Finished: Terra’s Treasures Lisse Cowl

Finally finished, and I say this with such an exhausted sigh because who knew my brand new overlocker would hate ribbing as much as it does.  At midnight when I was just beginning to lose the late night sew-jo, clunk.  There goes the thread.  Okay, thread her up, clunk.  Repeat about 5 times.  Turn machine off, go to bed.

The finished product is what I’m most excited about, having never sewed ponte before, never worn a cowl (I live in the tropics, it’s unheard of), and never had so much trouble with my machine, it’s been a world of first in this project!

The cowl is super cute, due to the lining having a different range of colours than the outside, it can quickly look different, breaking up the slightly crazy orchids a bit.  The eyelets make me squeal with school girl delight for being able to do up the cowl by yanking on the string like I would do the toogle on my wide brimmed hat right on the bottom of my chin.  The tulip hem has seriously got me doing a little cartwheels around the room, how awesome is it!

With all the trouble I had with ribbing and my machine, I opted for an organic cotton lycra on the cuffs.  I even reached the point where M had to thread it for me because I was too upset with not being able to get it to work.

Has anyone else had trouble with ribbing?  Would you be ready to make a Lisse?

Work In Progress: Lisse Cowl Hoodie

In April, we’re heading overseas for the first time as a couple – and for me, the first ever time!  We are headed on a cruise around the New Zealand coastline and so I am expecting to feel a little chilly.  I had picked up a pretty damn amazing floral ponte from The Remnant Warehouse, and have since pondered what the hell I could make with it’s gorgeousness.

Then it occurred to me, it has such a rust orange berry colour that would be great for the Autumn time that we’re travelling across the ditch that the patterns I picked up during a sale from Terra’s Treasures could finally get made!  The Lisse Hoodie and Cowl, the look of it scared me due to the never made a knit garment that has been 100% successful and I didn’t want to mess up my opportunity to use the ponte goodness.

So, as any self respecting person who has never used a particular pattern before and isn’t totally certain they can pull it off, I (for some unknown reason) opted NOT to make a muslin.  Mmh, ask the Christmas hot weather which affected my thinking.  Luckily, it’s going well so far!  I’ve been triple checking before stitching and the bold pattern means no repeats of me stitching armsyces inside out.

The super old paper cutting scissors

A little bit about the pattern:

Assembling the pattern was a total pain in the neck, whether the industrial printer that I used at work somehow fed the sheets all at different angles and put lines where lines weren’t meant to go is beyond me.  It was not a fun experience having to reprint after I’d begun sticking it together.

The instructions have been relatively easy to follow, I decided to line the cowl which was suggested for materials which are not stiff and there was no instructions as to which seam to sew along to make the lining and cowl outer go together but this was mainly “my-dumb”.

The pattern also calls for eyelets, which for the first 15 minutes of me working out I was using the wrong end of the tool almost had me call it a night at 9pm.  I’m very very happy with how they turned out!  I’m off to get some drawstring today to make it more functional.

Very proud of these eyelets.  Might have hammered a dent in my desktop.

 

I have a bratty overlocker (I got it in September so it’s teething I think) and the green thread broke as I was finishing the cuffs at 12:15am.  I called it a night.  I’ll check back in with finished photos when our 300mm of rain stops falling.

MAGIC CLIPS GALORE!!

Does anyone else have trouble deciding what to call a pattern when it’s a hoodie or a cowl, because calling it the Lisse Cowl makes me think I’m only making the band around my neck.  Strange, anyway.  Another cup of coffee is calling.  I hope you’re not stuck at your work desk like me today!