I finished my Southern Grace v2.0!
Ignoring the fact that I spent the time to make a 2nd cardigan exactly the same as the first, it feels like I brought an old friend back from the dead. I was going to take a side-by-side picture to show the felting on the first cardigan, but they looked pretty much the same (minus about 2 inches in length on the body). My Grace fit with negative ease, though, so the fact that the felted cardigan had NONE really made a difference.
As soon as I cannibalized the buttons off my first Grace and through away the useless body I cast on for Andi Satterlund's new cropped cardigan--Myrna.
Andi of Untangling Knots and Lauren of Lladybird are hosting an Outfit Along, which involves sewing a garment and knitting a garment that are meant to be worn together. The suggested knitting pattern is Myrna, a cropped short-sleeve cardigan with eyelet detail. I love Andi's patterns and have been wanting to make a cropped cardigan, so I jumped on this opportunity.
The dress portion of the Outfit Along is a little more daunting, though. I learned how to sew in 4th grade and have done it on and off (with a lot of customizing clothes in high school) since then. I haven't actually made a garment since my Alice in Wonderland costume in 2009, though. For some reason, I decided that Vogue's V1223 would be a great pattern to jump back into sewing with.
I was super excited to make such a fun dress and ordered some seriously colorful chiffon. I hemmed and hawed about what color cardigan would go best with the fabric and finally decided on Cascade Superwash 220 in Periwinkle.
I was a little nervous about working with chiffon for the first time so I ordered some extra fabric to practice hemming. I didn't expect it to be so hard to simply cut out the fabric, though! It's so light and stretchy and the whole experience had me frustrated. I'm nervous about starting this dress, so I may end up getting a new pattern and fabric to help ease me back into sewing.
If you haven't checked it out yet, this thread on Ravelry is where everyone is discussing their plans. It's amazing to see how everyone is interpreting the instructions. All of the participants who are adjusting their patterns really impress me--maybe I'll get to that level one day!
