We Made Some Cardigans

I don’t always remember to take photos in my classes, but I did yesterday. I had three students in my Harper Cardigan class. One of the ladies finished her cardigan in class:

I had to promise to crop out her face and that’s okay. Not everyone wants to be plastered all over the internet. The cardigan is lovely, although she wasn’t entirely pleased with the fabric. It was a cotton French terry and was a bit on the stiff side. It might soften up with washing. The manufacturer digitally prints their fabrics and I think they must use some kind of sizing on the substrate.

[This is the same lady who is going to be my guinea pig for some pants-fitting experiments whenever we can get our schedules coordinated.]

Marci, who is one of the employees at the store, stayed after class to put the front band on her cardigan. (I borrowed the photo from the store’s Facebook page.)

Marci used a fabric from the Walmart remnant rack. I love that she fussy cut the cuffs and band. The fit is perfect. Marci used to work in LA as a patternmaker and she is comfortable grading between sizes and making adjustments. She shortened the sleeves by a couple of inches.

My third student struggled a bit. She doesn’t have a lot of experience making clothing, and although she has a serger, it isn’t here in Kalispell. She asked me ahead of time if she could make this on her sewing machine. I told her that yes, she absolutely could—and she did—but I should have vetted her fabric choice before we got started. She used a minky-style fabric. Normally, that wouldn’t be a problem, because minky is a knit and most of them have a fair bit of stretch. This minky did not. I have all my students try on the class samples to help them decide what size to make. She went with the same size I had made, but the cardigan ended up being too small on her because the fabric wasn’t stretchy enough. She said she would finish it anyway and give it to a friend.

Marci mentioned that she and some of the other students had talked about having me do a class about fabrics, specifically knit fabrics. That would help those who want to make clothing know what to choose when they go shopping. I think that’s a great idea and I hope we can get one on the schedule. A couple of years ago, I took DD#2 on a tour of a Joanns store in Seattle and explained the different kinds of fabric to her so she would recognize them in her job at Nordstrom.

Speaking of children, DD#1 sent me one of her Smartwool sweaters that needs to be mended. She included some coffee and this cute pincushion in the box:

The house needs a good cleaning before our get-together here on Saturday, and I need to hook up the laptop to the TV and make sure we’ll be able to attend the Zoom meeting from the living room.