Planning and Design

Second time making this. The first time I used polar fleece and from memory it looked pretty accurate but I don’t like polar fleece.

This time, I wanted to make it out of the super soft Kmart blanket 😝 I thought it would feel nice.

I decided to use the same pattern as last time since it worked out back then.

Used in my Custom Douser Dualies FF outfit for Splatoon 3.

Materials

• Pattern:
  • Modified hoodie pattern with long cuffs and ribbed neckline
• Fabric:
  • Kmart Soft Touch Blanket Black
  • 2×2 Bamboo Rib Jersey Black Bear (Remnant Warehouse)

Construction

I made many mistakes. First off I assumed that since this was a simple pattern I could assemble it at night. But slippery black fabric with poor lighting is a recipe for disaster. In addition, I failed to properly mark the front and back pieces/sleeves and so it was really hard to tell what was what 😅 I ended up with the neckband seam at the front…luckily you can’t really tell thanks to the actual ribs of the fabric.

Reflections

So I dunno if it’s cos of the fabric or I got things wrong but it doesn’t seem to sit very nicely? Also, one thing that has changed since back then is I now wear a smart watch. So long cuffs kinda don’t really work…

I was pretty dissatisfied with this and I also completed this around the time I decided I wanted to avoid polyster fabrics (…yes…a Kmart blanket is like the worst of the worst lol). So I started looking up both patterns that were long cuff but a bit more stylish as well as replacement fabric.

Fabric:

• I looked at bamboo velour first because bamboo is pretty nice. I even got a sample but it was white which means I need to dye it (extra effort) but it was also pretty thin so didn’t seem like sweater fabric
• Then I saw cotton polar fleece fabric but it was out of stock. I considered waiting to see if it would come back into stock but in the end reminded myself that I don’t like polar fleece (I like my fleece to be smooth on the right side)
• Then I saw Remnant Warehouse had silk velvet fabric and I went down the rabbit hole of looking up how to care for silk fabric. Which will still come in handy at some point (I bought silk for a different project) but decided that this was really going to be casual/home wear so not worth the effort 😅
• Then later on, also on Remnant Warehouse, when I was placing an order for other projects, I noticed they now had cotton velvet and decided to just go for it because they were having a storewide sale 🤣 

Pattern:

I ended up short-listing three patterns (and even bought the Marla). But the more I sat on this project, the more I convinced myself that I didn’t need or even want this type of sweater 😅 I don’t think I would wear it, even at home.

So in the end, all that mental effort was for naught 😝 But planning projects is still fun. The pattern wasn’t that expensive (it was on sale) and who knows when it might come in handy. And now I have cotton velvet in my stash 😊 I already know what I want to use it for, after all there *is* a Splatoon outfit that actually uses velvet 😉 (not that you’d know it from the English name since they swapped out the type of fabric completely 🤨). This is a pie-in-the-sky project though, I need to master a lot more techniques before I tackle this. But it’s still nice to dream 😁

Also, I’m thinking of taking it apart to salvage the bamboo ribbing which is very nice and premium 😝

Categories: Sewing

Tagged as: Man'O wardrobe Inspired

hikaru