A Little Something For In Between

I left it a little late to take this photograph this morning.  The early mornings are still crisp and cold but lately by mid morning, jackets are no longer needed.  Today, at mid day as I walked around the park, I even regretted my decision to wear a sweatshirt at all as the day had warmed up sufficiently to only require a tee shirt.  By 5pm though, when the sun is beginning to set, it is time to put all of those layers back on.  It was with this sort of weather in mind that I have made my latest jacket/cardigan.

I have coveted the Sewaholic Minoru for quite some time, but really couldn't justify adding it to my pattern collection.  In the end, I bought it anyway.  I r-e-a-l-l-y don't need another coat so resisted the temptation to turn this jacket/cardigan into another heavy winter garment, instead leaning a little more towards an in between jacket.  I had this fantastic heavy wool knit, that resembles a boiled wool, in my stash that I bought last winter and hadn't cut into for fear of wasting the fabric.  I washed it before use, because my lifestyle dictates that it would need to be washed regularly.  This is where I came unstuck.  Usually wet wool smells a bit like wet dog, quite unpleasant but this wet wool was quite different.  It had the most unpleasant chemical smell, almost like the smell of a fabric dye mixture.  It was so unpleasant that I nearly didn't make this fabric up.  Fortunately the smell disappeared once the fabric was dry.  Remind me though, not to wear this one in the rain.

What did I change with this pattern?  I cut it to a size 8 which is what my bust measurement corresponded to but it ended up being quite wide under the arms and through the hips so I took it in 1.5cm on each side.  The most obvious change, is I haven't lined it.  This is a stretch fabric, and I wanted it to retain it's cardigan like quality.  The second change I made was to add two rows of elastic at the back.  The reason for this was, I only had narrow elastic so instead of buying wide elastic, I just used two rows of what I had on hand.  The third change was the wrist band which in the pattern was elasticated.  I made mine narrower and to the same dimensions as the Jalie jacket so they are more like sweatshirt cuffs.  The other thing I did was to leave out the hood and the interior pocket.  I was lucky enough to have a zip in my stash the perfect length having rescued it out of an old jacket my husband threw out.

I really like the final product, and know it will get a lot of use over the next couple of months as the day's warm up.  I can see this getting made up again, maybe as a windbreaker of some sort for the summer in a linen or light weight cotton.

By the way, please excuse the sparkly bits on my legs in the top photo.  No it isn't dirt on your screen.  I had just finished cutting out my latest project and it had shed all over my black tights!