from the drafts: Chenille sweater

About a year ago, I made the Kommatia Patterns Chenille sweater as a "cheer up" project after too many planned projects in a row turned out unsuccessfully. And I really liked it! But I never posted it. When I realised I wasn't going to have a new garment completed in time for today's post, my first thought was this sweater, already photographed and waiting in my drafts. Then I came back and looked at the photos, and remembered why I'd never posted it. So this morning I hastily took a new set of pictures and completely rewrote the post. So much for saving time!

The pattern is a fairly simple loose-fitting sweater with an exaggerated batwing. It's confusingly uncommon for pattern designers to produce knit tops with any kind of aesthetic, and I was really drawn to this one despite it being way outside of my usual style and silhouette. Every so often I get this idea in my head that I could be cool, or at least do a decent impression of a cool person,

The fabric is from Walthamstow (sigh, I miss Walthamstow so much, I really hope all the traders are okay) and it's the perfect thing for this top. It's a light, soft, very loose-weave sweater knit with metallic gold thread running through it. If you'd asked me to design my ideal fabric for a loose jumper this is what I'd have come up with. It was also £1 per metre, somehow.

As you can see, it is VERY batwing. I don't dislike this in any way, but it is VERY batwing. I'm glad I went for a very soft and drapey fabric because this would look bizarre in a more structured jersey. It's also super cropped, higher in the front than the back, and finished with bands at the neck, sleeves and waist. I made an XL, as I always do in Kommatia patterns.

Construction was mostly incredibly simple, and I would say the only difficult bit is getting the huge amount of fabric in the sleeves to fit into the very small amount of fabric in the cuffs. It's worth the effort, though - I really love the look and the drape of these sleeves.

I haven't really worn this since I made it, which annoys me. I don't want to get stuck in a rut silhouette-wise, and when I just stand with my arms down like this I think it looks super cute and taps into a vibe I don't ordinarily get to experience. On the other hand, I really don't know how to wear this as an outfit. As soon as I have any volume on the bottom it looks ridiculous, and there are many angles I could stand at which also make it look ridiculous. I tried photographing it with a bunch of different outfits last year and none of them looked right. I'm trying again today with my Jalie Clara leggings (which I'm actually wearing as loungewear at the moment, to my immense surprise), and I think it looks cute riiiight up to the point where I have to lift my arms.

That's a lot of midriff. If I were to go outside in this (which I wouldn't, I don't think, because leggings aren't trousers to me) I would need a tucked-in top underneath, and it's just way more thought and planning than I want to put into this level of casual outfit. Now that I am wearing leggings at home, though, this will get a decent amount of wear inside and I may also start wearing it over my gym gear when we're allowed back to the gym again.

I keep thinking about making another one, because I really do love this design, but I know it's not realistic or useful to do so. Grrr.

I'm having a pretty rubbish week (general situation and anxiety combined with period and getting scammed has not done me well) and I'm not really getting much done. I've started the jacket but it's coming on very slowly, motivation is scarce and I mostly just want to eat cookies and snuggle into my sofa groove. We'll see how this weekend goes and whether getting a bit of vitamin D does anything to help. Fingers crossed! 

spring sewing: DR305 batwing dress

Two posts in a week! I very rarely do this anymore, but while everyone's stuck indoors I thought it might be worthwhile. I need things to occupy myself with and other people need non-terrifying things to read. I'm trying to see how far through my stash I can get over the next few weeks, and if that goes well I should have a decent amount of stuff to share with you. Especially since, as it turns out, overlockers are really fast. 

The other week I had had a very productive sewing day, in which I had finished two tops and made three pairs of leggings, and was sitting on the sofa after dinner while my boyfriend was in the bath, idly planning what I needed to do tomorrow. I opened up the instructions for the Kommatia Patterns DR305 (already cut out and waiting), saw there were literally four bullet points, and thought "I might as well just do that now."

Twenty minutes later, my boyfriend got out of the bath to find me holding a finished dress.

LOOK. I used the stupid sweater knit!

I was one hundred per cent convinced I was going to hate this dress. I thought the style would be unflattering, that the print would look stupid, that I would deposit it immediately into the bin having seen how I looked in it. And... I do not hate it. I don't love it either; I can't imagine where I would wear this and it's not really my style. Also I seriously messed up the neckband. But I will wear this at home and be happy to answer the door in it. I think there's something oddly charming about it.

Pattern placement was a tricky one. My body is simply not wide enough to fit both large centrepiece poppies on (few bodies would be), so I tried different things on the front and back. On the back I centred what I think is the "main" flower with the stamens, but I didn't want to do that on the front in case it a) did weird stretchy things across the boobs and b) looked like I was just a fan of this particular poppy and had gone and bought its merch. I set it off-centre instead, which was a better idea but I think could have done with being shifted slightly. It doesn't bother me hugely though. 

This is not how the dress is supposed to fit. I cut an XL in the top half and invented some new sizes below the waist. I absolutely made the hips bigger than they should be proportionally to the top half, but this way I will actually wear it. It's also one of those dresses that uses the same pattern piece for the front and back, so I slashed into it to give me about an inch of extra room at the bust. I also added two inches to the length and I was very grateful for it.

I was encouraged enough by the result (and the speed!) to cut into something I've been holding onto for quite a while.

This is a super-soft piece of sweater knit I got in the Abakhan by-the-kilo bin ages ago, and I could never quite work out what to do with it. I didn't want to give it a waist seam and cut into the print, I didn't think it would work as a form-fitting dress, and I rarely if ever wear loose-fitting clothes. When I realised that this dress pattern would let a print sit fairly undisrupted, I decided to forge ahead and get the fabric into my wardrobe.

This isn't exactly what I wanted it to be. Mostly because the fabric, which I thought would be pretty well-behaved, became a horrible clingy nightmare when I put it on. This dress is the same length as the previous one, but because it's so clingy it looks several inches shorter. I don't have a picture of the back because there was an unfortunate hungry-bum issue in the photos I took and I decided to spare you that particular sight. 

I do think the style of dress works well for the fabric, and I'd really like it if it wasn't for the clingy/extra short thing. I'm almost tempted to try wearing it with leggings, which is a thing I never ever do but after sitting on this fabric for so long I'd hate for it to go to waste. I'll give it a try over the next couple of weeks, while nobody can see me (other than Patrick, who has seen me in far worse states than this) and see if it's comfortable. If it is, I'll have a go at wearing it outside once that's a thing I'm allowed to do again. 

I'm reserving judgement on whether I'll make this again. I think the style is nice and it's an excellent super-fast project, but if I don't wear either of these out of the house then I'm unlikely to decide to make a third. I hope I do; it's great to be able to make an entire dress with 1.5m of fabric and I think I'd be more likely to treat myself to nicer fabric if I didn't have to budget for so much of it. I'll report back in a few months' time!

Up next will most likely be my Gemma sweatshirts, and I'll try to keep up a twice-a-week posting schedule until I'm out of quarantine. I'm asthmatic, so it might be longer for me than for others, but I'm really not sure yet. 

I also want to say (mainly to my fellow GAD sufferers, but also to anyone) that this is an absolutely rubbish time for those of us with spiralling brains, and I'm officially making myself available for mutual support. If anyone needs to be distracted, wants to set some kind of daily challenge or join in with my photography one, or just would like to type AAAAAGGGGHHHH at someone and have them type AAAAAAAGGGGGHHHHH back, message me on Instagram @the_slapdash or email me (address on the Contact page at the top). We can do this. 

Kommatia Patterns (Studio Calicot) DR305 batwing dress

Fabric: Sweater knit from Walthamstow Market // sweater knit from Abakhan

Cost: £4 // £6

Pattern details: Very simple short batwing dress with raglan sleeves

Size: XL, graded up further at the hip

Alterations: Made proportionally larger in the hip than intended, extra fabric added to centre front, two inches added to length

Would make again/would recommend: Maybe/Yes

Ghosts of Zombie Hoodie past (Kommatia Patterns J005 bomber jacket)

Hey, remember two years ago when I was desperately trying to replace my Zombie Hoodie?

This may not have been on my autumn list, but this is one of the most peacock things I've ever seen.

I'd never heard of Kommatia Patterns until a few weeks ago. I followed a link to a pattern which on closer inspection wasn't for me, but while I was there I had a bit of a browse and saw the pattern that Jen from two years ago was searching for in vain: a cropped, hooded zip-up jacket. I waited a couple of days to buy it because I've instituted a new rule about not buying sewing shit at 12.30am when I'm delaying going to bed for unknown reasons, but after some reflection I decided this was a sensible purchase. I have nothing like it, it cost about £6, and teenage me was quietly squeeing.

(I've just noticed this dress is covered in fluff. I bought some VERY ill-advised fabric and clearly didn't throw it away fast enough.)

This fabric is from a stall in Walthamstow Market. I'm not exactly sure what it is; the guy said "woollen fabric" but I would say it most resembles a super-light twill. I'd gone out with the intention of buying something black - a black floral, ideally - since I already had some black rib knit and was completely uninterested in complicated colour-matching, but this fabric was an unignorably beautiful colour and also had enough black in it to work quite nicely with black ribbing.

The whole thing took me a couple of hours to make up. I left off the zipped pocket on the arm for many reasons, not least of which my lack of desire to search for a 4-inch zip. I flat-felled all of the main seams since the jacket is unlined.

The jacket is described as "very loose-fitting" but I did not find this to be the case. Sure, it's not tailored or anything, but my understanding of loose-fitting in home sewing terms is that it will have a decent amount of ease in it. My bust is about an inch larger than the Kommatia size L, so I made that assuming it would be fine for a loose-fitting garment. In practice, while it's not uncomfortable to wear or anything it's certainly not what I would describe as "loose". There's also a slight range of motion issue when it comes to folding my arms.

Overall I love this thing. I love the way the black rib and black zip look (and I'm also impressed I managed to identify the correct length of zip on sight from a market stall basket full of unlabelled haberdashery), I think the fabric is great, and it looks like a professional piece of work. My boyfriend, who lives with me and my constant attachment to the sewing machine, saw me in this and actually thought I'd gone clothes shopping. Something this super-casual is going to be really useful, I think, since I tend to make things slightly more formal-looking than my life requires at the moment. This will be great for flinging over jersey dresses when I'm going to dance events, and is a great piece of loungewear too.

I was so pleased with this one that it was mere days before I started thinking about the black floral bomber I originally had in mind. "That'll be great for my winter plan," I thought. "I'll start looking for the fabric now so that it's all ready for December."

I bought the fabric on a Saturday and was wearing the finished jacket by the following Wednesday. Sure, it would have been much more sensible to hold off and make the things that were actually on my autumn plan, but who do you think you're talking to here? Unless the garment in question is super complicated or takes a ton of fabric, my immediate reaction to liking a new pattern is almost always to make a second one RIGHT NOW.

I popped into my local Sew Over It for their monthly remnant sale, where I got quite a lot of nice bits of jersey that are mostly destined to become pyjamas, and they had a huge roll of this floral twill sitting by the door. I decided it was perfect and impulse-bought a metre, assuming that would be enough. It was not. They didn't have any more left (apparently it got promoted on their vlog and EVERYONE ordered it), so I spent a bit of time debating how to work around it. I know that a bomber with contrast sleeves is a classic and I almost cut it out that way, but kept stopping as my scissors were about to cut into the fabric because I didn't really want that. Eventually I decided to make a plain hood using the fabric left over from my Flint trousers, and I'm glad I did because I actually think it works better. The main fabric is kind of burlap-ish on the wrong side, and since the hood is unlined I think it might have looked a bit odd. Yay accidentally improving things! 

I sized up for this one and it's definitely more of a standard bomber jacket fit now. I left off the arm pocket again (I'm never going to use an arm pocket), and flat-felled all the seams. I love a good flat fell, even if it does get really awkward when you get to the wrist or ankle. 

I really like this version. Winter florals are much more my thing than spring/summer florals, with the dark backgrounds and deeper colours, and I like the contrast of the fabric with the style of the jacket. It's super autumnal, but it'll also work for most of the rest of the year if I wear it with different things. I've been getting tons of wear out of both of these, and I'm surprised at how much difference a range of outerwear and layering options makes to getting dressed. Two bombers is quite enough for now, but I think there will be many more jacket-type things in my future. 

Next up: I needed a top, but I made two dresses instead because why wouldn't I