another Greenstyle repeat: the Lumia hoodie, take two.

The Lumia hoodie, version 1 (see it here), was an ok fit but still very long on me. 

It also seemed like it could handle pretty heavyweight sweatshirting. 

I hated my mixed fabrics (a friend loved it, so it went to her!)

So I got this nice heavy sweatshirting from The Fabric Box and matching rib as well. I remembered to shorten my rib!

Still size C. This time I shortened it further in the front by just cutting the bottom upwards a bit, and lengthened the back hem, since it seemed to sit relatively high on me compared to the front. So that was functionally a hi-low hem alteration. I didn't shorten it further through the middle, since I didn't want to shorten the design feature too much.  I think I could shorten it above the pockets if I still wanted it shorter next time.

It was an easy sew. I still didn't use twill tape on the back of the zip, but I'm happy with this hoody. It's heavier than current Lululemon ones since the hood is lined and my fabric is quite heavy (and of course because the current Lululemon quality has become super shit!)

Sew House Seven Toaster 2, a review and pleasant surprise

The toaster sweaters went through a revamp a few years ago, and somehow I have lost the instructions for this version.  I looked everywhere. No instructions.  I used the size chart and SA from Toaster Sweater 1, and made size 2.  I was aided by 2 blogs, one of which showed the hem, and a tutorial by Sew House 7 with advice on keeping the neck down using wonder tape or hem tape.

The fabric is a very not stretchy italian nubbly stuff.  This pattern took very little of it which was too bad, because I was trying to use it up and give the top to a friend.  I came at this in a true spirit of entertained curiosity, and I was blown away by how fun it was to make, and how cool the results are.  I used iron on hem tape for the neck - I sandwiched it between the layers, positioned everything, and ironed it down, and now the neck is stuck in place!  Nothing flappy!  I have no idea if I did the hem properly but I am happy enough with the way things look.  I think I overlocked everything, sewed the corner mitres, then flipped it and topstitched with the coverstitch machine (which was a bit crazy at the corners).  I tried different clever things at the top of the split, but ended up just stitching across to strengthen that spot.  The fabric doesn't show stitch lines so that was an advantage.  

 

The fit of this is great on me. I'm short, it is pretty short, the arms are tight, but my friend is smaller than me.  I will decrease the SA on the arms for myself and use some more stretchy fabric, but I'm definitely making myself one of these. 

Since the pattern pieces were on the floor, I did that sooner rather than later. Unfortunately I had to use my last piece of the nice cashmere Mind the Maker fabric for my boyfriend's snowboarding midlayer, and I absolutely could not tetris two tops onto the fabric I had.  So spots it is: 

 

This is normal weight sweatshirting.  It's not quite as cozy as I thought, I went down to about 3/8 or sometimes 1/4" SA since I was overlocking anyway, and so it drapes straight down the front and lets a draft up.  Also, I used the double iron tape again, but I didn't get it at the absolute bottom of the neck band bit, and so my neck band is still trying to flip a bit.

Thus I could comment - this pattern is really great for not-very-stretchy knits.  I think the neck is suited to that type of fabric.  For a stretchy knit it's still ok but I do really hate any kind of facing that flips around and I'm worried this one might irritate me from the small bit of flipping it's doing.  Other people have commented on how the pull from the shoulders across the front of the neck creates a kind of wrinkle, which looks good in drapey fabric, but looks a bit funny in more structured ones.  I have noticed that more here than in the blue top.  The blue fabric had more body so it might have been less obvious.  This is cute but I do struggle with sweatshirts so it might end up going to a friend, we shall see! It will be kind of funny if I cave in and use the rest of the blue fabric to make myself another one like the original...but it might happen.

La Maison Victor Charlene sweatshirt

 SURPRISE win!!

I wasn't going to blog about this because it's just a sweatshirt.  But I think that La Maison Victor doesn't get that much press because of being a magazine.  And this pattern is stellar.  I borrowed the magazine from a knitting friend over a year ago and traced everything I thought I might like.  The actual plan was regarding a different shirt entirely, but I liked the look of this and have a scrap of velour that would be neat as a sweatshirt - sadly I can't find ribbing that suits it and it must be done with ribbing, not self fabric bindings.  Because of that, I didn't sew up the pattern at the time.  I added my seam allowance and everything.  It's size 34.

My friend Tessa is obsessed with sweatshirts right now and that's what inspired me to pull this out.  She wanted it so I traced it for her.  I have followed her obsession and acquired a bunch of sweatshirting and ribbing, which has been a bit of a learning curve - I'm not used to the stretchy characteristics of ribbing! 

 

So I made this from very bright yellow sweatshirting. I decided it was just too safety-uniform-yellow and gave it to Tessa. The waist ribbing is really tight, I plan to cut it a bit looser next time, and I can of course shorten the top a bit, no surprise. The surprise is the elegance of the neckline cut, just a bit boatneck, and the sleeves which are wide but the fantastic cuffs control them. It seemed totally ridiculous to gather the cuff end of the sleeve when you add the cuff but it totally works, like magic.  I loved this fit!  I immediately cut out my precious Japanese wool...hm, what is this stuff?  wooly sort of sweater knit, kind of.  Not much recoil in it and there are a few holes which either are from washing or were in the fabric to begin with, but make me think it's a bit fragile.  I had to wait for my bindings to arrive because I ordered two colours to choose between.  

I shortened by about 1" and did lengthen the waist binding, but I still think it's a tiny bit tight at the hem and too blousy for my taste, I suppose I'll need to keep working on that.  I'm tempted next to make it in a lighter weight fabric, and extend the size of the bottom binding even more.  Autumn is the time to make all the long sleeved shirts but I can never tell until the middle of winter which ones have become winners.  

I can say about this - because it is roomy through the shoulders and easy to pull on, it's really perfect for sweatshirting and sweater knits that are very warm and don't breathe much.  It gives you a little air circulation space while still being warm!

DP Studio: le 001 Hoodie review

 In the middle of winter I decided to make this hoody.

I went with the smallest size, 36.  I actually planned really hard on this, to get a mix of fabrics that I envisioned in my head.  However that turned it into a challenging project because the different weights of the media caused some drama.  And in fact, I started to move house, and this went into a corner for six months.  Here we are midsummer and it's done!!

The fabrics are from The Fabric Store.  They are a heavyweight liberty sweatshirting, some lightweight black rayon knit and some black sweatshirt knit which is so cuddly.  In retrospect?  I should have done the whole thing in the cozy sweatshirt stuff.  Lesson learned.  I actually Really Do Not Like the Liberty.  It has a weird cardboardy feel, doesn't stretch much, and the design actually bothers me.  Obviously things can seem great in the shop and just not so great at home, c'est la vie.  

There are various tricks with this - in the beginning the pieces aren't obvious because of their strange shape.  You have to pay attention to which side of the sleeve is what, but once a few pieces are together it isn't too complicated.  I had trouble at the three way intersection of the body, the sort of hidden pocket, which is under the body, and the side piece.  That's partly because the weight of my fabrics was so different.  There were little holes I had to go and overlock shut after the fact.  I recommend using a stable sweatshirting fabric for this to make it easy to sew.  I also double layered the hood because I was using a really lightweight fabric.  I used self fabric bindings and they were insanely floppy.  I think I understand now that the instructions provide you a really long binding piece for you to put elastic into.  I bought some actual rib, and I think my piece was 2/3 of the length of the pattern piece to get enough actual pull in of the sweatshirt.  

 

The instructions are good enough, but they are not excessive.  It's not a difficult project overall but I do recommend working through it slowly due to the unique construction.  I don't recommend very loose or floppy fabrics since it's already a very loose and floppy thing.  

In the end I'm happy it's done, and I actually really like the concept.  I think to make this work I would need to use a single colour and keep it simple.  I will probably source some cuddly, easy to work with sweatshirting to do it for next winter.

Ready to Sew Jimmy & Atelier Brunette

I made Jimmy just under a year ago, using scuba material that had a lot of body. (See it here.)
I found it oddly useless.  Not warm enough to be a warm layer, but long sleeved and thus not a great lightweight layer.  It's certainly pretty...

However this Jimmy was cut out before that.  It was from 2017 and I was so excited about it at the time. The fabric is Atelier Brunette and it was eye-wateringly expensive here in New Zealand. I did a practice version from merino, never managed to photograph it - for that I did the version with the hem band. It was overall too big and floppy, so I sized down to a 34. Now of course I know the 34 fit from my scuba version.

I think the fit is good and sewing was fine despite not having marked the pleats - I had to pull out the pattern pieces and mark them now.  I do love the idea of the 2 part sleeves.  However I don't really like the shape on me.  It's too fitted and then too loose.  I want either fitted or loose, not half of each!  I find it funny that I foresaw this with the scuba, noting that sweatshirting might not create the best fit.

It's cute and luckily I know a skinny teenager so I'm donating it on.  I have the tiniest bit of the fantastic fabric, maybe enough for the bands on a pair of Hudson pants.  Oh well, I guess there will always be more great fabric in life.