"Haste Makes Waste"

I reworked the jersey dress I complained about in the previous post.

The reason for that bubble at the back was that I soaked the cloth before sewing and hang it to dry. The sides of the fabric stretched and I cut it as it was. What a fool I was! This kind of things happens when I want to finish a garment quickly, usually in one day. I sew mostly on weekends and sometimes delaying half-ready garment for another week just burns my hands. 'Haste makes waste' as they say.
So I had to spend extra time unripping the back, removing the zipper and steam ironing the back to return it to a normal size. It's amazing how ironing could make miracles to sewing!
I didn't put the zipper back because I can easily get into the dress without it. But I added lining made from thin rayon knit and now I am more or less content with the result.
The dress is very comfortable and I wore it several times already.

I've been thinking about making a little black dress next but spontaneously bought another knitted fabric and have already started a wrap dress. It is a variation of Diane von Furstenberg wrap dress.
HeathersSphere from SEWspicious Minds recently published a nice collection of patterns for wrap dresses. I don't have access to all these patterns so I turned to my collection of Burda Moden magazines. I am going to use the pattern #115 from 5/2006.

This is a fabric I am going to use for this dress. My camera can't capture the real colour, in reality it is darker and has more khaki hue.

I decided not to rush with this dress but make everything slowly and very accurately.

***

Some new finished knitting projects. A new hat and scarf for my son since it was rather cold here. I used free patterns from Junghans-Wolle web site. I like their patterns, they are so clear and precise, it is always a pleasure to use them and they turn out well.

 

 See you later!

A Swarm of Spiders Cardigan and Where's my mojo?

My blog was rather quiet for a while. As many others I ran astray due to holiday's season but the real reason is that I was discouraged by failure of my last sewing project. However during this time I completed two knitting projects and here is the first one.
The pattern is from the Italian knitting magazine Mani di Fata (April 2007).

On the sewing side I've completed a new jersey dress using a pattern from November 2011 issue of Diana Moden magazine.

Here's my dress

The pattern is not difficult at all BUT I made a mistake and here's how the back looks like. It has a bubble on the back and the top end of the zip perks out.

I need to unstitch the back and change everything now. It sits this way since end of November and I don't start any other projects because I know that if I'll start a new one I'll never come back to fix this one. I wore it once though and found out that it needs lining as well. I have already  bought a knitted lining fabric but again, lining doesn't come easy to me. Yet another reason to hesitate and postpone.
Ending on the positive note, I am ready to fix this setback at last because I want to move to some other  projects already.

Hope to come back soon with the amended dress and the second knitting project.

Knitted Top (Diana Moden)

 
Knitted top from Diana Moden magazine 4/2011-13.

I don't use original Diana patterns much but this one was could change my opinion. It is simple, didn't need any alterations and fits nicely.
I would love to write that I was going to sew the long sleeves top from the beginning but this would be untruth. This beautiful knit border fabric was expected to become this Burda pattern. I did make this dress later using another fabric, will post about it in a different post.

But I couldn't fit the pattern into the piece of fabric that I had and to coordinate it with the border print.
So I cut the dress from the La Mia Boutique magazine 03/2011-12 (ШиК 8/2011).

Even though I added 1,5 cm on each side seam which in total makes 6 cm the dress was tight in hip area and fit badly (even with my bottom measurements being smaller than LMB measurement scale). With my previous exciting experience with LMB knit dress I was quiet relaxed when started with this pattern. The pattern was not only very tight but has a very peculiar sleeves as well. So I left with a cut piece of the lovely fabric. I trasformed it to the top from Diana magazine and it worked like miracle. Not only the top fits well but the sewing was relaxing and fast, actual stitching took not more than two or three hours. I didn't have enough fabric left for long sleeves and had to add cuffs. They are still a bit short but I can live with it.
I love this fabric in top pattern even more than when it was a dress and as a bonus it coordinate well with my long knitted vest that I showed here.