A Second Sunday Cardigan

When I started sharing my crafts online (almost 10 years ago now!) I pretty much exclusively shared knitting. I had caught the knitting bug and would spend hours every day stitching away. I had a go at pattern designing, yarn-bombing, and plenty of personal knitting projects as well. But these past few years I have been much more focused on sewing and embroidering. I think it’s natural for interests to shift like that and I’m sure in a few years I’ll be focused on something else. I still like to always have a knitting project on my crafting back-burner, it’s a cozy and easy-to-pick-up project in between my other projects. I decided to make a second Sunday Cardigan because I wear the first one so much, and also because I like repetition sometimes. You can read about the first Sunday Cardigan I made here.

I decided to make this second one a more neutral taupe colour, so I used Blue Sky Fibers Woolstok Worsted in the colour Gravel Road held with Lichen and Lace Marsh Mohair in the colour Linen. I knit with three strands of wool, one of worsted wool held with two strands of mohair. Before I started knitting the sweater I took a quick photo of the beautiful yarn. I just checked the date on this photo and I took it in towards the end of 2021, which means this sweater has been my back burner project for two years now!

It turned out absolutely perfect, just like the first. I am a huge fan of this pattern, these sweaters are my two most worn! Will I knit a third? Maybe! But after working on this one for two years, I think whatever sweater I choose for my next one, I will try to start and finish in 2024. Let’s see how it goes!

Knitting Pattern: Sunday Cardigan by Petit Knit

Worsted Yarn: Blue Sky Fibers Woolstok Worsted in Gravel Road

Mohair Yarn: Lichen and Lace Marsh Mohair in Linen

My Sunshine Slip Dress: A Saltwater Slip Pattern Review

So in my usual fashion this pattern review is very belated but I think I will twist that into a positive here: it gave me a chance to wear this dress for a full summer season so I can tell you some things I liked and some things I would change for next time.

This dress idea is not one that was in my project queue for a long time. I basically stumbled across a linen in a peachy yellow shade that just spoke to my heart, and I had to sew with it right away! There are a couple colours that are just like art to me. It sounds strange but I feel like I could just stare at some colours and they will illicit an emotional response, that is what this yellow is! So I impulse bought 3 meters of this linen when I saw it at the store and went straight home to brainstorm. Whatever this fabric was going to become was being pushed to the very top of my sewing queue.

I always keep a list of sewing patterns I want to get around to. I curate ideas quicker then I can sew them so I always have a few on stand-by to choose from. The Saltwater Slip from Friday Pattern Company is one I’ve been excited about since it came out. Simple, a great canvas for embroidery, and I love the bias binding and spaghetti strap details. A sunshine yellow linen slip dress sounded just perfect.

My projects tend to span the length of a season, so this one turned out to be my summer of 2022 project. I worked on it at the beach, on blankets in the park, and at home in the evenings. I added some pansy embroidery (my own pattern) and stitched the dress entirely by hand which made this project very portable. I added a hand stitched maker’s tag to the lining as well. I changed one major thing about the pattern, which was adding a gathered bust (following the ‘hack’ provided by the designer on their YouTube channel: watch here). I also added a cotton half slip lining to the dress, as the linen was a little see-through.

I think that after fully hand-stitching a few garments now, I’ve come to a sort of compromise on how I like to balance both the speed of the machine and the relaxing comfort and portability of hand stitching. Long side seams are better done on the machine, I can easily do them using the french seam method which is such a beautiful finish and just feels so much stronger then my hand-sewn straight seams. Personally I think gathering is worth it to do by hand, even if I am the only one who can tell the difference in the finished piece. I also like to attach bias binding with the machine and then whip-stitch it down by hand so that there is no visible top stitching. And I love the look and feel of a hand-stitched hem. Moving forward this is probably what my process will look like.

As for the fit of this pattern, I’m not sure I will make this again. The side seams of the pattern are curved to match the curves of the body, and as I didn’t make a mock-up the curves don’t actually hit where they should on my body. This could easily be fixed for next time, but I just don’t think a slip dress that only creates shape along side seams really makes sense if you’re looking for a tailored fit. A body is 3D, and so only shaping in a 2D way will never be the same as say, adding darts and shape all around. Especially because there are waist ties sewn into the side seams that pull the seams towards the back when tied, distorting the shape anyways. I think for future dresses if I want something more fitted I will try a pattern that uses bias cut fabric, and if I want something more drape-y I will choose a pattern with a gathered skirt, or a wrap dress, or just something straight cut from fabric that drapes nicely (that I can add a waist tie to if I want shape). Anyways for me I just think there are better options so I don’t think I will try to change this pattern to work for me in the future. Although I learned a lot and I will still wear this dress, it’s just not the perfect fit that feels like it will become a closet staple.

Pattern: Saltwater Slip from Friday Pattern Company

My Christmas Make - Stockings!

This year for Christmas I didn’t sew any Christmas gifts, but I did make something for my growing family. A beautiful set of Christmas stockings! I used the pattern from Frux Studio, which was so lovely to sew up. She based her design off of medieval fairy-tale villages in the Alsace region of France, and they really are so charming. I stitched our names onto the stockings using chain stitch. One for my husband, one for me, one for our baby Josey, and I even made one for our pup!

The base fabric I used was a cotton herringbone coutil I had in my stash, but any heavyweight fabric or canvas would work. I have plenty left over if we ever need to add another stocking for another babe or furry friend. And for the contrast fabric I chose some scraps from my pile of naturally dyed linens. The linings are also random fabrics from my stash that co-ordinated well enough. This was a great project to use up fabrics and thread that I already had. I highly recommend this pattern if you are looking to sew up a set of stockings for your family. Merry Christmas!

Frux Studio stocking pattern: PDF Pattern

The Start of an Alabama Studio Style Camisole Dress

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I have been romanced by the Alabama Chanin books. I can’t remember why I checked the first one out from my library: if I went looking for it because of a photo I saw online, or if I just happened upon it. But for years now I have checked these books out regularly, completely consumed by them every time I flip through. I have been wanting to try the method: working with stretchy cotton jersey, hand stitching seams and binding, embellishing the fabric with reverse appliqué or couching. Finally this last time I took the books out I decided to just start the project. It did all seem daunting, especially because I think I was about 37 weeks pregnant when I ordered all the supplies, thinking that I would have the fabric all painted and set up for mindless hand-stitching by the time the baby arrived. Of course not!

First thing was to come up with my project plan. I decided on a dress from the studio’s 29th collection as my inspiration and starting point. The most similar dress pattern in the books is called The Camisole Dress, which is a little simpler than the inspiration dress, perfect. I will be using the Magdalena Stencil. Both the dress pattern and the stencil can be found in the book Alabama Studio Sewing Patterns. The book comes with everything on a CD, so I downloaded what I needed and sent the sewing pattern off to Sew YYZ to be printed to scale (she does this for $5!), and I printed the stencil on card-stock using my home printer. My printer at home can print larger 13”x19” paper, and the card stock was perfect because I could just cut the stencil out directly using a utility knife and I was ready to paint. Although I did simplify the stencil a little before printing, so that I would have less to cut and an easier time embellishing.

I live in Canada, so ordering materials from the studio was just not really an option for my budget after I worked out the cost with shipping and duties. I luckily have access to the books from my library, so that helps with the cost of the pattern & stencil. I wanted to find a source for similar fabric on this side of the border, and places around my own city for getting most of the other supplies I needed. My main priority for matching the fabric was to find one with a similar weight. I couldn’t find anything in a similar range of colours, but I did find a perfect jersey that came un-dyed. This 200 GSM organic cotton jersey from Montloup is what I went with. It is such a beautiful heavy jersey, it just added the extra step to my project of dyeing the fabric.

For fabric dye I decided to go with Jacquard Procion MX Fabric Dye. From everything I read online, this is a great colourfast and lightfast option. This was actually quite a stressful part of the prep work for this project. I was trying to mimic the inspiration dress I had saved, so I was mixing dye colours and then trying to over-dye when it didn’t turn out quite right. I was also trying to dye 6 yards of the jersey (3 for the lining and 3 for the main layer), which got heavy! I ended up with a green and a sort of dull mustard yellow, and decided to use the green as my main fabric and stray from my inspiration photo a little bit. The dull mustard yellow will be the lining of the dress.

For fabric paint I chose the Pebeo Setacolor Opaque fabric paints. I created a custom blend out of white, brown, olive green, and buttercup. I was really happy with this and the subtle look of it on the green fabric. I did a couple swatches with the paint and after a lot of frustration with spray bottles I had success with a simple craft sponge! This part of the project felt like the biggest hurdle to me. Once I got a swatch I liked with a method I could handle I felt so much better about everything. I could finally start what I knew would be my favourite part, the actual sewing!

I tried a couple different techniques on my dress swatch. I am pretty set on using couching as my embellishment method, so I tried out different threads, and using chain stitch on the smaller elements of the stencil. The Alabama Studio books recommend using 1/2” strips of jersey for the couching but I preferred the look of thinner 1/4” strips. I also decided to use DMC #829 cotton floss to stitch the couching strips down, using 3 out of the 6 strands of thread. I tested one seam on my swatch and then bound the entire thing the way that the neck hole and arm holes of the dress will be bound. For the binding I preferred the look of 1” binding strips, but otherwise I did the seams and the binding as the book instructs. I’m not sure if I will end up cutting out the middle of the leaves to expose the lining fabric, but I do like the look of it on the swatch so that’s an option!

I absolutely love this swatch. It has such a nice weight and handle to it and I am so excited to finally be getting started on this dress. As I write this I have already cut out all my dress pieces, painted the design on them, and basted the main fabric to the lining. I have just started on all the couching and it is exactly the time-consuming sewing project I was excited about. I will share more soon!

DIY Quilted Baby Playmat

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I sewed up this easy baby playmat over the last couple days and I want to tell you about how I made it. Such a practical project, I throw this mat down in whatever room I’m in and let baby kick around on in. You can make it as thick or thin as you like, and I even made one side of mine using a water resistant material so I can use it outside in the grass as well.

I wanted to make this project using things I already had around the house, and besides the thread it is completely made out of recycled materials! The raspberry printed flannel is actually cut from an old sheet, and the ‘batting’ is two layers of a throw blanket that I’ve owned for over a decade and I was about to get rid of. The green checkerboard side is pieced together using a rain coat I cut up. I bought the rain coat last year from the thrift store and when I wore it in the rain last week I quickly learned it was not very waterproof! I felt bad even donating it back to the thrift store because I didn’t want anyone else spending their money on it and getting tricked. So I cut it up into as many 3.5” squares as I could and pieced those squares into a big rectangle. This way I could use as much of the coat as possible, cutting squares from the sleeves, pockets, and hood. I even harvested the zipper to use in another project in the future. The way I was able to make the checkerboard design was by flipping half of the squares upside down. The backside of the fabric was slightly darker then the front side and I wanted to make use of that in the design.

The binding of this play mat is made from cotton jersey. I am working on an Alabama Chanin style dress and had some leftover jersey fabric after cutting out the pattern pieces. I cut 3.5” strips on the cross grain and pieced them together to make one long strip, which I attached the same way you would attach regular binding to a quilt. I love that it is a little softer than using quilting cotton. I cut such a wide strip because I wanted a nice thick border around the play mat, I think the green compliments both sides nicely.

As for quilting: I did attempt to quilt this in my sewing machine and it was such a failure! I wanted this mat to be nice and thick so there is no way I could get it through my machine, even using a walking foot. So instead I used the knotted method of quilting, which is to use thread to tie a knot through all of the layers of the quilt at regular intervals. You can see the tails of the knots on one side of the quilt so I chose to have them on the water resistant piecework side, in between each square of the checkerboard. I used a cotton Sashiko thread (affiliate link) to tie my knots. I think this method works so well for a play mat! The knots are a cute design feature, it works well on extra thick quilts, and it is so quick to do.

You can of course make this playmat any size you like! The size of mine was completely based on the blanket and fabric I had available to use. For reference mine measures 27” x 32”. I recommend cutting your top piece to the size you want your mat, and then if you can, cut your batting/blanket and your backing fabric a little bigger. Things will shift around a little bit as you tie the layers together, so it’s nice to have some extra room for that. Then, before binding, you can trim the batting and backing fabric down so that the edges all line up perfectly. Then add your desired binding! The knotting method of quilting makes this project so easy, and it’s such a great way to use up fabric you already have!