Saturday, December 18, 2010

Cut and Sew Sweater Vogue 8597

Earlier this fall I stormed the fabric store and purchased a bunch of cozy wintery fabrics for the season. 
I'm not a fan of cut and sew sweaters, but this fabric begged me to take it home.  What makes a knit a sweater anyway?  It's the stitches per inch.  And there are diverging theories on what number that is but in general it's about anything less than 9 per inch makes it a sweater.  I might be blasted for that?  Anybody have the true answer?

This fabric is 100% wool and it was purchased at The Mill End Store in Milwaukee, Or for 15.99 per yard.  Yikes! I splurged on this one and it was worth it.

I wanted to make a cowl neck so I bought patter 8597 from Vogue.  I read the pattern reviews that it wasn't as deep as the drawing on the envelope and by the way I always worry when there isn't a photo too.  I altered the neck so it would be a little deeper by slashing and spreading the front as below

Used this technique from Pattern Making for Fashion Design by Helen Joseph Armstrong
Then I squared off the center front.
I realized with the finished product that I should have slashed again further down so that cowl would sag deeper into the front but anyway lesson learned for next time.

The sweater is super long but I also have not hemmed it yet- lazy

This fabric is a little shear so the pretty seam allowances show as a detail
I used a tiny zigzag stitch for the seams and did a double row.  Then I was able to trim very close to the outside row in order to create a finished seam look with out a serger.  When do I splurge for one of those folks?  Before or after the new computer and Vita Mix blender?
This is the back neck, it wraps around from the front which is an interesting detail

This is a better view of the front neck
 I also hand stitched the sleeve hems. This garment is pretty delicate and will certainly need to be dry cleaned.  I wore it tucked into dress pants at work and it was too long.  I just purchased a cute pair of slim pants from J Crew that I probably could make myself but, anyway, I didn't.  This would look better over those.  I guess I should hem the thing.

Ok kids, off to Christmas shop.  The mall opens in one hour.  Next I'll show you to cool sewing history book I got for my birthday!

5 comments:

  1. I love this sweater! To me it doesn't look like the cowl isn't deep enough, but I do know what you mean.

    I love your dress form, do you remember where you got it? I need to order one.

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  2. Hello Heather: the thing about the cowl is it droops low, but the "drape" part is really high. I don't know if I'm saying that right. I got the dress form at the Alameda Antique Fair a few years ago. It's vintage- and by vintage I mean it says 10 but it's really like a 6. I love it though- I think I paid 100$ bucks for it.

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  3. I love how your top turned out! Thank you so much for sharing your technique!!

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  4. Great sweater! I think I have this same fabric from Mill End in Milwaukee (my favorite!). Is it sort of on the bias? I have had this fabric in my stash for over a year and have yet to make it into something. This tunic is really nice! I think I may even have this pattern as well (I'm kind of a pattern hoarder). We should chat sometime as I believe we are co-workers! -Stephanie

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