This is the cardigan from Vogue 1020, an OOP wardrobe pattern. I originally purchased this pattern for the ruched top and dress, but all of the pieces are actually quite lovely, and while I have several knit tops in my wardrobe, with the change in weather, I've been wanting more jackets and cardigans to layer. The fabric is a matte jersey from fabric.com. It's somewhat thin, but good for layering. The pattern is a nice one, simple but with an interesting shawl collar, and shapely while not form fitting. It has enough ease that I skipped my usual FBA and in fact, made no pattern alterations at all. Whee! The pattern instructions were basically good. They even included stabilizing the shoulder seams. The only part I thought was unnecessarily fussy was the collar construction.
Here is the inside of my jacket, showing the collar. It is interesting. It's basically a big rectangle, that is folded into a tube, but only sewn down along the back neckline, so that the fronts can drape freely. Simple and effective, I thought.
Here are the Vogue instructions. (Click on the picture to enlarge.) All that stabilizing, pressing, slipstitching seemed like a lot of nonsense to me. Instead, I hemmed the outer edge the entire way across with my coverstitch machine - narrow hems on knits are crazy talk - and then just stitched the hem to the neckline seam allowance along the back neckline only, matching shoulder markings and center back. As you can see from the above picture, it worked well and looks good from the inside.
The other bit of the instructions I debated was the button loop. Vogue has you stitch a button and loop to the inside of the jacket, in the same spot as the ties are stitched to the outside. (I used a hair elastic for my loop.) I thought this sounded superfluous. I mean, that's what the ties are for, right? Previous reviewers on PR had gone both ways. I decided to just put it in. I could always remove it after the fact.
Here is how it looks with the button in place and buttoned. I like the shape and the way that the collar nips in at the waist. It's visually slimming and sleek.
Unbuttoned, it's still a cute cardigan, but it loses the sleekness and I think it even makes Sandra Dee look a little dumpy. Amazing what a difference a little button makes!
