Sewing and hemming knits Exhbit H

Well folks it appears this is my final hemming knits series posts.

I have to say I have really enjoyed doing these.

I sew all the time and sew more than I can sometimes get organized to post. Yes I know item by item pictures is how sewing bogs work, but I too often go onto making the next thing before I get proper shots taken.

Writing is not hard but having someone home to take pictures, without their thumb over the lens, can be hard. My husband has been working late this last few weeks and that's why I put these recent sews on my dress form who definitely is going to get signed up for Weight Watchers real soon.

I know pictures on me are what I should do but would you rather see a garment on a dress form than not at all?

Anyway back to knits.

Exhibit H.1

An another project I made last week was in this angora like knit and the fabulous Jalie Marie-Claude pullover pattern. I like this pattern because it skims not clings the body, and is not too loose to be sloppy. The drafting of the turtle neck is brilliant, soft at the front but with a centre piece at the back neck that means the back of the neck is smooth and close to the neck - so much more sophisticated a draft that the usual turtle neck tube:

Because this sweater knit had far more body than say the green I used in the last twin set,  I used the wider cover  hem for this project. I think you can see below here how nice that looks, again to scale, and how much nicer the wider rows of stitching look than if I had used say the narrower cover hem:

The next, and final project, I have to show is a knit version I did of Stylearc's famous Adeline dress. This project was totally inspired by the cool fabric, a sort of a double knit with the stripes in opposite colours on each side. I used my own technique for a knit V neck on this one, here's the post on how to do it,

Again because this was a beefy knit, I used a wide cover hem for the bottom of the dress, but on the patch pockets, and because I liked the wrong side of the fabric so much, I just folded the hem to the right side and working from the wrong side of the pocket and with some jeans top stitching thread in the looper (I have tons of that thread once having had a finger slip on an online order and ordering 14 not 4 spools of the stuff) finished the raw edge of the pocket hem on the right side that way.

The cool thing about the loopers, and this is true of serger loopers too, is that the eye of the looper is so much larger than the eye of a needle and so you can easily use thicker thread there:

And here is the hem cover hemmed from the right and the wrong side:

Well that's it, a pause maybe more than a conclusion, on the subject of hemming knits.

I don't know about you but this topic focused way of sharing garments has worked for me this week. There is a good chance that I will be doing more with this in the future.

In the meantime what do you have to share now?

Adeline dress in woven

A post or so ago I showed you the knit Adeline dress by Stylearc I made and loved.

Of course despite the fact this is a woven pattern I found it was very successful in a knit.

Well yesterday a group from my sewing guild met for a sew and BBQ day and I decided this would be a good time to make up a house dress version.

I really think there is a role in life for house dresses.

You know what I mean.

Dresses in sturdy fabrics that are fine for vacuuming with pockets to put in the weird spare stuff you find on your floors and must pick up. Dresses that are great to throw on when someone comes to the door and you and the dog are just schlepping around eating cereal and drinking tea at 10:00 a.m. Dresses that don't require much maintenance as in ironing and don't stick to your body or restrict your movements so you can pull the green bin to the curb in them and then go shopping.

The sort of dress that requires your only accessory needs to be underwear and flip flops.

Well I had just the fabric for a dress like that, a sort of cotton printed duck that I picked up once at Hobby Lobby because I liked the colours.

We had a great day BTW. I like to see what everyone else makes and the hostess, Cindy, has a to die for sewing space in her basement.

So after I finished my dress I threw it on and we did a few quick shots.

What is most interesting about these shots is the background. My styling apparently didn't involve the sense to brush my hair after I had pulled this dress on.

This may be one of my all time favourite patterns, and certainly is not the last one I will make.

Now is this a house dress or is this a house dress?

I love it!

Adeline dress in knit

I have the Stylearc  Adeline dress cut out in a specified woven fabric and will be working on that over the weekend. 

But when I had some really nice heavy Ottoman knit left over from a cardigan project (probably should have had that review up first of course) I decided to see how this pattern looked like in a knit first.

The knit worked very well. Basically I love this dress and love this pattern. I am going to wear it right out, I can tell.

Not a lot to the dress from the sewing point of view, but what there is has been very well-drafted. The V-neck is faced in the woven version instructions, but I changed this to a simple cross-over V for my knit edition. The dress also has cut-on sleeves that can be rolled up, and big pockets that I didn't put on here as I just was too short of fabric.

My standard cross-over V neck 

In fact to squeeze this dress out of my remnant yardage I pieced the back at roughly waist seam level. Not ideal but hopefully looks as if it was meant to be.

Obviously a super comfortable dress to wear and a very fast sew.

The Adeline has a higher at the front hem ( I just cover hemmed this) that is not too extreme but I think makes for a nice side view:

As you have probably figured out a long time ago I am more a sew it and throw it on and get a fast picture taken kind of blogger than a thoughtful one who puts time and energy into styling. I just sew and then take a picture and run off to sew something else. I do realize that this does show in my shots but hopefully you can still see enough to do the pattern justice.

These shots were taken as I jumped out of weeding and grass cutting clothes (you can see why those were needed in this picture - but note too the nice vegetable boxes my husband has on the go too) and it apparent why those who are more careful have such nice pictures.

The bright sunlight shows for example why women of a certain age IMO would do well to wear hose whatever the style folks say otherwise, and that knit dresses really do benefit from better than gardening underwear.

That said I did put on different accessories on this dress which made clear to me how broadly useful a style like this is.

First I tried the dress on with my favourite gift to self necklace  -I bought at the height of my empty nest attack from which I am now mostly recovered -  and some suede shoes.

Three eggs for three kids, I am pretty sure I bought this just after having put some kid on a plane a few years ago

Next, when I realized how comfortable this dress was I got to wondering if it was something I could also dress up so I ran in the house and got my favourite dressy shoes and some jewellery - totally matchy of course, but then again I am at the stage of requiring hose so that might be as expected.

Here is the dressed up version and those shoes:

This is such an wonderful pattern I know I am going to make a few more for sure. I haven't given much thought to the cocoon shape up to now but can really see how flattering, in a not sloppy way, it can be.

We will see how it looks in a woven next.