Driftless cardigan

It’s been a while since my last blog post, I’ve got a lot going on at the moment. I’m working on my research and dissertation and I’m also trying to figure out what I want to do after all this, all this being my life as a student. While I’m doing this I try to stay sane by keeping up with normal life, meaning knitting, my sewing machine, petting my cats and staying in touch with close friends. It’s been  juggling and blogging has fallen by the wayside.

I have to admit that the current disastrous state of the world diminished my blogging mojo as well. I’ve read this on some other blogs too, and I think I’ve mentioned it here before. Tomorrow my country has its general elections, and so far the polls are not looking good, with an extreme right wing, global warming denying nut-job looking to become the moral victor. Let’s hope my country comes to its senses in the remaining hours before the vote. 

In all honesty, I’m not really sure where I want to go with the blog. I know the blogosphere in general has been in decline, with instagram and vlogging taking over, and quite a few of my favourite bloggers have either quit altogether or post drastically less. I don’t think I’m ready to quit as of yet, there is something inherently healing about writing, so I’m going to try to pop up her at least once in a while to catch up on the creative front.

I thought I would start off nice and easy by sharing a simple project I made a while ago: a Driftless Cardigan. For a change I didn’t knit a cardigan but sewed one instead with knit fabric (Is this blasphemy?). Driftless is a pattern by Grainline Studio which they released around this time last year. I’ve been meaning to sew one since about that time, but you know how it goes. It’s one of their patterns which only comes in pdf format. I hadn’t tried sewing from a pdf before, but wanted to for the longest time, so this seemed like a good way to tackle that.

All in all, sewing a pdf pattern was a breeze. I first taped the printed sheets together, and then traced the patterns onto pattern paper. Yes, it was an extra step, but not a complicated one and it worked very well. I can imagine though that with more complex patterns the process gets more complicated and takes longer, so for dresses I still prefer paper patterns.

I know this might not be the most flattering thing I’ve ever made, but it sure is comfortable. Moreover it is an excellent layering piece and the kind of thing I wear a lot when it starts to get too warm for some of my knitted pieces. The fabric is a wool polyester viscose mix, and it is knitted fabric. That is about the only thing I know about it. As someone who got into sewing with a knitting background it still baffles me how little information is provided with fabric. Us knitters, we’re used to know to the exact percentage of fibres in our materials, down to the sheep breed and sometimes even the very farm it comes from. With fabric you seem to be lucky enough if you know what fibres are in your fabric, let alone the percentages.

I sewed almost all of the cardigan in one weekend day during my autumn break. Everything but the buttonholes was done. I tried to sew them the day after, but my sewing machine started acting up and made it impossible to make anything remotely resembling a decent buttonhole. So I put the project aside for a couple of days… Which became weeks… Which became months, until I got myself together early in January and tried again, this time my sewing machine didn’t give a hitch, and everything went smoothly, even though I did everything the same as before (I can’t even begin to try to understand how this sewing machine logic works).

I also wanted to share my birthday loot. My birthday was last week. I didn’t want to dedicate a whole post to it, but it’s such a cheerful photo that I liked to share. It’s mostly yarn, craft books and a few novels, which suits me perfectly!