Snugly-wugly

Simplicity 2603

Three pattern pieces. That’s about right, I gotta say, for gift sewing. Well, any sewing, these days. I’m all about the quick reward.

This is a present for my grandma, who I actually SAW  this Christmas.  Well, this pre-Christmas. The idea came to me about two days before she arrived last week, just enough time to impulsively buy expensive fabric and (fortunately) dig out the pattern, which I haven’t used since I made my red cardi-wrap.

Stand by for rather more photos than something so simple and last-minute really deserves, especially when they’re all blurry nighttime iPhone photos. Quantity over quality?

Scrunchy

I made the version with the shorter drapes this time. It’s still pretty drapey. Also, doesn’t it go well with my fleece pants?

Front view. Dirty mirror. Ugh.

OK, sorry for the dirty mirror, but the shots Tyo took didn’t show the front very well.

Back view

I used the same small size I had already traced for myself, but I made a couple of adjustments to make it a bit more roomy, adding a bit at the back fold and along the sides and under the arms. In hindsight, I should’ve just added on the sides and under the arms, the extra width at the back just makes the shoulders too wide. In hindsight, that should’ve been obvious, but, y’know. I like to learn things the hard way. There’s a bit of excess ease in the sleeve cap, which I tried to ease in when I should’ve just trimmed it off. I don’t remember noticing that the last time, maybe because I was using a squishier sweater-knit.  So the seam where the sleeve is set in is a bit stretched and bumpy. I am hoping it will settle in after a wash or two, but probably it won’t. Honestly, my Grandma has a full-blown dowager’s hump and extremely forward shoulders at this point, so really the shoulder-fit has plenty of other problems.

Swishy. With fleece pants.

The fabric is a heavy Ponti de Roma, the sort of thing I normally don’t buy unless it’s, oh, 70% off, but for Grandma I splurged, and I’m glad I did, as it’s wonderfully snugly yet smooth. I have this sinking feeling it will pill like crazy later on, but for now it’s lovely.

Side view, with drape

Did I mention most of the good shots were blurry?

Wings.

There’s still a fair bit of wing.

Shoulder seams.

Sewing ponti is about as easy as knit sewing gets. I did feed in some clear elastic into the seam along the shoulders and back of the neck, for added stability. Probably not necessary, but it won’t hurt, right?

The best knit-sewing cam on my White machine.

I sewed it on my White, since it has a few knit-specific stitches that Grandma’s Rocketeer doesn’t.

Twin needled hem on the sleeves

I didn’t finish the edge around the front and bottom of the sweater, but I did hem the ends of the sleeves. I used a twin needle for the first time in a long time, and tried out something I think I maybe got from Kadiddlehopper, which was the idea of using fleecy nylon thread in the bobbin for doing twin-needling. Apparently it is stretchier and reduces tunneling? Although I should probably have wound it by hand. Anyway, ponte is not a good place to test it, since it’s pretty much the only thing I’ve ever managed to hem with a twin-needle that didn’t tunnel like crazy.

inside of twin-needled hem.

But, the resulting hem is nice and stretchy, and I did a pretty good job of lining my stitching up with the edge of the folded-under part, if I do say so myself.

I was worried the sleeves (which I made to my length) would be a bit too long, but although Grandma isn’t as tall as she used to be, I don’t think arms shrink the same way, and the monkey-arms thing is a bit of a family condition. The sleeves are a little long on her, but really about where they fall on me.

Of course, any time I tried to get a picture of her wearing it, her hand was in front of the camera, so I don’t have any good pictures of it in action.

I have one last bit of Christmas sewing to finish, PJ pants for Osiris (they just need elastic and hems, but of course I can’t really work on them at our house 😛 and it’s hard to sneak over to his sister’s without him), and the kids are getting fleece fabrics and promises.* We’ve just about finished decorating the tree and wrapping presents. I may actually survive Christmas this year after all. Although I still didn’t send out cards…

*They got laptops earlier in the fall, “for school,” with the understanding that those counted for Christmas presents. So really, they’d better be cool with whatever they get.