Knit and Sewn Outfit

 

Well, we have a goody today!

A project I am really proud I made and I know it is going to have a lot of wear. Let me explain the creative process.

The main inspiration for the top is Kim Hargreaves book, Heartfelt: The Dark House Collection. I bought the book online for a project a friend found for me, and this is the 2nd project I made (see the 1st one) from it, and it is not going to be the last. Designs are gorgeous and totally my cup of tea, and patterns are perfect and really fun to make. 

The yarn recommended is some outstocked bamboo, but I decided to adapt it to this beautiful organic cotton by Katia. I had made another project with it, and it had the perfect feel, thickness and colour. This shade of beige can be tricky, and I wanted it to be natural and antique... it's perfect. 

It took quite a while for me to knit it, I started in June and finished at the end of the year, when it was too cold to wear it (typical). 

After some trials with different needles, I adjusted the pattern to my gauge and started knitting. When I got 20 cm from the bottom up, I realized it was too narrow, and I had to undo it and start over, but it was completely worth it, as it always is, because now it is just perfect. See the project at Raverly. 

I had this skirt in mind for quite a long time now. The inspiration is the Gabriola pattern. I love to be able to copy commercial patterns by adapting my own. In this case, I used the long A skirt pattern. I took the upper part and draw some lines with a ruler in the pattern paper, creating these three top pieces (front and back), and the remaining long bottom piece. The final result is quite good, but I had to make lots of undoing and redoing because there were some weird wrinkles over my bottom, which I finally took rid of. They were probably caused by imprecision, aka, I had not marked the fabric, as I always do, with tailor tucks. Seam allowances were so sparse, no sense in doing so.  Another problem was fabric scarcity. I cut the pieces too tight and that gave me no room to manoeuvrer, so I ended up with a tight skirt. Anyway, it does not flatter my protrudent tummy area, so I am wearing it covered. But now I have the doubt of how it would be if it were looser. I will experiment more with those Gabriola pieces, cutting them a couple of cms wider at the sides. 

Well, the final outfit is gorgeous, don't you think?