Sew Distracted

Periwinkle Sweater Set done

I finished early this morning and only had to find the time to take photos. 

Matilda has agreed to stand in as a model as she is not shy about traipsing around getting her picture taken in front of construction guys, and there is no place to take photos  during daylight hours that is construction-free.  In payment she got a minor tummy tuck when we learned that she was bigger than I.

Presenting a periwinkle cardi:

And a few detail shots:

The top underneath is a little large, I cut it out several months ago, long before the cardigan. 

I could go ahead and take it down a little, but it is comfortable.  I think I will wait at bit before proceeding.  Besides this is perfect to wear now, and as my life generally revolves around my local construction site here, it is the perfect kind of thing to wear.

The top fits perfectly well under the cardigan but I don't think I will wear them together much.  I am finally leaning that I just don't like multiple layers of sleeves on my arms or around my shoulder areas.  Somehow, when I move the under layer always causes the over layer to bunch up.  I remain convinced this is due to my own forward and downward curving shoulders, but even better fit doesn't correct the problem.  I think it is mostly a problem of body mechanics.  It doesn't really happen on jackets if they are loose enough, but the more closely fitted jackets that have been stylish lately have the same problem. The sweater sets I wear the most, both RTW and my own creations, are the ones with matching sleeveless tops and I don't notice the problem when I have a sleeveless top on underneath.   When I do wear a shirt or turtleneck under another sweater, I tend to like the outer sweater to be pretty boxy, with deep, roomy armholes.

I have enough of the blue knit to probably make a little tank top and I might consider doing that. Not yet though.  There is time.

How Not to Sew

Sewing offers worlds of new opportunities to make mistakes.  Take this morning for example. 

I am still working on the sweater set.  It is not that it requires inordinate amounts of time, but just that I have had difficulty devoting time to sewing.  There are too many obligations and temptations in life.

I was, however, determined to finish up this morning.  Only the hem remained on the top, and the cardigan needed only sleeve hems, buttons, and buttonholes.  Easy job, right?

Well, I didn’t sleep very well last night.  I had a tremendous headache that would not go away and which kept waking me up during the night.  Actually, I am not sure if I my head woke me or my back since my back absolutely refused to be in any form of reclining position pain free. I tried various positions:  pillows under legs, back or elsewhere had no effect.  I was awake every hour contemplating my misery before shifting, drifting off, and waking again.

Still, I thought I was pretty with-it this morning.  That is, until I noticed that I did my double needle hem inside out.  The nice double needle work was on the inside and the fuzzy nylon from the bobbin was on the outside.  I temporarily thought of leaving it that way, and, of course, I could have ripped the hem out and did it the right way but that seemed to difficult to my sleep deprived brain.  I just decided to reverse the procedure and double-stitch the hem, this time the right way, encasing the fuzzy nylon in a row of twin needle topstitching.  It turned out pretty nicely.

Here it is in progress:

As you can see, I stopped in the middle of the row.  The thread kept breaking.  Apparently I misthreaded the machine.  It occurred to me that perhaps I should not be sewing.  I finished the hems and decided to stop before attempting buttonholes.  It appears that I don’t tolerate interruptions to my normal 6 hours of sleep well.

Up, Down, or All-Around?

Thank you everyone for your help and comments.  The sleeve problem ended up being simple to solve.  G gave me a hint when he saw it the next morning.  “The grain changes there” he said. “ Right! Of course!” I thought, actually a little facetiously at the time.  I knew that.  But the other side of the sleeve, where the grain also changed, stitched together perfectly.  By the time I read your comments, and Liana also hit hte nail on the head, I was close to determining the solution.

Then it hit me; the problem was with the directionality of the stitches.   I was attempting to sew the sleeve into the body of the sweater in a continuous circle.  The stitches that took were sewn from underarm up to the shoulder.  The stitches that were not working were being sewn from shoulder seam down to the side seam.  A simple change of direction solved the problem.   

On the second sleeve I simply sewed it in two passes.  I figured that if the first sleeve wanted to be sewn from side seam up, so would the second.  Wrong.  Gaps on both sides.  Reversal of direction from shoulder seem down to side seam on both front and back halves and perfect sleeve setting ensued.

I must not have cut the sleeves in the same direction.  I don’t remember.  I cut this months ago.  The fabric has no nap so it doesn’t matter, although I often cut things the same direction anyway, just in case. 

This is interesting because when I am seaming hand-knitted garments I always set in the sleeves in two steps, sewing from the shoulder seam down each side.  But I have not necessarily been doing that with knitted fabrics.  Perhaps I should.  I am sure that, had I looked at the actual fabric at the top of the sleeve cap, and noticed the directionality of the change from straight-of-grain to bias along the sleeve cap, I could have determined which direction to sew the sleeve to the body. Knits are notoriously unstable on the bias, I am sure some knits are more stable than others. I am surprised this hasn’t happened to me before, but then I haven’t really sewn that many knits.

There is always something new to learn.

The cardigan is not quite done.  I need to do a little topstitching and the buttonholes.  I would like to make the matching top. 

In the meantime another project has leapt to the top of the queue.

Lost in a black hole

I spent an hour today on what should have been a simple sewing step with no success.  Has this ever happened to you?

I can’t explain it.

I had an hour between returning from work/gym/errands and knitting group.  I thought I could set the sleeves in my periwinkle cardigan with little difficulty.  Although I once considered this a daunting project, that was long ago.  Perhaps I should reconsider. I spent the entire hour trying to set in one sleeve.  I stitched.  It looked good.  I turned the cardigan right side out, there was an area about 3 to 4 inches long where the seam did not exist, a gaping hole, surrounded on either side by firm stitches.  This seam was sewn in one continuous pass.  What happened? 

I tried re-stitching over the gaping area.  As I ran the machine over the seamline everything looked fine, the machine sounded normal, the stitches looked good.  Still the stitches did not adhere in this one area although the rest of the seam was fine.

I ripped and began again.  The same thing happened.  I tried a different kind of seam stitch.  Repeat of the same problem.  It seems that one section of my sleeve eats stitches, dissolves them on contact.  The stitches disappear, as if into a black hole. 

I can’t explain it.

I see one tiny hole in the fabric, this could explain one stitch slipping, but a 4 inch section?  Why is the stitching tight on either side but missing in the middle.

I had to leave to go to knitting group.  I hoped to return to this problem, but dinner and conversation ensued.  It was late.  I was up early. Getting up at 5:30 pretty much kills me for any sewing after 11 PM. I am sure a glass of wine with dinner did not help.

Perhaps tomorrow will shed a little light on the situation.

We have Lift-Off

Sewing has commenced:

I am working on a cotton sweater set that I cut out before Christmas, ages ago, and never really got inspired to sew. 

Having space to work and everything organized for easy access is great.  Work went well, it was easy to work and easy to clean up, and I had space to play.  I remembered a piece of cotton and decided to play with putting some piping along the front band of the cardigan.  I wear plain sweater sets all the time, I don't know why this one seemed so boring, but the piping seems to add the perfect touch. Sleeves, buttons, buttonholes and topstitching still to come.