Shapes of grey

It's been a while since posted about anything I have made. Which doesn't mean I didn't make anything. Not at all.

In my wardrobe, most things are made by me with the notable exeption of t-shirts. Untill I bought my serger, sewing jersey was an absolute nightmare, that's why. This winter, I noticed I needed more fun basic pieces for layering.

I have loved making jackets ever since my first self drafted one a year and a half ago, and I love dressing down my shapely, formal jackets by wearing them over t-shirts. I had two old t-shirts, one bought, one a recycled band-shirt which belonged to my boyfriend in its previous life, doing that job.

So, I needed more. And I could use a simple cardigan with long sleeves (I often make cardigan-like things from odd bits of fabric and that always seems to result in three quarter length sleeves at the very most).

The fabric I used is a cotton double knit jersey. It was for sale at the market (2 euros a meter, but only 1,20 m wide) in a very limited choice of colours. I ended up buying (over the course of several weeks) 2 m of each of the fairly dark and grey colours (this is the lightest, I already made a dress out of the blue/lavender/grey and the dark grey/brown is still in my stash).

I made the cardigan first. The pattern is based of my knit sloper, I just opened it up along the center front and cut out a deep, wide V-neck. I was going to do a 'normal' closure, with a buttonband along the straight bit of the front, but decided on differently when I had sewn together the body parts and tried it on.

Not wanting to put a partly cut length of fabric back in the stash, I moved straight on to making t-shirts. One has cap sleeves and wide neckline, the other is a bona fide skinny fit tee. Even before I cut the fabric, I realised that what I really wanted for under my jackets, where printed, or otherwise decorated shirts. So, I decided to do something which I hadn't done in quite a while: decorate.

Cap-sleeves has a 'necklace' of miss-matched mother-of-pearl buttons from my grandmother's box. Skinny T sports a drawing (in black textile marker) of an anatomical heart. I'm rather pleased with both of them and looking forward to find out how they will perform in real life.