When Things Don't Go As Planned...

As relatively craft-successful as the previous two weekends have been, this weekend was rather unproductive. My goals were lofty: another Issy top, Claudia pants made with stretch Bengaline, knitting past the yoke of the Svalbard cardigan...

How did that go?

The Knitting:

Well, here's my latest knitting on the needles:

Most of the yoke of the Svalbard cardigan by Bristol Ivy - I know the centre panel looks odd. It's unblocked and the "V" of increases isn't showing well. I swear, in real life, it looks normal (if a bit uneven as it hasn't been blocked)...

Since Friday I have worked precisely one row and rolled 3 balls of yarn. Note to reader: That ain't gonna get me to the end. I do have a post on this project in the works. The Svalbard is something I was compelled to cast on because it's like a scarf with sleeves - an elegant one. I just want to be warm right now, not constrained - and I don't feel like mathy-fitting my ass off.

Of course, this is a dicey garment from the vantage point of my shape. But I'm living on the edge and I have a couple of work arounds.

In brief: This pattern is polarizing (just read the Ravelry projects pages). It's very simple-looking but very complex to establish, as one knits the entire sweater from the top down. It's rated 4/5 starts in difficulty (by the pattern designer) for a good reason. Everyone seems to have to rip back two or three times before establishing a groove because it's fucking complicated. Mind you the end result is refined. And once you figure out how it works, it's SO smart - like solving the problems of the universe on two needles. This sweater is much more challenging than the Blanche Too, but so much better envisioned. Some people suggest that the pattern should be more streamlined (it's 12 pages or so - standard issue for Brooklyn Tweed designs) but honestly, I don't think it's reasonable to expect that it could be. To have access to the pattern in multi-sizes, one must switch from section to section for info. What's so good about the instructions is that they explain how to do this. Sure, it's tricky, but it's not a mystery and it's beautifully thought out.

The Sewing:

Now I did end up sewing two things - but one went straight in the bin and the other is just meh (who knows if I'll ever wear it).

The thing that went in the bin: Another version of the Issy Top made in blue rayon jersey. Here's the thing - I really struggle with the construction of the neck unit on this top - so that was a nightmare. Furthermore, I over-estimated my required centre-back narrowing alteration. I believe, in this pattern, I need 2 small darts on the neckline, not one large one, and a smaller decrease in neck-width than originally I estimated, so I diminished the impact by half - one inch of narrowing vs. 2 inches. Finally, there was a flaw in my rayon fabric - right in the middle of the piece. I didn't notice it when I checked it on receipt, but it was deceptively hard to see - more like a serious run than a tear. I don't know if my washing somehow might have caused this or if it arrived this way. I worked around it but the flaw, coupled with only a yard of fabric (the Issy really does need a yard and a half of 60 for the size 10), meant I had to cut a sleeve against grain and to shorten everything. It was suboptimal.

I am bummed to have trashed a yard of fabric and a day, but I did learn a few things that should help me on my next go round.

The Meh Thing: The other garment I sewed this weekend was a second pair of the Claudia pants. I can't even be bothered to photo them - though I will soon, if only to show you Bengaline (not that you can really see how it feels in a picture).

I don't like Bengaline - and I'm working with the "good" kind - the rayon blend (not the poly blend). I can only imagine how hideous the poly stuff must feel. There's so much fucking stretch that I can pull the pants off without opening the zip. My highly modified (for me) Claudia pants pattern is suited to fabric having a max of 20 per cent stretch and probably 10 per cent stretch factor would be better.

The only things I can imagine wearing in Bengaline are panels in a dress (for stretch and contrast), a tailored jacket (that fits with the ease of a cardigan) or VERY close fitted pants. Seriously, you want at least 2 inches of true negative ease, maybe more. I'll try my other yard with the Elle's or "denim" leggings, but I don't suppose I'm going to be a convert.

The fabric feels untenably fake. It's a bit sheeny - equally on both sides, IMO, so I couldn't figure which was which. I have no idea if the lighter colours are less or more sheeny but  that would make a difference going forward. (I want matte finish.) Bengaline seems never to iron completely. I mean, it presses a nice seam, but it's almost like you iron-in the wrinkles as you go. It didn't take my fusible interfacing well so there's a bit of weird overstretch bubbliness on the underside of the facing (not a deal breaker but ugly).

It doesn't so much drape, as stretch and contract, so a garment with too-loose fit is both wasted, from a fall of fabric perspective, and bulky-seeming.

Furthermore, and I've known this for a long time, though it really hit home today: I don't like black pants. I think they're the dullest, most ubiquitous thing ever. They just don't pop (like blue denim, my favorite fabric in the world). They're designed, 9 out of 10 times, to fade into the background. Why would I sew something that is so dull-looking no one will notice? I don't like black RTW pants any more than the hand-made kind. Sure, occasionally, one may observe someone wearing a beautiful pair in a beautiful suiting fabric (generally with a matching jacket) but, for goodness sake, if you're going to make black pants, they'd better be in fabulous textile and the fit's gotta rock.

Whatevs. Live and learn. This weekend is gone. Let's move forward...

So what's next this week, craft-wise?

• Gotta buy some more rayon jersey - yeah, I only have one-yard pieces?! - to sew my next iteration of the Claudia top. I'm making this as part of the Sew Sexy Sew Along that Clio and Sown Brooklyn are hosting. Sure, not feeling outrageously sexy right at the moment, but sexy is as sexy does - right?

• Gotta find some pants fabric to make a second pair of the Claudia pants (also for the Sew Sexy Sew Along) - I'm doing an outfit peeps! Note: It will not be black. But man, how much more denim can I wear??

• Gotta get past the yoke of the Svalbard and move onto whatever comes next. I think it's the front panels but honestly, I don't even know. I just know it gets less complicated as you go, which is my kind of pattern!

Today's questions: What do you think of the Svalbard cardigan? How do you feel about Bengaline, if you've tried it? Are the lighter shades shinier or matte-r? What other pants fabrics are there in the world, besides denim and Bengaline, to make stretch woven pants? I'm thinking 10-20 percent stretch. I'm open to different colours or patterns. Let's talk!

Style Arc Issy Top: Another Alteration (The Centre Back / Neck)

It never pays to speak too soon. There I was all high on me, having merely tried on the Issy top, and not yet having worn it in the world. Now that I have worn it, I have found a new fit dilemma.

Don't misunderstand, my cheetah-print version is the most wearable of muslins, but it's still a muslin. See, a semi-regular challenge has reasserted itself in this pattern. The back neck falls backwards as if there is too much fabric lengthwise. It appears, however, on experimentation, that the issue is about back and neck width. I'm narrower in this place than are the dimensions of the original pattern.

Here's the thing, when I pull out a dart that starts on the collar and moves into the centre back of the top, the issue resolves itself.



Below is a makeshift pinned-up version for a quick visual. Ignore the pull lines, I didn't organize the top well on the dress form so it's caught on the fabric of the form. Of course, in the finished version, the neck will come together evenly, not askew as it shows below:

 

But this alteration is not that simple to enact on the flat pattern, given that the neck band has a highly unusual construction. It has to be done on 2 pieces (back and front) .

As you can see in the (unaltered for this fix) version (below), there are two tabs on the front piece that come together to produce the collar band, on the top left and right of the pic. Fold lines indicate how the neck doubles on itself.  The sides, parallel to the fold lines, eventually form the piece of the collar band that attaches to the neck of the back piece. What is challenging to imagine is how those neck tabs come together to form the back neck unit. Effectively, the top parts (on the diagonal) form a seam that will run perpendicular to the neck of the back piece. Trust me, it works.

Now here's my altered flat pattern version of the collar band (remember - this is on the front piece of the top):

Part A of the Centre Back Narrowing alteration

What I had to do, and it was really counter intuitive, was to determine how to cut the collar part of the dart wedge, seen in the photo, second from top. It involved removing fabric but also tapering it to form a slightly arrow-like shape.

Below, you can see a loose representation of how that arrow will eventually dart into the back piece. Of course, when you seam the collar band to the neckline of the back piece, you have both tabs connected and folded over - I cannot represent that visually with the paper which won't mold like fabric.

Part B of the Centre Back Narrowing Alteration - the centre back dart.

In total, I had to take out 3 inches of fabric in the collar band tapering to a 2 inch dart on the back piece. The overall length is about 4.5 inches stopping at the part of my back that gets a bit round (and therefore needs more width/length). I'd prefer to make 2 smaller darts, but I truly have no idea how the back neck would adapt to 2 darts.

Another alternative is to make a centre back seam (currently the back is one piece) and just remove the paper at the dart.

I'm kind of amazed that the required alteration is so relatively extreme - especially given that the cheetah-print version looks pretty good (this issue aside).

I also wonder what this means in terms of how I fit into tailored jackets - for example the Janet (with which I had so much trouble in the collar area). I don't recall having this dilemma with patterns other than those by StyleArc, but then, I didn't know as much about fit a year ago as I do now.

Pls. note: I have completely made up this alteration. I don't know if it works yet. So I suggest you let me take the risk and provide more feedback once I do.

Today's question: Does any of you have a really narrow upper back, more so at the centre point (spine) than at the shoulders? How do you deal with it??

Roar

This is one of those sewing projects that took me all weekend. Four hours on Saturday and 8 hours today and I only just finished the Issy top. Anything that could go wrong, did. I had difficulty figuring out how to alter the pieces. I had difficulty figuring out how to put them together. I had difficulty sewing the rayon jersey (you know how rayon jersey can be). I'd finally figure something out (something nit-picky and critical) and realize that my bobbin was shot. My entire body is in knots.

But I fucking love this top.

Don't you love the drape of the neckline??

See these gathers? I set them by pulling basted stitches and then basting the front gathers to the back gathers. Then I serged. It took a while...

OK, here's the lowdown:

• Next time I'm making this in a solid colour - there's too much fabulousness in the construction to obscure with (an admittedly fantastic) pattern.

• I fucking nailed the alterations. I'm a convert to the sloper concept. Yeah, it took hours to figure out where exactly to remove the fabric from but I did it and the shoulders are perfect.

• Yeah, this pattern fits smaller than the envelope measurements but I still needed to pull out almost an inch in the shoulders, remove a bit of fabric from the arm circumference and to raise the armsyce by another inch. I didn't make any other alterations. It fits in the boobs. It fits in the waist. It fits in the hips. I appear to be a consistent size 10 in StyleArc knit tops - with alterations, of course. I might be able to get away with an 8, based on experience, but then I'd have to fit by increasing the bust and waist (and doing other things potentially that I cannot predict). I'm happy using the 10 as a starting point.

• If you don't like people staring at your tits, this probably isn't the top for you.

• Some have mentioned that they're not nuts about the asymmetric hem (in addition to the asymmetric neck and asymmetric gathers). I LOVE it. I even love it at almost tunic-length, which is the length of the garment currently. I might shorten the next version (for a different look) but this would be great with leggings or skinnies.

• This looks like it would cost $150.00 at some cute boutique (or $500.00 at Holt Renfrew). It's TOTALLY au courant. I cannot say enough about StyleArc from the vantage point of chic and modern design. Sure, I've had a few challenges with the company (largely because of business-growth, growing pains), but you cannot fault the silhouette. And much of the time, the drafting is very good also. This is why I joined the Club and will likely order mainly from StyleArc for a good long while.

• The instructions are more fulsome than they generally are with StyleArc, but I trashed them by ironing the thermal paper, so it was a slog for me. And really, I was not at my spatial best. What can I say? There's a reason that Anne has a blog called the Clothing Engineer and I do not have a blog called the Clothing Civil Servant.

• Given all the challenges I had figuring out the construction, this fabric took a beating and the inside is not my neatest work. Mind you, I worked out the glitches and figured out what to do so, next time, I should be able to produce a neat interior.

• The rayon jersey is lovely and the stretch factor is optimal for this top. If I'd understood things better, I would have used my seam interfacing strips along the entire front and back neck to stabilize things. Then I'd have had a chance at stitching the underturned back neck, in the ditch, from the right side. As it is, I had to use a short zig zag on that area and it's not gorgeous. But no one but me will notice it, I'm sure.

No question, I will be making this again. I mean, after all the time I spend on alterations, it would be crazy not to make everything at least twice.

So, whatcha think??

Issy Fit

In a miraculous turn, my latest Style Arc package arrived on Friday afternoon. Since I joined the Club, it included my ordered pattern (Elle pants), my free pattern (Janet Jacket - yup had to reorder since I trashed my first pattern), my free pattern of the month (Issy top, which thrills me from a design perspective) and some more of the black Bengaline (more to come on the topic of this fabric at a later date).

In brief - I ordered the Elle pants in the wrong size (12 vs 10, my error) so I wonder how difficult it will be to make them. Fortunately, Andrea ordered them in my right size, so I may just trace hers.

Apparently, the Janet Jacket was delayed because they discovered an drafting concern in the bust of the size 12 - the one I muslined to hell, so it's not so relevant to my latest, hideously-fitting version of this jacket - and they had to change it. Since I'm starting from scratch, I don't suppose this makes much difference to me - but apparently, the original 12 was drafted too tight in the bust. Alas, I'm not going to be working with the same original version as I started with last time, so I'm not going to be able to take every (correct) alteration for granted. Whatevs. I'll worry about this next week.

Now, let's get to today's topic - the Issy Top:

IMPORTANT: On the topic of omnipresent, minor irritation with Style Arc (despite improvements in communication and delivery time), this pattern is printed on thermal paper - unlike the previous patterns I've received from them. That means, when I pressed the pattern on the right side (I know, you're not supposed to do it but I always do and there's no problem), it melted:

I then had to spend an hour with my husband scanning and processing the instructions and tech drawings to make them legible again. Yeah, I ironed those bits first. They're only nominally readable now. What a pain in the ass. Intriguingly, when I carefully experimented next with ironing from the wrong side of the paper (gotta get those freakin' creases out in order to trace, after all) the ink came through on the wrong side and got darker on the right side, but there were no problems with melted ink. Proceed with caution.

I'm really trying to get with the whole "I don't care how long this takes, it's my fucking hobby" philosophy because I've worked on it for 3 hrs and haven't got to the pattern tracing yet.

Here's the deal - this pattern, as drafted, is not shaped like me at all. Well, altered-Issy, she is Kristin-shaped, we gotta hope. Cuz I sure put in the effort.

To wit:

My arm circumference is smaller than the size 10 and higher too but the unaltered sleeve head curve is pretty much like mine...

Oh, this is where things start to go to hell, from an alteration perspective. My shoulders are narrower than the pattern's, though the Clothing Engineer has indicated that the pattern fits small in the shoulders (and my math corroborates this).

The thing is that the alterations for the front and back - especially given the whack look of the pattern pieces - have to equal one another, though it's unclear exactly where I need to remove my shoulder length. My sloper is for a crew neck T. This is a high-necked, wrap-V. It's not really an apples-to-apples comparison.

After considering the outcome of every change (I hope), I landed on these alterations (penciled around the original pattern lines:

Altered back piece

Altered front piece - see what I mean about the challenge of enacting this alteration on asymmetric pieces that fold all weird-style??

Altered sleeve

This is the fabric I'm going to use:

Appropriately stretchy rayon jersey from Gorgeous Fabrics - it's by some designer apparently...

On an unrelated note - or maybe it's quite related since I seem to be making a sexy, knit top in animal print - I just received info that my 25 year high school reunion is coming up. Process that, if you will: I have been out of high school for most of my life which, given that I am still a Clementine to my core, is rather confusing to me. I'm tremendously grateful to still know much of my graduating class (there were 20 of us), so it will be more like a party in a weird venue than a total reintroduction to a bunch of middle-aged people I don't know. Seriously though...