Tag Archives: Cardigan

alpaca cardigan; a 100% local product

13/07/2015 7:13 am \ 47 Comments \

So, at the beginning of the year I mentioned that I was taking part in one year one outfit, the brain child of Nicki of this is moonlight; the challenge being that we participants have one year in which to make an outfit for ourselves that is 100% locally grown or sourced.
And this cardigan is my first thing! the first component of my outfit finally finished.  Phew!

Earlier in the year, Nicki drove Sue of fadanista and me to Toodyay, where the three of us visited the Fibre of the Gods, the alpaca farm owned and run by Hazel and Michael McKone.  The farm is also home to a tiny and thriving wool mill; processing fleece into yarn for anyone who has some and wants it done; AND very importantly for the purpose of our project, also processes and spins its own alpaca yarn, shorn from their very own animals!   The lovely Hazel took us into the girls’ paddock and introduced us … below are some of the hembras.  That’s the term for a female alpaca, fyi.  Also did you know that a male alpaca is known as a macho?!  We saw one macho, out on his lonely lonesome in a separate paddock, all manly-like and aloof, looking down on us girls.

No, they’re not checking out the macho…  they’re giving the evil eye to the farm’s cat!  Alpacas are very wary of cats; and dogs too, according to my friend J, who has a small herd of her own. They will protect your sheep from vermin like foxes, and are likely to turn on a dog and kick him out of a paddock if they don’t know him well.

Hazel kindly showed us the mill equipment and explained how the entire operation is run entirely on their farm; from the animal right through to the finished yarn.  And then we obviously shopped in their tiny store, cleaning out a, erm, sizeably large chunk of their eponymous stock, eep! They do stock some lovely coloured yarns and a few knitted and felted products for sale, however we were all of us after their own natural, un-dyed yarns for the purposes of our 100% homegrown project  🙂

Sue and Nicki also have written about our day out on their individual blogs too.

Anyway; my cardigan!

I used natural or undyed alpaca yarn from “white” alpacas, which when viewed objectively and ex situ is actually not even vaguely white at all really! but this lovely, very pale caramel colour.  So how apt that I should choose a pattern called “Caramel”!  
The Caramel blanket-style cardigan or jacket is designed by Isabell Kraemer, and is freeeee! available to download here on Ravelry.  Basically; I put the search words “free” “cardigan” “8ply” into the Ravelry search engine and this came up… I thought it a rather nice and elegant shape.    Well, “shape”; of course “blanket style” is basically another way of saying “giant rectangle with sleeves”… anyway I love how it looks loose with the fronts gently draping upon themselves, the points hanging down longer than the back.
My Caramel is knitted pretty much to the pattern; with just a few minor variations. Obviously mine has no real stripes.  My sleeves and body are much longer.  Also, I left off the the decorative? purl side seam stitching and the ribbing off the sleeves and lower edge.  In the process of knitting I decided I really preferred the streamlined look with slight curl-up of the ends that you get with no ribbing.  I had initially finished a sleeve lower edge with ribbing, to trial it; but then I unravelled that bit and redid the edges sans ribbing. 
Plus; and herein is a huge advantage of a top-down knitted design, I just kept on knitting knitting knitting until I had used up all my wool, then cast off that lower edge.  It’s a lot easier to do that if you know you don’t have to allow for ribbing.
Result; barely no leftovers!  Win!

One thing about the Fibre of the Gods yarn that I really really LOVE! is how Hazel and Michael have labelled the balls with the name of the animal along with a little picture of them.  So I know that my alpaca yarn came from Bandit, Coral and Pearl. 
Hey, guys! Thanks so much for the shirts off your backs… figuratively speaking.  😉

I did notice some slight variation in the shade of the yarn, due to the slight variations in the three alpacas’ different natural colourings.  I find these subtle “stripes” quite charming.
 subtle stripes are very subtle

I also made a little wooden “pin” to hold the cardigan closed if it’s cold; by sanding down a nice and straight, little stick, found on my morning walk.  It’s local obviously, so it too fits in with my one year one outfit challenge!

I can’t decide if I prefer my cardigan open or closed; I think I like it both ways equally!

Details:
Cardigan; hand-knitted by me, the Caramel pattern by Isabell Kraemer, natural alpaca yarn from Fibre of the Gods mill in Toodyay.
Tshirt; own pattern, blue jersey over dyed black, details here
Skirt; own pattern, charcoal ponte, details here
Tights; own pattern, black stretch poly, details here
Socks; not seen, hand-knit by me from Noro wool yarn, details here

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Caramel suede cardigan/jacket

05/07/2014 4:05 am \ 63 Comments \

o hello  🙂
I’ve made a suede cardigan for myself, or is it a jacket?  The pattern says “jacket” but I tend to think of jackets as being kinda involved, time-consuming things to make, with lining and so forth.  While cardigans are unstructured, unlined things one can whizz up in a blink of an eye.  Which actually describes this thing pretty well.
The pattern is jacket 132 from Burda style magazine 11/2012, which Philippa sent to me in a giveaway, thank you so much Philippa!  I lurve Burda magazines, the designs are usually both interesting and stylish, the cost per pattern is very very low, and still not bad even if you do only make a few things in an issue.  I reckon they deserve to be a heckuvva lot more popular than they are.  You don’t need every issue but I generally get maybe one magazine in a year and manage to make several things in each one.  This design caught my eye straight away, and was firmly in my mind when I bought my leather.  I actually made a muslin for it, which is only worth mentioning because it’s such a rare thing for me to do.  Well my leather was kinda precious and I did not want to stuff it up!  I did a minor sway back adjustment and shortened the bust darts by a few inches.
I used my two pieces of caramel brown pigskin, bought in Copenhagen on our trip.  I liked both sides; the smoother, leather-y side has some interesting brand marks, but the suede side has the most glorious, rich caramel colour.  Colour trumped brand marks.

The cardigan is quite long in the body with wide-ish front flaps so it took some layout wizardry to get the pattern pieces out!  I re-laid the pieces down over and over and over again, trying to fit them all in and cut it with the skinniest little 5mm seam allowances.  I did have to do just one little fill-in piecing on the left back back, but I managed to position this at the very top, centre back, so it’s as un-noticeable as I think it could possibly be!

The pattern has pockets; which I cut to be nice and huge, to accommodate my nice huge hands, hehe.  Burda magazine patterns have the teeniest tiniest child-sized pockets of all, I swear.  Very cute, but seriously?!  Maybe it’s just me; I like to plunge my hands right down deep into my pockets  🙂  I used chocolate brown silk charmeuse, which I fortuitously just happened to have in my stash already,  hanging around, in the perfect colour, you know, as you do  😉  Hopefully cutting those pockets out of it won’t mean I now don’t have enough for it to fulfil its original destiny.

below left; I have no idea why the colour is so off in this picture here, but… pocket! 

The pattern called for a waist tie, to be sewn in the side seams.  I preferred the idea of a separate belt that I could wear or not wear, whichever I wanted, however whim and whimsy struck, and not to have the ties dangling uselessly and annoyingly at my sides whenever I was wearing the cardigan loose.  So I put little belt loops in the side seams, seen at top left in the picture above, and made a very long skinny belt as a separate thing.  This has tonnes of mad bias-cut piecing  all along it, as I was dealing with mere scraps of leather by the time I had cut out the main pieces of the jacket.  But I don’t think that matters much, you can barely see all the joins when it’s on. This is simply folded in two lengthwise and topstitched.

I think worn loose, as at top, it looks quite modern, and with the waist tied up it looks a little bit boho 70’s, yes?

I am very happy with, and am very much going to enjoy wearing my Copenhagen souvenir!

Later edit: some technical details on sewing with leather, and thank you so much to Erica for asking  🙂
 This is the first leather thing I have made so I learned a few things… I used a denim needle and regular polyester all-purpose thread, and used paper clips to hold edges together in lieu of pins. Lots of experimenting to get the tension right, I ended up with a medium-loose tension and a long stitch. The leather didn’t move through my machine very easily, so I used strips of tissue paper while stitching the seams, which helped a lot. Fortunately, this jacket had few seams! I used tissue paper both top and bottom, and did this by folding a wide, single strip and wrapping it closely around the edges before clipping it all together with paper clips, then sewed the seam; which was easier to hold in place than I imagine two separate strips would be, and also made it easier to follow an even seam allowance while stitching too.  
For short seams, like piecing the belt pieces together; I started stitching from halfway along and ended at the edge, then turned the piece over and stitched the other half of the seam from the same halfway point to the other edge, because my machine didn’t like “starting” on an edge, and behaved badly on these. If I was to do more sewing with leather I think it would probably be very well worth getting a teflon foot for my machine, which will enable the leather to glide through more smoothly.

 Details:
Cardigan; Burdastyle magazine 11/2012-132, caramel pigskin suede
Jeans, Burda 7863, white denim, details here and my review of this pattern here
Tshirt; self-drafted, white cotton jersey, details here
Socks; hand-knitted by me, details here
Shoes; Francesco Morichetti, from Zomp shoes

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Little black polka-dots

23/05/2014 6:32 am \ 38 Comments \

I’ve made a dotty little cardigan  🙂  Yes, it seems like I’m turning out new stuff everyday, but the truth is that some of my recent items have been finished for up to a few weeks or more and it is just my photo-taking that has been lagging.  Not the pink lingerie, which I  really did only finish yesterday.  But certainly this cardigan and my yellow skirt.  I have me-made May to thank for kicking me into action, photo-wise  🙂
I bought this coffee and black polka-dot knit fabric in Tokyo while shopping there in January with Yoshimi and Cassie.  I can’t remember the name of the store but think it was Yoshimi’s favourite knit store?  The fabric came in several colour ways, each of which I loved!  at first sight!  with a passion!  and it was soooo hard to pick just one.  I spent ages and ages, dithering over the gold, the teal, the purple, the coffee.  Obviously coffee won in the end, but there was inner angst at leaving the others behind.  The store owner gave us each a pen and a lolly, just for shopping, or maybe to thank me for leaving at last  😉

I bought another absolutely divine burnt-chocolate knit at the same store, another hard-thought out decision.  Seriously, the fabric shopping in Tokyo is too fabulous for words.  I would so love to go every year!
So, I like polka dots, but I particularly like them if they are either :
A. a bit randomly placed 
B. irregularly sized and 
C. a bit splodgy and undefined in their outline
Yes, yes and yes.  This one ticked all the boxes!

The design is based roughly upon the shape of a favourite RTW cardigan with a few minor shaping modifications.  I sewed all seams on my machine then finished the raw edges on my overlocker, and stabilised the shoulder seams inside with Seams Great, a gift from velosewer, thank you Maria!

The neckline band is cut on grain because there is almost no stretch in that direction and I joined the pieces on the bias; a joining seam can just be seen in the top right section in the picture below.   I started joining band strips on the bias like this on my raglan-sleeved baseball tee, did it for all my Netties; and it’s become my new little “thing” to do because it greatly reduces seam allowance bulk in the band at that joining point and so makes for a much smoother and neater band.  I can write a little how-to if anyone is interested?  

I finished the hems and bands by hand because I wanted the finishes to be as invisible on the outside as possible.   I applied a strip of iron-on interfacing to the quarter of the front band strip that was going to be the outside bit to stabilise it; sewed the band onto the front edge by machine, turned under the outer seam allowance and hand-stitched it down inside.

The buttonholes are by machine though.  I practised a few buttonholes on scrap to make sure my machine wasn’t going to chew through the fabric before going at it for real.  I was pretty pleased that they actually worked out pretty good  🙂
The black buttons are from Fabulous Fabrics.

Details:
Cardigan; my own design, coffee with black dot knit with only a little widthwise stretch.
Tshirt; never blogged, it’s just a plain self-drafted thing in beige jersey
Skirt; Burda style magazine 10/2010-136, (the Karl Lagerfeld skirt) lengthened, black wool suiting, details and my review of this pattern here
Tights; self-drafted, black merino, details here and my tutorial for drafting your own custom fit tights here
Shoes; Django and Juliette, from Zomp shoes
Sunnies; RayBan

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Gold Miette

25/04/2014 1:27 pm \ 33 Comments \

I have knitted a cardigan.  And weeeeeeee! this is the final thing in my eleven piece swap.   Finished… hurrah!
The Miette is designed by Andi Satterlund, and is available as a free download here.  
Such a great little pattern.  Clearly I love it a bunch since this is my second version in less than six months  *blush*  and I used the exact same wool too; six balls of Debbie Bliss Donegal Luxury Tweed Aran.  This time in colour Gold, 360036.   
Actually, the truth is that when I went in to buy the wool for my first Hunter/Forest green version I dithered and agonised for ages between the two colours.   Like, for so long it was embarrassing.  I loved them both.  Finally I chose the green, obviously; but the golden mustard kept haunting my thoughts.  I couldn’t stop thinking about it.  And I knew that it hated being left behind. It really wanted to come home with me too.  Really, it did.
In my original swap plans I had proposed not a cardi but a jacket; in a really nice mustard, open weave fabric which was a Christmas gift from Tim.  But the closer I came to Cutting The Fabric, the more doubt crept insidiously in.  The fabric is really very nice.  I was bound to ruin it.   And thinking about it; I really prefer wearing knitted cardigans to jackets, most of the time.  I remembered the Gold wool.  The colour is identical, and perfect.  Aha!  Swift justification for an acquisition!!  I raced joyfully, but hastily, to the wool store.  What if it had sold out?  But there it was, patiently waiting for me.  Clearly, it was meant to be.  Thus; I made a cardigan instead of a jacket.
And I still have my lovely mustard fabric, which I think would rather be a skirt.  Some day when I get up the courage to take the scissors to it.  🙂

Details:
Cardigan: the Miette, in Debbie Bliss Donegal Luxury Tweed Aran col. 360036 Gold)
Top: the loose drapey top from Drape Drape, in rayon/linen knit, details here
Skirt; Vogue 1170 in ivory leatherette, details here and my review of this pattern here
Shoes; Bronx, from Zomp shoes

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Audrey in Unst, in Blue

18/10/2013 4:23 am \ 53 Comments \

I am finishing all of my winter knitting projects just in the nick of time for them all to be packed away.  Woot!  This is pretty typical for me.  I think  I really should plan my wardrobe far more efficiently and be more seasonally aware and prepared!
I was struck by something Roobeedoo wrote recently; that since a knitting project takes so much longer than a sewing project and, as well, lasts for so much longer in your wardrobe, the sensible self-tailored individual plans future sewing projects around a current knitting project; not concurrently.  So sensible!  An edict; the singular wisdom of which I had not appreciated before then…   
Thy knitting projects are the key to planning thy wardrobe, y’all!
I bought this lovely wool during my afternoon out in Paris with Donna of Nid de Tissus, so it brings back happy memories to me of our fun chatty lunch and fabric/wool shopping excursion together.  A wearable souvenir!  It is from Renaissance Dyeing;  4-ply poll dorset wool hand-dyed with natural plant dyes in France, colour Canigou.  Terrified of not getting enough I bought four skeins so obviously Murphy’s Law decreed that I had overestimated how much I would need… doh!  I can never get that bit right!  The cardigan used just over two skeins, so at some point I am going to order some more and make something else using my almost two whole leftover skeins.  I do already have ideas, hehehe  🙂  The full range can be viewed and ordered here.

The pattern is Audrey in Unst, designed by Gudrun Johnston; available here.  I’ve long admired Roobeedoo’s leaf green version that she has worn during me-made May and had decided that at some point I would have to make my own.  The shape is nearly identical to my recently finished Miette! but the chunkiness is the difference between the two.  The Miette is in a thick aran weight yarn, whilst the Audrey in Unst is in a light, fingering weight yarn.  So this is a light little cardigan with much finer stitching tension, and subsequently took a lot longer to knit!  I started this at the beginning of the year  (blush) and only just bought the shell buttons and stitched them on a few days ago.

 The neckline is finished off with an i-cord stitch.  This is the first time I have tried this technique and I think it’s quite a nice, neat and tidy finish and a refreshing change from the usual rib.

 The cardigan is knitted bottom up, and is, like the Miette, designed to be knitted in one piece with no stitching pieces together.  WIN!  Well, you are supposed to stitch the shoulder seams together but I elected to graft the stitches together, like I do with the toes of my socks.  This gives a very nice seam; neat and flat and quite unobtrusive.  I can do a step-by-step if anyone hasn’t heard of and is interested in this technique?

The pattern has a built-in faux side seam, which is an interesting feature.  Essentially it is just a purl stitch every knit row, and vice versa.  The shaping is discreetly alongside the faux side seam.

 The sleeves are knitted by picking up the stitches and knitting short rows with wrapping and turning to form the sleeve cap.  LOVE this feature and I think it makes for a really nice attractive finish; far smoother and sits flatter than a stitched in sleeve would be.

Are there any negatives?  Well you get started; and 36 long long rows of ribbing later, all that blasted purling through the back of the loop had just about killed me.  Seriously HATED this bit. And I’m curious, does purling/knitting through the back of the loop really make a significant difference to the rib?  and if it does then is it really an improvement on the regular sort?  That’s not a rhetorical question btw, I would like to know.

Details:
Cardigan; Audrey-in-Unst in Renaissance Dyeing;  4-ply poll dorset, colour Canigou
Skirt; Vogue 1170 lined, blue corduroy later dyed brown, details here and my review of this pattern here
Tshirt (under); self-drafted, white cotton jersey, details here
Sandals; c/o Misano

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A Hunter Miette

02/10/2013 7:16 am \ 52 Comments \

Hello!  I’ve knitted the Miette cardigan.  This is a free downloadable pattern by Andi Satterlund
This design first caught my eye when I saw Carmela Biscuit‘s utterly perfect LBC (little black cardigan) during me-made May.  So perfect!  Everyone needs a cardi like this one, I thought.  I mentally filed the name away to check it out sometime… and when the Handmakers Factory announced a Miette knit-along, I discovered it was not only cute, but a fabulously free! pattern!

This is a gorgeous little design, subtle lacework around all borders but with plenty of stocking stitch so you can knit happily in front of the telly and not miss anything.  I really like how it is knitted top-down and all-in-one so that you can try it on as you go to check for fit.  Plus you can keep knitting to add length, using up excess wool should you so desire.   I did so desire, and added an extra two pattern repeats  ‘cos the original is a tad on the tiny side. As in cropped-tiny, not tight-tiny.  More like a bolero than a cardigan really.
Knitting all-in-one-piece also means that once you’ve finished knitting there is not even one single seam to be sewn up.  This is Smart knitting; a new-ish concept for me knitting-pattern-wise but one that I am absolutely head-over-heels in love with already.  Let’s face it; sewing up the pieces is a bit of a pain and everyone hates that bit, right?  Really, a clever designer can easily dispense with all the seams in any knitting pattern, since your garment ends up as a one piece thing then logically there’s no reason why most designs cannot be knitted as one piece as you’re going along.
This should have been a super quick and easy knit, but I still managed to take forever.  It was just one of those projects where nothing seemed to go right.  Following is the truncated saga of my Miette…
Did tension square.  Tension just slightly off but hyper-enthusiastically got going anyway.  Three entire balls later had to admit it was going to be too small.  Unravelled in entirety.  Started again in larger size.  Ran out of wool.  Wool shop sold out.  Wool shop not ever getting it in again.  Searched a coupla real life shops.  Searched online.  Ordered from the UK.  Waiting on extra ball.  Missed end-date for knit-along.  Waiting.  Waiting.  More waiting.   Ball finally shows up, cardigan finished mere hours later, worn and photographed same day, bam!  
Phew, mission accomplished!!!  (air fist pump)

Note to self: SIX balls of the yarn are needed!!

Details:
Cardigan; Miette in Debbie Bliss Donegal Luxury Tweed Aran, in col.Hunter (360026) … SIX balls!
Skirt; my own design, stretchy layered lace, details here
Tshirt (under); self-drafted, white cotton jersey, details here

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Aries

29/03/2013 1:16 pm \ 38 Comments \

Aries; the ram.
But… where is the
ram??  Well I am wearing him!  In the form of my pure wool felt cardigan/jacket.  Baa-aa!
And I did take a picture
of this inquisitive flock of girls while I was driving up the driveway to my parents’ place this morning.  We are here for a big family Easter
shin-dig 🙂
My cardigan was until very recently, a voluminous
drape-y wrap, which I bought in New Zealand a few years ago.  The fabric is so soft and snuggly,
making it beautifully warm and cosy, and I’ve always loved this deep olive
colour.  But the shape, while very fashionable
at the time that I bought it, eventually became very not.  I’m not going to
show you any pictures of me wearing it, as it was.  Especially with my hair… so just picture Samwise Gamgee in
LOTR and you’re getting a pretty good idea!  So unfortunately I have not worn it for aaaages and knew I
never would again either looking like that; but I still loved that soft wool and thought it definitely
deserved a second wind.
I like it all over again now.  I think it turned out sorta like an unstructured
tweed jacket; a casual, playful, loose and floppy version of the landed
gentry’s countrywear, like a cheeky, irreverent, younger brother of the same, if you
like.  And I still have my souvenir from New Zealand, in a newly wearable style  🙂
Details:
Jacket; based loosely on Simplicity 4698,
deep olive felted wool, refashioned from an old wrap
Skirt; my own design
based upon Vogue 7303, white stretch lace, details here
Tshirt; self drafted,
white cotton jersey, details here
Socks; handknitted by me,
to a 1960’s sock pattern, details here
Shoes; Francesco
Morichetti, from Zomp shoes

Warning; technical sewing blahdy-blah from here on  🙂

There were a few little holes, which I darned before doing anything else.

The new design is
partially based on the pattern Simplicity 4698 with major alterations.  Needed partly because of a severe lack of
fabric, and partly because the felt is so thick and spongy it just would not
suit a properly lined and tailored suit jacket anyway.  I have made this pattern up previously four times I
think, only one of which I still have

The pieces were all
reduced in size a lot, basically to match
the regular cardigan size that I wear, and the back princess seams and outer sleeve seams were eliminated.
I made it as a completely
unlined cardigan, with welt pockets.  The sewing lines of the welt are stabilised with a strip of corduroy.
To reduce bulk, because
the fabric really is very very thick! the pockets themselves are just a single
layer inside, sewn directly to the jacket front invisibly by hand.  I used lots of tightly spaced, tiny
stitches around the pockets but hid them inside the felt so they only show up as the faintest shadow on
the  right side of the
garment.  I edged the entire front,
collar, hemline and sleeve hems by turning under a tiny roll of fabric under
the edge and slip-stitching by hand. 
At the roll-point of the collar I switched the turn under to the other
side, to allow the front turnback of the collar to lie flat and true.  Those overlocked seams are remnants of original seams.

On the inside, I hand
slip-stitched all the new seam allowances down to “disappear” as invisibly as possible
against the cardigan, for a neat and tidy inner finish.  Maybe neater than the original overlocked finish, I think  😉
The buttonholes are all
embroidered by hand using 2 strands of embroidery floss, and the buttons are
nacre; sewed on upside down because the rough hewn wrong side of the buttons
was stylistically perfect for the rustic style I was going for.

It is quite a simple
re-fashion, basically a wrap front cardigan has been transformed to a suit
jacket style cardigan.  Not exactly
earth-shattering stoof here.  But I
am happy, since the new style means I am in love with it all over again and
will get a few more years wear out of it!

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Sparkle-osity

19/08/2012 11:28 pm \ 73 Comments \

I had some fabric; fabric that I loved but that intimidated me with its gorgeousness.  It is beautiful and luxurious, and I used to take it out of my stash periodically and smile and sigh over it, admire its intricacy, its texture, bask in its golden glow, and dream of the beautiful garment locked away inside it.  I wanted it to fulfil its promise but I was frightened of ruining it.  I wasn’t sure that I had the skills to make something worthy of it.  Finally I got the courage to release it from years of imprisonment in the stash and allow it to shine…
And now it is: a gold sparkly cardigan!
The fabric is light stretchy jersey knit, that has been fully sewn all over with miniature gold sequins.  It has been in my stash for several years, ever since those happy golden sparkles seduced me during Fabulous Fabric’s annual 50% off all sequinned and beaded fabrics Christmas sale …
The shell of the cardigan is entirely hand-sewn, since very shortly into the project ie. the cutting stage; I realised that no sewing machine needle was ever going to cope with those little metal sequins.
Whilst I was sewing it I found myself chanting in my head a pointless monotonous mantra “I am my own sweatshop; I am my own sweatshop” with a mixture of wonder and disbelief that I was even going down this path.  I mean, I don’t mind hand-sewing.  I even would say I like hand-sewing, I like it a lot! but I have to admit this was a very time consuming project.  A labour of love  🙂

The sequinned fabric was quite scratchy and uncomfortable on the wrong side; so I lined the cardigan completely with a soft, primrose yellow cotton jersey.  This was much quicker to construct, being entirely run up on my overlocker! in fact I had a little chuckle to myself at the difference in time to make the two  🙂  but attaching the cardigan to the lining was also done completely by hand.  They are sewn together around the neckline, the front edges and lower edge, and the two sleeve edges.
Stitch techniques:
Sewing the shell; I stabbed the needle up and down for each stitch in a quilting stitch configuration (two stitches forward, one little stitch back), searching with my needle each time for a gap between sequins or a hole in the sequins.
Sewing the shell to the lining;  the edges of the sequinned shell are turned in over the edges of the lining, encasing it, and slip stitched in place, again searching for the holes in the sequins for each stitch.

For the entire hand-sewing component; I would do a triple stitch repeated in the one sequin for every 5cm of stitching or so, to lessen the chances of the whole thing unravelling if (heaven forbid) a thread does break.  This is not a completely unlikely scenario, since the fabric is, of course; very heavy! which does place strain on the seams.
I have been working on this cardigan on and off for a full month… and I have a massive re-awakened respect for the hand-sewing and beading specialists of India.
Both the cardigan and the liner were cut using my own custom-fit Tshirt pattern, cut with a centre front opening and with a deep Vneck.
I hand-sewed brass press-studs down each front, so I can close the cardigan so it looks like a little Tshirt or jumper, if I want to.

Some might think this a silly and frivolous cardigan, in fact I am a bit nervous about the reaction it is going to get… the last time I posted a sparkly garment on my blog here I received a very back-handed comment  🙁  but I love it and it is going to be a lifelong player in my wardrobe.  This might sound nerdy; but I feel quite exhilarated that this super-exotic thing is now hanging in my wardrobe.  To have something as impractical and fabulous as this in my possession… I feel like an exotic butterfly has flown in through the window and chosen to alight on a hanger in my wardrobe…!
I just hope I can live up to its gorgeousness!

Details:
Cardigan; self-drafted, made of gold sequinned stretch fabric, lined with pale yellow cotton jersey knit
Tshirt; self-drafted, actually the very same pattern as the cardigan! made of white cotton jersey dyed red and brown, details here
Skirt; Vogue 1247, of purple stretch denim dyed brown, details and my review of this pattern here, and this skirt styled in 6 different ways here
Tights; Kolotex
Boots; Sempre di, from Zomp shoes

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