PR Hacks - Flutter Sleeves for Summer

It's officially Summer and for a lot of us that means things are busy, busy, busy.  Currently I'm trying to keep Desmond occupied while tracing patterns and baking an ungodly amount of Nutella Brownies. (Recipe here. Warning, they will haunt your dreams.)  With that in mind I decided to write a quick and simple hack this month.  Using the Sewaholic Renfrew pattern as a base, I'll be showing you how to draft two different types of flutter sleeves.

Type #1 is the Gathered flutter sleeve.  So named because you gather up the sleeve head to create the fluttery goodness of the sleeve.  These are set in the standard scoop neck Renfrew body so all you have to do is draft the sleeve and you're good to go. (I've paired the top with Colette Beignet in case you were wondering.)

Type #2 is a Half Circle Flutter sleeve. Here the fullness is added by slashing and spreading the short sleeve pattern. This increases only the hemline of the sleeve, leaving the cap set in normally.  In this version the V-neck Renfrew body was used and I drafted a facing for it in the same manner as here.  And because I like to entertain myself, the Lady Skater skirt was added create a dress.  I simply must complicate matters if at all possible. ;)

For all the drafting details pop on over to the PR blog. I can guarantee that you can draft one of these sleeves in no longer than a hour.  That way you've got plenty of time to still take the kids to the beach....or sit on the couch and eat your Nutella brownie. I think you all know which one I'll be doing. :)

PR Hacks - A Trapeze Dress Two Ways

Hey everyone, just a heads up that my monthly PR article is live.  For May Deepika and I wanted to create a simple to sew, simple to wear project.  We ending up turning the Grainline Studio's scout tee into a trapeze dress. But you know, I just can't keep things simple for myself.  It's both a curse and a blessing. ;)  Because of this I decided to do not one, but two variations on the hack.

Version 1 -  Rayon knit Jersey with V neck and cap sleeves.  I call this one the keeping cool while running errands outfit.

Version 2 - Rayon Challis with a higher neck and a bit of a racer back.  This one's the night out on the town outfit.

If you'd like to know more than pop on over to the PR blog. 

PR Hacks - Linda Top with Extra Ruching

Hey Guys,  I started February off with a bang of startitis and quickly found myself muslining 3 different projects. The sewing area looked like a tornado of tracing paper had hit and my brain had a similar feeling. I can juggle 2 projects pretty successfully, but 3 was a bridge too far. So either you'll see a ton of FO's at the end of the month or I'll be hiding in the other room with some knitting pretending the trace paper situation isn't insane.

In the meantime I do have a fun piece of business to share, this month's PR hack of the Linda Top.

It's Linda's birthday so Deepika and I decided to celebrate by giving her a new twist.  This version has a scoop neckline and ruching on the sleeve. The hacking skill level on this one is easy! It shouldn't take you more than an hour to adjust the pattern. So if you just want to dip your toes into some pattern manipulation than this one's for you.

As usual all the details are on the PR blog.  Hack on my friends.

Lay you down on a bed of roses

A couple weeks back I was surprised to find an email from the Lillestoff company in my mailbox. My first thought was, "Has someone stolen my identity and bought a lot of luxurious fabric that I will not get to pet? I demand petting privileges!"  But no, instead it was Lillestoff asking if I'd like to receive some of their recent fabric range and host a giveaway.  After falling off my chair, I had to wait 10 minutes before replying yes so that my email wasn't all capital letters and emojis, like some highly caffeinated teenager.

Lillestoff has been my "screw it I'm going to splurge" fabric of choice since about 2011. At first my purchases were small, only getting a yard at a time to make things for Desmond.  Eventually the "kid yardage" started to migrate into the "fabric for myself" pile and I now have my own Lillestoff PJ pants, bodysuits, and T-shirts. Hey moms should have nice things too....and I'm a greedy fabric hog.

Lillestoff was very generous and sent me a GIANT box of fabric.  Des and I might have opened it and then flung fabric around while manically laughing.  "We're high on cotton and we didn't even know it was possible!" Once we stopped sniffing the new fabric fumes, things calmed down a bit and I started to brainstorm what fabrics to sew up first.  Out of all the prints the "Black Rose" jersey was screaming my name the loudest so it got the thumbs up.  (Bright colored roses on black = Heather bait....if you're ever looking to trap me for your own personal baking slave.) Selecting a pattern took a little longer because I was looking for a knit dress that I hadn't blogged about a million times already. (Those would be all of Kitshycoo's patterns which are always my go to dresses.) The pattern winner turned out to be Vogue 1027, a dress I've made before but never blogged.

I attempted this pattern back in 2009 without making a muslin or consulting PR for reviews on the pattern.  What I ended up with was a nice dress that was almost 2 sizes too big.  At that point I pulled up a couple of PR reviews and discovered that everyone found their usual size to be too big.  Most reviewers went down at least one size, sometimes 2 to get the pattern to fit their measurements. Curses, you dirty graders or maybe block makers!!! A knit dress should have a bit of negative ease, not be inches too large.  Well at that time I didn't feel like trying to salvage the dress. Instead it got put away in one of those dirty secret UFO boxes....the ones way in the back of the closet. We all have those right? I always hope some sewing fairy will show up and magically take care of those garments.

Here in 2015 I've done a couple of me-made culls but still have that first version of Vogue 1027. The fabric print is really wonderful so I'm gonna cut it down "someday." (Confession - Someday probably means never.) I figured, why not just use that as muslin #1 and do all my normal fitting changes.  Sounds good, yes? Spoiler, I didn't wait for your feedback and tried the dress on. At my current weight the entire bodice needed to be sized down and a large amount of ease needed to be removed from the waist. I pinned out something in the 1 3/4 to 2" range....on each side. Yes that means I needed to take almost 4" out of the pattern.  There was also some gaping in the wrap bodice neckline that needed to be removed.  OK then, I knew what my problems were, it was time to fix them in the pattern.

I would have loved to simply trace a smaller size of the bodice, but in 2009 I'd made the smallest size in the 14-22 size nest. Never fear though because it easy to do a little DIY grading using the nested sizes. (I blogged about this technique here. To grade down you reverse the process.)  I graded down the width of the bodice, but left the length at the size 14 measurements.  This removed about an 1" of ease at the side seams and about 1/2" around the armholes. At this point I mocked up a new bodice and decided to remove an additional 1/2"(on the quarter) at the waistline. The skirt and belt pieces were adjusted to fit the new waist measurement, details in the review portion, and the length of the skirt was shortened two inches.

In my previous version I used a knit lining to finish the edges of the bodice. This worked well for the armholes, but I had problems with the lining rolling out along the neck edge.  This time I decided to use the provided facing for the armholes and draft one for the neckline.  I traced off the neckline area of the front and back bodice patterns to create the facing.  To reduce the gaping on the bodice I reduced the length of the front neckline facing about 1.25." When the facing was serged on, I stretched it to fit, making it pull towards the body a bit.   To finish all the edges, I covered stitched on the right side and then trimmed any excess facing fabric on the wrong side.

Pattern
Vogue 1027 - DKNY faux wrap dress (Might be OOP by now)

Fabrics used
Lillestoff cotton/spandex jersey in the "Black Rose" print.

Pattern changes/alterations
1. The size 14 bodice was graded down one size in width, but the length was left alone.

2. An additional 1/2" was removed at the waist area on the bodice.  Finished dress had 4" of ease removed from the waist area.

3. On the skirt I removed 1" from the side seams and reduced the length by 2".

4. The two belt pieces were reduced by 1" so that they would match the new waist circumference.

5. The front belt edges were serged together to eliminate the white back from showing through.

6. The pockets were omitted because there was not enough yardage.  (Confession - I wouldn't use knit pockets either)

Confessions/Advice
- That waist seam has a lot of layers thanks to the sewn in belt.  On my version I basted each layer with a large zig zag stitch to keep all 4 layers aligned. Then the seam was finished with the overlocker and the basting removed.

- Since Lillestoff cotton is less drapy than rayon, the facing trick did get rid of most of the gaping. If I were to do it again in rayon, I'd reduce the length of the bodice fronts as well.

- I'm not completely sold on the sewn on belt.  At some angles it looks good, in others it looks bulky.

Husband Comment

"It has sharp angles, which I like. That rope thing coming off the waist is like a karate uniform. Cool." (I "think" sharp angles means wrap bodice, but I didn't seek clarification from the source.)

My Final Thoughts
After all the pattern edits were done, sewing up this dress was easy peasy. None of the construction steps are difficult and Lillestoff cotton doesn't fight you as it goes through the serger.  Instead it wants to be sewn, and worn, and fondled....um maybe I should stop there. *Goes and sniffs fabric in a corner.*

This was a bit more fitting work than I'd usually want to put into a knit pattern, but for some reason that didn't bother me too much this time. It helped that I'd purchased the pattern so long ago that it just felt like being thrifty at this point. Now that I have a version that actually fits, I'm very pleased with the pattern. The style lines are classy and work well with my body type. I also think it pairs every elegantly with the black rose pattern making me look dressed up when really I'm thinking, "Ahhhh secret pajamas."

The Lillestoff fabric giveaway will be next post, hopefully later in the week.  I need to take photos and do a video for Mrs. Crafting a Rainbow. As long as tomorrow goes according to plan then everything should be on schedule.  *Famous Last Words*

My arch nemesis the bathing suit

Guys...guys... I have to talk about my troubled relationship bathing suits today and it might result in some binge chocolate eating.  But we're gonna get through this because it's helpful confess when projects don't go smoothly.  Or maybe I just need some absolution over the dumb shit I did while trying to appropriately cover my body for our trip to the coast.

OK, so let's unpack some childhood trauma to give you some context first.  I did not have a lithe, toned teenager phase. The body I have now is the body I had then minus some additional abdominal padding and a bunch of blown out veins in my legs. (Thanks pregnancy!) Had I been born in the Renaissance my pear shape with saggy bewbs would have made me tres sexy. Just add a gauzy robe plus hair flowers and the studs come a running. Not sure about that wind guy though, he looks a little sketchy.

Of course our current beauty standards are pretty much the exact opposite of this and teenage me was painfully aware of how short I fell from them. We women tend to beat ourselves up anyway, but I also had the additional "help" of series of asshats who regularly told me that I was fat and ugly. So to say I had low self esteem as a teenager might be putting it mildly.  

What does a teenager with body issues really not want to do?  Strip down to a clingy piece of swimwear and stand around with a bunch of strangers in a public place. Guess what my father's favorite activity is? Ten points if you guessed going to the beach. So I spent a fair amount of my teenage age summer's awkwardly sitting on the beach hoping the Dude Bros would just ignore me instead of giving me derisive looks. Or even worse bark...as in "That's one's a dog bro!" (This did happen more than once.) In short, the beach was akin to a low level circle of hell for me. The moment I moved out of my parents house and realized I never had to go to the beach again it was like winning the mother clucking jackpot!

But wait, what's this Heather? You appear to have gone back to the beach despite that fact that you hear the "Psycho" RRRRKKK, RRRRKKK, RRRRKKK noise while looking at this picture. Well people, I did it for the kid and for the grandparents.  My father now lives down at Ocean City MD, when he isn't living somewhere in the Philippines.  Every summer he starts calling/emailing, "When are you coming to the beach? When are you coming to the beach?" for....the....entire.....summer. We did go once before when Des was almost 1 years old. I remember two things about that trip, A: I bought a black one piece with ruching knowing no one was going to pay attention to me with an adorable baby in my arms. (100% true, adorable babies always pull focus.) B: Desmond ate sand and by a stroke of luck I got this picture. It still makes me laugh really hard. 

The next couple summers I declined visiting because.....well I hate the beach. This year Desmond started asking me when were we going to the beach about the same time my father did. You dirty rats, I smell a conspiracy!!! Being double teamed by the two of them I sucked it up and agreed to come for a visit this year. Now what the heck was I going to wear? The previously mentioned black bathing suit had been donated with my other plus sized clothing last year. I could either endure the hellscape that is trying on bathing suits in grimly lit dressing rooms or try something new and sew my own. Since we're talking about bathing suits you probably figured out that I decided to make my own. This is when I started making mistakes.

Mistake number #1 - Procrastinated away time needed for the project.
Despite being in a much better place about my body, I'm still not that keen on swimsuits.  With other garments I can camouflage areas that are not my favorite and end up feeling good about what I'm wearing. With swimwear that's just not going to happen. I knew that looking at myself in a swimsuit would be depressing and put it off as long as possible. Then I was on a sewing deadline and had to skip some important steps.

Mistake number #2 - Not muslining.
Due to the previous mistake I was in a time crunch and did not muslin anything but the bra portion of the Nautilus swimsuit.  I should know better! It was silly to think that swimsuits wouldn't need any fitting adjustments when everything else I make does.  Also my brain really could have used a trial run on how a suit goes together since it was my first try at this sort of sewing. It would have saved a lot of grumpy seam ripping later.

Mistake number #3 - Not knowing what I really wanted in a swimsuit. 
OK I "thought" I knew what I wanted, a one piece with minimal bust support. This was based on that black bathingsuit from the previous beach trip. However when wearing the suits on the beach I found that my girls were in desperate need of more support. So much so that I felt uncomfortable.  If you are the sort of person who doesn't understand why people hate underwire, then Do Not assume a swim cup is enough support. My heavy as shit breast tissue was like, "Haa haa floating foam, how amusing, let's flop around now. Who can reach her belly button first?!"  I also also wrong about wanting a one piece. I have a tiny bladder so having to completely undress myself for every bathroom break was super annoying.  I also felt a little dumpy/matronly in a one piece because it just exacerbated my pear shape. If I'd muslined and tried on the patterns ahead of time, then the problems mentioned above would have been apparent then.  Both of these patterns have two piece options and links in their sew-a-longs about how to add more supportive cups. It would have been possible to adjust both of them to some sort of bra top with a high waisted bikini bottom had I not made all the mistakes above.

OK, now we're done with my extremely long intro about personal human frailty and we can get into the patterns themselves.  I even put up unflattering photos! I'm a little small in them, but considering it was my husband's first spin with the Canon camera he did a good job. At least that's what I'm telling myself to avoid taking more pictures of these on my back porch.

Bombshell from Closet Case Files
I chose to sew view A with the small alteration of crossing the straps at the back instead of doing a halter. My heavy breast tissue and halters don't mix unless I'm really in the mood for some neck pain. Let's face it, no one's ever in the mood for that.  My fabric choice was a red nylon spandex tricot from The Fabric Fairy. I took a gamble buying this bright red color without swatching it and lost.  It was not the bright red tone I like, more of an orange red and therefore slightly irks me everytime I look at it.  Yet another reason to leave plenty of time for projects don't you think? (A comedy of errors I tell you!) This superficial problem aside, was good quality and was pretty easy to work with.  I used the more matte side as my right side for the suit. 

Despite following along with the sew-a-long blog posts I managed to do just about everything wrong on this suit the first time.  Probably because I'm a complete asshole about reading directions and sometimes my brain is like, "Nope, not learning new stuff. I'm sleeping now. Zzzzzzz."  It would be fair to say that I did not gracefully climb the learning curve of sewing swimsuits. Instead my deadline drug me kicking and screaming up the hill. You can teach me new tricks, but it's going to involve a lot of seam ripping and feeling like idiot. Most of the mistakes were fixable with the ripper, but I did end up putting my lining in backward and only realizing it until most of the elastic was in.  I wasn't crazy enough to rip that out on a deadline.
My suit is a combo 10/12 size which was almost perfect out of the envelope.  The suit could use the torso shortened about 3/8", but the ruching does help to hide this.  At the center front the ruching line had to be extended further down into the suit body several inches so that it matched up to where my bewbs actually were.  I made the bust tab longer to accommodate the new position and the increased volume of gathers. This was done on the fly so I'd guesstimate that it was about 1/2" longer.

I really liked the ruching and the leg/butt coverage on this suit. In fact the whole bottom half gets a perfect score in my book.  The upper half didn't work for me because I hadn't put in the kind of bust support I need. As I when on and on about earlier, swim cups did little and the addition of elastic under them did not help, My breast tissue just make the elastic buckle away from my body so that it offered zero support. It's possible that stretching the elastic would have helped, but I thinking nothing short of underwires is really going to do the job.

Nautilus from Seamstress Erin
I went with view A on this one as well, with straps that connect to the back band. The starfish print fabric is also from The Fabric Fairy and I'm going to have to gush about it for a minute.  This is one of those fabrics where you touch it and think "Ooooo yeah, that's some nice quality here." It's just a tad thicker than the solid red fabric used for the bombshell.  The face is matte and the colors are clear and bright. It's still in stock and I might have to snag a bit more.

Since I'd muslined the top part and gotten a little experience sewing the bombshell, the Nautilus went together a lot quicker. My suit is a 10 with a C/D cup.  Based on the measurement chart I muslined the DD cups but they were too big on the bottom.  The C/D's fit perfect even though I were a DD bra, so that's one area where it was good that I'd bothered to muslin. With the bra like straps and a underbust seam Nautilus has a bit more bewb support built in.  I still need more since my girls are pushing down into the seam and puckering up into the little keyhole window under the twist.  The Nautilus top seems like a design that would lend itself to being converted to more of a standard bra. I "think" it would be easy overlay the twist over a bra base.....if I knew how to sew a bra base. Guess that's a goal that should be added to the sewing list.

I should have muslined the bottom half as well because there were a few minor fitting problems that would have been easy to fix. The torso length needs to be shortened on this pattern. You can see it wrinkling up where the body joins to the bra portion. I also wasn't happy with the amount of butt coverage. In these pictures the it looks fine, but while wearing the suit the bottoms felt a tad too small.  It didn't help that the elastic on the back of the leg was a little loose, adding to the feeling that my butt was not covered. The elastic on the top edge of the back also needs to be shortened up to really lay flat on my body.  Erin gives you suggested elastic lengths per size in those areas, but I should have known that some fine tuning to the fit might be needed.  Good news is that sort of thing can be fixed if I feel like getting out the seam ripper and re-attaching the elastic with a shorter length.

On this suit I like the top a lot more than the bottom.  It's not bad from the back but from the front I don't like the look of the one piece on my body.  Again, musling would have solved this whole problem and I could have easily modified one of the bikini bottoms to cover my belly.  

Shewwww! That was a big info dump so how about a summary?

- I hate swimsuits. Duh. However sewing one seemed like a better idea then unsuccessfully searching for a decent RTW one.

- For the most part sewing one was better, even if it was a very aggravating process of learning new skills. I can confirm that it gets easier after the first suit.

- I made some stupid mistakes from the get go that caused me not to be 100% happy with my finished suits.

- My personal opinion is that both of these swimsuit patterns are nicely drafted and have helpful sew-a-long blog posts.  If we could pull out a time turner I'd still use these patterns, just chose different views than the one's shown here.

- Some of this shit is all in my head because my husband was thrilled with both suits and had nothing but good things to say about them.

- And finally if you can get yourself a 4 year old to take to the beach I'd recommend it. First you're too busy making sure they don't drown to worry about your appearance. Secondly their pure happiness at being at the beach rubs is contagious and soon you find yourself laughing and holding hands while slapping waves. Take that wave, SMASH!!!!

Retroish Nettie Dress

Ponte dresses, they've been around for awhile right?  I have to say they've never struck my fancy until this year. Maybe the Ponte Fairy visited me in the middle of the night and smacked me up the side of the head with her double knit wand. Heee heee hee that tickles!

What also helped my ponte conversion was stumbling across a few lovely retro inspired styles on the net.  The Joan dress by Outerlimitz and the Joanie dress by pinupgirl clothing to point out a few. Oh if only we could all be Joan for a couple of days. I'd give my eye teeth to always have a witty bon mot ready to put people back in their places. Alas this is not my lot, instead I'll be over in the corner giggling about some weird crap I just made up in my head. Frog tutus, Bam!

Anyway, let's just talk about the dress, shall we?  I really liked the pleat detail on the Outerlimitz dress and decided to drop that into a Nettie dress with a few style mods.  To make the dress a little more retro looking I gave it a boat neck and lengthen the skirt 5".

Full disclosure here, the dress came out little shorter and tighter than I'd envisioned. I'm also wearing a Rago girdle in these pics to suck everything in a bit.  This ponte is 100% polyester and had a much firmer recovery than the rayon based pontes I've worked with in the past.  Does anyone find judging knit ease needed more tricky in pontes than say regular jerseys? Is it just me?

View of the side pleats.  Looking at the pictures of the Outerlimitz dress makes me think that they might have sewn down the pleats a few inches. Something similar to a shoulder tuck cluster.

Skirt vent on the back annnnd me being reminded how big my back end is. Better pop on over to youtube to watch "Baby got back" a couple of times.   P.S. - Crazy windy on picture day so enjoy some weird hair.

I need to size this dress up a bit to be comfortable wearing it, but that doesn't mean I can't give you some hacking instructions in the meantime. Oh yeah, hacky, hack, hack.

Hacking Instructions
1 - For the front trace the skirt portion of Nettie and mirror it so that you have the whole front. Add seam allowance to the waist since it will now have a seam. If you want to lengthen the skirt do it at this time.  I've added 5" of length here. When all your changes are done, cut out the pattern piece.

2. Chose which side of the skirt will have the pleats. Measure down 2.5 inches from the waist and mark the location of the first pleat.

3. Mark 3 more pleat locations 2" apart from each other.

4. Using the pleat location marks, draw 4 lines across the whole pattern.  Keep the lines parallel to each other, but they do not need to be completely horizontal across the pattern.

5. Cut the lines from one side seam almost all the way to the other. Leave a small paper hinge.

6. Place paper behind the cuts and open up the slashes to the width you want your pleat. On this dress I've spread them apart 1".  Tape down the pleats at your chosen depth.

7. Cut off all the excess paper to complete the front skirt pattern.

8. For the back trace the pattern on the half. Add seam allowance to the CB and draw in a vent intake.  I made mine 5" high and 1.5" wide.

9. I used the same technique for converting the neckline to a boat neck as outline in this renfrew tutorial.  The shoulder seam doesn't need to be narrowed on Nettie. Place the french curve on the edge of the existing shoulder seam and redraw the neckline higher.  Here's a quick look at my back bodice.

10. On the front add two pleats in the same manner as you did on the skirt.  The lower pleat is 2.5" from the waist and the second is 2" away from the first pleat.

Sewing Notes
1. When sewing the dress, fold the pleats up towards the waist. Secure them with some basting before sewing the side seam. Once the side seam has been sewn the basting can be removed.

2. The neckline is finished in the same manner as the previously mentioned boatneck tutorial.

3. The back vent is top-stitched just like you would on a woven garment.

Sorta Fall Sewing with Nettie

Back in June I mentioned that Nettie was going to become a wardrobe staple. Boy did it ever! If I was the sort of person that took stats of daily wear and created a pie chart, then it might look something like this.*

* All data has been made up. Also goal for next summer - more lobsters.

I probably wear a Nettie about 4 times a week, which is why they got added to the Fall Essentials Sewing plan. Yeah baby, I'm gonna milk this cow until she runs dry. Or until I'm freezing and nothing but wrapping myself in yards of wool will do. Wool mummy, grrrr!

Despite the rampant germ sharing in the house, and I was able to bang out a Fall-ish version out of some stashed soy/cotton jersey. Here it is paired with an Odette skirt and a snazzy peach brooch from Luxulite.

If you want more info about the skirt, click on through to the Bluegingerdoll blog where I talk about waistband options.  Over here it's all about the Nettie.  Now I call this version Fall-ish because I went for the medium scoop back. Not exactly cold weather wear, but my husband was thrilled.

I like this view a lot too, it's sexy without being overly so.  No one is going to point and gasp, "My Stars!" at your exposed scapula.  At least they won't until I made it "a thing."

Just like in my Nettie/Flora dress combo I didn't make any changes to the body of the Nettie pattern. Thanks to the lower back scoop a width adjustment isn't necessary.  I did add a 1/2" extra width through the entire sleeve by splitting it down the center and adding there.  The width change is small enough that the sleeve sets in the armhole without any trouble.

I do have some trouble with the shoulder area of the top wanting to slip off  my shoulders. This isn't present in my dress version, so it surprised me a bit.  Guessing that the weight of the skirt pulling down keeps the shoulder area in place on the dress.  This soy/cotton jersey is also a bit softer, making it sag more than the polyester jersey of the "Nora dress." That's OK. I make sure to wear a nude bra and adjust the shoulders from time to time. Maybe I'll go back in and add some bra keepers if the mood strikes me.  Odds are that I'll be covering up the shoulder area with a cardigan soon enough anyway. Till then hijinks at the local law offices....hmmm that sounds like a fun Nancy Drew story.

A Pair of Bonnies

If you've been sewing long enough I'm sure you've had the experience of thinking, "I'd really like a pattern for x garment" and then magically someone releases that very thing.  It's an Indiana Jones moment where it feels like a shaft of light might has fallen upon the pattern while heavenly voices sing. The holy grail!  Anyway I had one of those moments when Abby sent me the Bonnie pattern to test. Cropped sweater YEEEESSS!

Wait did you say sweater Heather?  Yes you heard right, Bonnie is the first knit pattern from Bluegingerdoll. I had no idea what Abby had up her "puffed" sleeves when she told me that the next pattern was going to be for knits. When the technical sketches arrived and I saw it was a mix and match sweater pattern, my little heart sang with joy.  Nothing like a quick knit project to make one feel productive. Because of that I might have whipped up more than one.

*Both of my Bonnies are the cropped length body, crew neckline and the full length sleeves.  I used a size 10/12 combo with a 1/2" forward shoulder adjustment. The crew neckline was lowered an 1" in the front, because anything higher makes feel feel a bit choked. Due to the neckline adjustment I added 1/2" more length to each end of the neckband for a total of 1"

.

Version 1 - Sewn in rayon ponte with stashed medium weight rayon ribbing. 

After doing my test muslin in T-shirt weight fabric, I wanted to try a more "sweatery" fabric.  Trying the pattern out in ponte seemed fun, especially after finding this wild rose pattern on Etsy.  Bonus - if using a contrast fabric/ribbing for the bands, then you can get a 10/12 combo out of one 60" wide yard. I'm happy with the ponte version other than a touch more fabric could be taken out of the back. 

Bonnie is paired with some Colette Clovers here. They aren't the best choice for the cropped length since the waistline on the pants is too low when actually moving around.  Some "at waist" cigarette pants would work, such as the Butterick 5895.  I also think the cropped length top would look sharp with some forties area full leg pants, such as Decades of Style Empire Waist Trousers.

Version 2 - Sewn in T-shirt weight organic cotton/spandex jersey with self bands.

Here the pattern is sewn in a plain jersey which let's you see the puffed sleeve detail.  I've used the self fabric for the bands on this version. Bonnie comes with different band lengths for ribbing and self fabrics so that you get a good fit with either. Nice not having to do that ribbing calculation in my head.

I've paired Bonnie with my latest version of the Betsy pencil skirt. (The yellow/white polka dot fabric is still available at Gorgeous Fabrics if you're interested) My growing collection of pencil skirts is one of the reasons I've had cropped sweaters on the brain. The length is perfect to show off a brightly patterned skirt.

Right now Bonnie is only available as a PDF, but a print version will be arriving later in the month and can be pre-ordered now. You can pick up the pattern at 10% off the pattern with the code BONNIE through 10-13-2014. Meanwhile I'll be whipping up a bunch of these since it's finally cold in Pa. Hot pink is up next!