MSL Creations: Cardigan to jump start the Fall

Cardigan season, here we come! As I may have mentioned before I joined the Capsule Wardrobe Sew Along group on Facebook in the Summer. Or maybe I haven't mentioned that yet- I think its on the next post I'm working on. Anyway as part of that group Becca from Freenotion organized a Fall Pattern Showcase. Loving deadlines, I decided to sign up. Not sure signing up 2 days after school started was the best plan. Still I did get some great sewing time after the kids were either loaded up on the bus or I waved to them as they rode their bikes to school. I actually met the deadline!

Let start with the fabric, I'm working with this lovely hacci that I got off another Fixer on the Facebook Knitfix group. Not sure what month it was from and it has these gold and black threads running through. Not too much sparkle, just right for me. It still will be a great neutral. It also has this great fringe running out of the selvage. Fringe is one of the trends for the fall, or so I hear from Get Your Pretty On.

I found this pattern in the 5/2012 issue of Ottobre Women. The gray one is pictured in the magazine (below from their blog). Ottobre Blog My fabric is thinner but I thought the square front would be great. I did have to shorten mine, only had 2 yards of fabric to work with. Plus with the thinner fabric I think shorter is better on me. And bonus for me- I had already traced this pattern out, shortened and everything! I had planned to use this pattern last fall to try to make one of those Bobeau wraps that were all over the place. I never got around to it. Maybe this year.

So back to my project, turns out 2 yards was still a little short- I wanted full length sleeves and came up 3 inches short. So I added a cuff.

After that everything seemed to come together easily and quickly. The only "tricky" part is the shoulder/neck seam. Since the neck is supposed to fold down over the outside you have to stitch right sides together from the end of the shoulder to the top of the neck.

Quick!

Looked great until I tried it on. Eeeeeck! The whole thing was falling off. Between the stretch of the fabric and the width of the back it was just not working for me. I ended up having to make a back center seam and took out about 4-5 inches.

I then decided I didn't care for the folding over since my fabric was different on the inside. I put clear elastic on the neck seams for both shoulders and then down a little farther on the center back seam. Love how that turned out.

And now it fits great! I love it. I'm sure I'll get a lot of use out if it this fall. As excited as I was to sew up this cardigan, I was not so keen on wearing outside in the 80 degree, 90% humidity! For now I'll leave this inside picture and work on some better shots today.