Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity - Seneca
The trouble with online shopping is if you've got your heart set on a particular colour and style, you're bound to be disappointed. I had grand designs to find myself a nice, comfy, dark plum sweatshirt and to make crochet a beautiful doily and sew it onto the front. It was going to be loose and comfy and pretty all at the same time. I ordered a sweatshirt from H&M and bought the crochet thread and then folded my hands neatly in my lap and waited for it to arrive so that I could bring my dreams into fruition.
And then the sweatshirt arrived. It was not plum, more of a light heather purple. It was also too short and I hated the neckline. It did not go with the crochet thread I bought at all (incidentally: I find it a lot easier to order accurate colours for yarn). So it went into the closet and sat there for nearly a year.
It rained for most of this weekend. I figured it was time to finally do something with this sweatshirt. I decided to turn it into a cardigan. I'd been thinking about it for quite a while, and when I finally bought
Rosie, my new sewing machine, a few weeks ago, I knew I could finally do it properly.
I did a bunch of research online and looked at several tutorials to guide me through how I might do it. My history with sewing is that I usually start out carefully, measuring and cutting accurately, taking my time... and then I come crashing through the end in desperation, cutting corners and making a general mess of things. This time, I was determined not to do that:
The first step was the cut the front open. I measured and folded and measured again, and then I took a deep breath and used my quilting ruler and cut through with my rotary cutter. I must say: a rotary cutter is a miracle. When I took sewing class in high school, I could not cut a straight edge with a pair of scissors to save my life. But a rotary cutter is pretty much a pizza wheel for fabric, and I've had plenty of practice with pizza in my life, so cutting a straight line is pretty much a dawdle for me now:
After that, I carefully pinned some bias tape along both edges. Pinning my fabric is also something I was terrible at in sewing class. I really had to force myself to take my time and match the edges carefully. If you look at the right side, you can see that that was the side I did second, and I did a pretty poor job:
I slowly and carefully stitched the bias tape into place. First side was perfect. Second side was not, due to my crappy pinning job. I sighed and pulled out my seam ripper and humbly picked out the stitches and did it all again. It took me three tries, but I got it into place:
I turned the tape over and top-stitched everything down and tried it on. It looked great, except it looked a little weird without buttons. I decided I'd be brave and try out making buttonholes. After all, I have a pretty cool button collection that deserves to be used:
Rosie came with a nice buttonhole foot that you put your buttons into and it makes the right size hole for it. I practiced on a spare piece of fabric and determined that the holes were coming out too big, so I decided to ignore the instructions for the foot and wing it... and proceeded to make eight buttonholes that were too small. Why did I think I knew better than Rosie? I sighed, picked up my seam ripper, and swallowed my pride. An hour later and a lot of thread on the floor and I had buttonholes and buttons:
I gave the whole thing a quick handwash and left it to dry overnight, and then put a few hand-embroidered flowers on the front. My original plan was to put them on both sides, but my hand embroidery skills are even poorer than my machine sewing skills, so I thought it best to quit while I was ahead. Besides: it was getting chilly in the house and I wanted a sweater to wear:
It turned out better than I thought, but I learned a lot:
- Double-folded bias tape is super hard to cut a buttonhole through.
- A buttonhole foot is a miracle of engineering. Don't think you are smarter than it.
- Pinning is not my forte.
- Hand embroidery is not my forte.
- I have a pretty good seam ripper.
It took me a day and a half to cut a sweater and put buttonholes in it, but I guess that's how it goes when you only sew once a year. Since I got Rosie, I've sewn two projects in a month, and despite my struggles with the process, the actual machine sewing is a dream. If I'd tried to do that with my old machine, I would have struggled so long to get the machine set up properly that I would have given up and thrown the whole sweater in the garbage. I feel pretty lucky to have Rosie around. I have another idea for another sweatshirt makeover that I'd like to try with her once I've spent more time thinking it through.
But tonight, I think I'll retire to my couch with a crochet hook and do something I know I'm much more experienced with. This one is a lot more monotonous, but at least I know how to do it properly:
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