the right fabric the length would drape nicely but I was excited to move onto the short version.
As usual for Papercut, the arms are quite loose. Otherwise I was happy with the fit. I gave it to my climbing partner and she loves it.
Version 2 is the short version, in a heavy wool fabric with a kind of irregular "plaid" to it. It does stretch a bit but feels more like mechanical stretch. I didn't size down because I knew this bulky fabric would make everything fit more snugly. I considered changing the hem to a ribbing, but the sleeves are bulky enough not to need different cuffs, and overall I wasn't sure I cared enough to go hunting for such specific findings. I discovered on the short version that the pockets are basically in line with the armpits. That's just a fact based on the pattern pieces. Also, the fronts lie far open on me. I expected to love this short version, but even careful attention didn't help me to get the trifecta of the hem band, front band and body to match up - the front band was way too short to have a seam allowance below the level of the hem band. It took me ages to finish it as I just lost enthusiasm when it came to fixing these small final matters and applying the front collar, and it sat in a pile underneath my ironing board for over a month. I had been really excited about this, but completely forgot about that.
I finally finished it shortly before leaving (deja vu! Leaving again!) and honestly it's fine. I like it. But I'm moving, so I'm sending it to a friend. This was quite a lesson to me. Sometimes an item really does need time out to be a UFO, and you need that time to dissociate your hopes from the start of the project and the end result. But the end result is often still lovable! I was a bit sad to give this away in the end though my friend will hopefully get loads of wear out of it.
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| Channelling my inner grumpy old man today... |
In order to fix it, I overlocked the hem band to the body at the level to allow the front facing to still be longer and overlap it a bit, so I could finish it. In this fabric it's hard to see any messes I made and overlocking is good for keeping things neat even when they seemed hopeless. My "topstitching" of the front facing band is laughable. Again, I think the whole jacket itself makes that an invisible issue.
This pattern hangs open a LOT in the front. There is enough fabric to close the front, but the drape and the hang are further out. I would add a button of some kind if I were to make this again. In the heavier fabric I think the short version is good and the size is great too - it's loose enough not to need different bands.
Found the same problems making it in a ponti. Pattern fit is terrible, especially at the back neck. It's too wide to sit nicely without folding it over which affects the front drape. Pocket placement whether long or short version is just plain wrong. Expensive pattern $32AU so you would think that whoever drafted it would have put a bit more thought into it. Very disappointed...jacket is now in the rubbish after 3 days of trying to make it look a decent fit.
ReplyDeleteSo disappointing! I was kind of surprised this pattern had a heap of good reviews when it came out. Maybe biased influencers?? Papercut do have a really variable quality, some of their patterns are amazing, but it can be hard to know which ones they are as people generally only post really enthusiastic reviews of everything...
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