Sweaterknit jacket

I mentioned in a recent post that the floaty wrap blouse from Burda Magazine (February, 2009) would soon make another appearance, in a form closer to what Burda intended.  

I'm sort of unconvinced.  This is a printed wool blend sweater knit, which loses its sweateriness if you look at it from more than a foot away, at which point it looks ... kind of faded and tired, if I'm honest.


Up close it is pretty interesting.  But I don't want you to be THAT close!

I tested this pattern (designed for a single layer construction of very light woven fabric) with a single layer of a hideous acrylic jersey from stash and kind of liked it.  But for this printed jersey I needed to face the "lapels", which introduced a structure absent from the original.  I drafted a pattern piece for the facing.  On auto-pilot, I actually interfaced these pieces (Facings.Must.Be.Interfaced...).  What was I thinking?  Way too stiff.  It is, however, possible to pull fusible away and cut it out, which I did today.  I like it better, but it's not my most favorite piece ever.

Here it is with my orange cashmere skirt - already a favorite even though I've only worn it a couple of times.

What do you think?

Wool/lycra jersey "twinset"

A few posts back, I mentioned that I had sewed a top and cardigan, and teased you with a picture of the back of the top and a mangled photo of the cardigan.

So here they are again.

The cardigan started life as this wrap blouse from the February, 2009 issue of Burda Magazine.  Hard to believe, no?

I used the back and sleeves as Burda intended but added a swingy front and a shawl collar that folds over in front.

As for the matching top, it's Jalie 2682 which I think I have made 4 times now.  I would have made sleeves but I ran out of fabric.

So far I think the two pieces together with my orange skirt are too matchy-matchy, but I might change my mind.

I'll end with a teaser:  The wrap blouse is about to make another appearance, in a form more closely resembling Burda's vision, but not exactly.