Sewing + Knitting: 2014 Outfit Along

When Lauren and Andi announced the 2014 outfit along, I was so in. I loved the Myrna pattern, so I downloaded it that day. I got online promptly and ordered some yarn (there’s no yarn shops in my town). I was just sure that it was going to take me the entire time to make the sweater and only a few hours to make whatever dress I ended up deciding to make. Well, the sweater was done nearly a month ago, but I only finished the dress last week.

There’s plenty I love about the sweater. The short sleeves and v-neckline are perfect for summer layering. The keyhole detail on the back was fun to knit. The peppy magenta yarn is the perfect shade of pink to match all kinds of things already in my wardrobe. If there’s one thing I don’t like about this sweater, it’s the yarn I used. I went with Cascade superwash, and while it’s soft and all, it seems to tend toward sagginess. Overall the effect it gives the sweater is that it is too big. It might actually be too big, but I can’t tell because of the saggy yarn. When I make another, I think I’ll either size down if I use superwash yarn, or more likely, I’ll use some other type of yarn where the fibers will grab onto each other for better support and less sag (and maybe still go down a size).

The last best thing about this particular sweater, is the buttons. I found them on Etsy, marked vintage. They probably are vintage, though they didn’t come on a card. There were, I think, 11 buttons in total, so I have some left for another sweater. I couldn’t have matched the color better if I’d been able to see them in person. Also, this picture is a much better representation of the color of my sweater than those ones above that were taken under way, way too much daylight.

Overall, it was a quick, easy summer sweater. The pattern, of course, was well-written and easy to follow. It is an Andi Satterlund pattern, after all.

Moving on to the dress. The official OAL had an official sewing pattern for a sew-along, but also gave the option to choose any other dress to sew. I didn’t have the pattern that Lauren was using for the sew-along, so I opted to make up a dress I’ve been wanting to make up for myself since long before I made my previous version of it for someone else. (and just to clarify, so there aren’t any misunderstanding’s when I made the other version it was strictly a favor for a friend. She bought the fabric, I provided the labor, no money was exchanged. I’m not filling my own coffers off the hard work that indie [or any other designers] are putting into making up their patterns). Soapbox aside, I’ve been wanting to make myself a Cambie for quite some time, but kept getting distracted by other new, shiny patterns. Also, I figured I would need an FBA and hadn’t been in the mood to mess around with it. I gave it the FBA, but then the darts seemed too far apart. I overcompensated when I tried to fix it, so my darts in my finished dress are a little too close together, but they stayed pointed at an angle toward the apex (which means that yes, they are angled like they shouldn’t be with what is essentially a plaid made of florals). Since they seemed to be aimed in the right general direction, I quit messing with them. I moved on to careful print placement. Just look at those big red roses. The odds of them landing in exactly the wrong place were astronomical. Just another 2 or 3 inches lower….

What is there to say about a Cambie dress that hasn’t already been said by the 100’s of people who have made one before me? I raised the front neckline a little, I made the skirt a couple of inches longer. It maybe would have looked more “well-designed” if I’d used a contrast fabric for the waistband instead of the rosebud portion of the main fabric. I don’t hate the flowers, but there might be more of a “homemade” vibe going on here than I had planned. There’s no print matching happening. I tried to keep the fabric pattern at least lined up enough that the pink flowers could wind their way around the dress without any major breaks in the pattern.

I put the pockets in the skirt, just like the pattern has them. How do I not have any pocket pictures?

This lovely fabric has been sitting in my stash for something like a year waiting for me to get over how the giant geometric design was intimidating me. I still have quite a bit of fabric left. Would this print be overwhelmingly large on Guinevere? I’m thinking it could be a really cute circle skirt if I paired it with a crisp white blouse (and maybe a pink sweater) for her.

Stash-busting stats: 36/50. 76 1/2 yards.