Planning and Design
I saw this fluted knit when I was buying a bunch of winter fabrics from Wattle Hill Fabrics and thought it would make a good work cardigan. Plus I know I like the colour, and figured I could buy some extra matching ribbing to fix up the neckband on my first Maple Balloon Cardigan. So decided to make a wearable toile of the Marlo Sweater.
So my measurements were quite all over the place for this one:
- Bust size 4
- Waist size 6
- Hips size 10
Since it was a thin fabric I decided to try a size 6, since the finished measurements for hip were 9 cm larger than my hip measurement. Maybe I would go up a size for a weightier fabric and/or more oversized look.
I liked that there are two neckband options for different levels of stretch. More empirical than ‘you may need to change the neckband pattern piece depending on the stretch percentage of your fabric’. At least this gives a starting point. Although a bit more on that later…
Materials
- Pattern
- Marlo Sweater (True Bias)
- Fabric
- European Fluted Ribbed Jersey Knit – Maple (Wattle Hill Fabrics)
- European Smooth Ribbing – Maple (Wattle Hill Fabrics)
- Buttons
- 2-Hole Classic Dome Wooden Button 28mm – Mahogany (Homecraft Textiles)
- Thread –
- Seraflex col. 1054
- Maxi-lock polyester serger/overlocker thread – Poppy Red
- Rasant col. 1346
- Interfacing
- Remnant medium interfacing
Sustainability Check
👍 European Smooth Ribbing is 95% cotton and 5% elastane so technically biodegradable
👍 Buttons are wooden so biodegradable
🤏 European Fluted Ribbed Jersey Knit is 94% cotton, 6% elastane so 1% off being technically biodegradable
🤏 Interfacing is 100% polyester but are saved scraps from other projects so counts as Reuse
👎 Seraflex and Maxilock threads are 100% polyester
Construction
Wow, this fabric is horrible to work with. Hard to lay out and when you cut the pieces they kinda bounce out of shape? Annoying to sew (hard to keep the flutes flat) and doesn’t feed through the overlocker well. Plus even thought I’m using the same thread, needle and bobbin as the Maple Pointelle Balloon Cardigan, this time the thread kept shredding which was SUPER annoying.
Anyway, I did do tailors tacks ‘properly’ this time.
Since I was having such a bad time with this fabric, I decided to cut my losses and just do everything the easy way. The main purpose of this project was to check the fit of the design as well as figure out if I could make it reversible. And for the latter, I think the answer is no. I need a pattern with set-in sleeves so I can do a flat-felled seam.
Things got a bit easier when it came time to attach the ribbing which actually has structure. I did remember to secure my overlocker threads for the cuffs but forgot for the neckband and just trimmed them. But I was so over this project already I didn’t care.
Since I ended up playing thread chicken, I was tempted to stop at the neckband step and not bother with the buttons. Some cardigans don’t have any buttons and I was only interested in fit right? But then remembered I put interfacing in the neckband for the buttons and buttonholes and I wanted to see how effective this method was…
But since I would lose thread chicken if I tried to do buttonholes with the remaining Seraflex, I switched to Rasant. Any other project and this would have annoyed me lol. I would have waited to get a new spool of matching thread.
I figured I could just mark the buttonhole placement onto the ribbing with heat removable ink, but while doing some test buttonholes, really didn’t like how wavy they ended up. So applied some scrap water soluble stabiliser anyway. It made sewing the buttonholes much easier. Even if they ended up wavy after a wash anyway haha. Maybe I should have used a thicker interfacing?
Finally I handsewed the buttons on (it’s easy enough when they are this huge).
Reflections
So I remember another member of Modern Makers made this and had an issue with the neckline gaping at centre back. I found that mine didn’t lie quite flat after coming around the shoulders… I wonder if it’s because I used 20-40% stretch neckband? The options were 20-40% or >40%. The ribbing was about 40%. So maybe I should have used the shorter option. Or since it’s smack bang on the cut-off, I should make a custom one that is halfway between the two options lol.
I did a test wear to work and the neckband actually works quite well with a collar. But does look a bit odd without one. I will probably try a midway option neckband length option if my next make of this also has 40% stretch.
I don’t really like the way this knit falls but the fit seems good. I also think I need to be fussier abour the last button placement so that the hems match nicely and probably also make the buttonholes smaller and tighter.
Things I learnt:
- I hate fluted knits
- Neckband and stretch percentage considerations
- Proper tailors tacks
- Make buttonholes tighter for knits/cardigans and be very careful with button placement
All in all despite it being not fun to make, it served it’s purpose as a wearable toile. And in the photo it actually looks pretty good lol. At least I can go into the next version with confidence. I will hold onto this for now to give me more work cardigan options but will probably offload it as soon as I can haha.
Categories: Sewing
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