Sewing Project Completed

When I was a young I used to go to the Fabric Place in Framingham with my mother to pick out yarn and fabric for her projects. Later I would go for myself to pick out quilting fabric. It was a big two story store with all sorts of different kinds of fabric and yarn. The staff was knowledgeable and I never walked out empty handed. A few years ago they closed leaving a gaping hole for New England sewers. Last Wednesday it reopened in a basement in a strip mall in Natick. I went on day two (showing remarkable restraint). All the fabric isn't out yet and they are still working out some kinks as far as how to use the register but I spent 45 minutes wandering around and stroking fabric. I bought some needles for my upcoming class at the Quilter's Gathering, some brown knit jersey and a See & Sew sweater pattern B5666.

Then, on the way home I stopped by Joann's and found a beautiful purple heather sweater knit to use in the pattern.

I cut it out Friday morning and worked on it for a while on Saturday and Sunday. I am a slow sewer and it took about 3 hours to sew it all. Last night when all put together it looked like this.

Even though I had shortened the pattern by two inches it was REALLY long and the sleeves were long and wide. Not something I would ever wear.

So I started with the sleeves. I cut of two inches and then went up six inches and drew a line tapering from the back seam to the cuff about an inch and a half in.

I then made a french seam and cut off the excess and the sleeves fit much better (at least at the bottom).

I then cut 3 1/2 inches off all the way around the bottom of the sweater and hemmed. At the end it looked like this.

It is still not perfect but I will wear it like this. If I make this again I will make the arm holes and the tops of the sleeves smaller. This is an easy to sew pattern where mistakes are easy to hide. ;)