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Sorry
for that spelling mistake ;( my bad!
After
knitting the side panels, I blocked them, took one, pinned it in place and
tried the jacket on again. It all looks good. I was going to get back to sewing
but then realized that my cone of yarn looked smaller than I had hoped. I’d
better knit the sleeves before sewing anything more just in case. Got
the first one done and gosh, I’m almost at the end of that cone.
Luckily, I did
have a backup – I had a 3/4 sleeve of the chocolate brown https://knitwords.blogspot.com/2011/09/sleeve-pandemic.html that I’d
made back in the Granville days…
There is
nothing more gut-wrenching than to be knitting away, watching the cone quickly
dwindling and the row counter slowly racking up – OMG, what was I worrying
about? I could have made it at least more 10 rows! ;)
I calmed
down, thought some more and figured I’d be further ahead to actually cut my new shape out of another fabric and baste it in place to see if it worked. It would be easier to fine-tune the knitted piece that way as I did want to be able to sew it in place with finished edges without having to resort to serging alterations, or worse, having to re-knit because it was too small!
So glad
I did! With the pieces basted in, I could try it on and adjust little bits here
and there to get the fit I wanted!
Pretty pleased!
BTW,
another deciding factor on the yarn, I had a leftover part cone of WCD in
chocolate (234g) that should be just the right amount – didn’t want to break
into a full cone of something for this!
Heh,
heh! Hope you didn’t think I was gonna do intarsia or anything silly like that!
I cut out as many pieces of the jean jacket that I could get from that fabric,
leaving the sleeves and side panels to be knit. Then I started sewing. Got it
to this point to make sure that I liked it before really getting to the down
and dirty. Figured if it wasn’t working for me, I could abort and never tell
anyone. :-)
Notice
the pattern pieces for the sleeves and side panels that I didn’t have enough
fabric for. I plan to knit them in a solid colour. I drew them on my knit contour/shaping
device, in half-scale but simplified slightly. For the front side panel and the back-side
panel, instead of two pieces, I joined them to eliminate the side seam so there would be one underarm panel on each side of the jacket. The sleeves are two-piece as well, but I made it into one, keeping the cuff opening at the back side to simulate what happens in sewn jackets. I do have camo fabric cuffs to sew on.
When I
started sewing, for some reason I did all the top-stitching with black,
thinking that the knitted pieces would be black but once I got the collar on
and was able to ‘put it on’, I changed my mind to brown being the contrast. With
all the pieces sewn together, it looked a bit different. Because the fabric is
not symmetrical, I kept picking the brown-er pieces for the outsides.
In
choosing the yarn, I wanted to emulate the thickness of fabric – it isn’t a
twill bottom weight but it is a sturdy, woven fabric so I was leaning to a
mercerised cotton because, WCD (wool crepe deluxe), the correct weight, might
be too stretchy in stockinette?? Oh, who am I kidding? I might need the
stretch!
Suddenly
gung-ho to knit, I almost began knitting one of the underarm panels – it is
more important structurally than the sleeve! Realized I hadn’t planned out the
hem! Took another break to think it all through more carefully…
I think
I’ve subtlely admitted that I kinda, sorta have
this thing for camo. You had to be paying attention. I also have a thing
for jean jackets.
Anyway, lately, I’ve noticed camo fabric clothing showing up all
over. On Project Runway, twice, Nina was wearing something camo, not
counting what the contestants and others
were sporting! The young woman on the afternoon show out of Minneapolis
has a camo jacket she’s worn a couple of times and I seriously covet it!
Finding the right fabric can be somewhat of a challenge. I have an old piece,
leftover from the early 90s, that’s, in my mind, just right but I know there
isn’t enough to get an entire jacket out of it. But, what if I knit a couple
of pieces? Hummmm…
You can laugh and snicker now! I'm fine with it! You won't be able to see me anyway! ;-)
