Time for a cardigan! Lutterloh supplement 301 pattern 189 💕

I can't say I have enough tops and blouses (does any woman ever have enough clothes?👕👖👗) but I've decided to stop with the tops and blouses and make a cardigan so as I can first wear the ones I've already made 😒.  As a Greek in the Netherlands, you might guess that I'm always cold! So in order for me to wear a cute blouse, I need a warm cardigan on top😁

So yea, I'm gonna make a cardigan!
Again a pattern from Lutterloh, this time from supplement 301 pattern number 189:

 Lutterloh supplement 301 pattern 189

Just a simple cardi that goes well with everything!
An easy to draw pattern with minimum alterations for me, 'just' 5 cm off above the waist and we're good to go!

The paper pattern

 Well, no staring at fabrics this time, I've already made my choice! I got this beautiful knit that I bought especially for such a cardigan, also from Driessen stoffen (told you they're my favorite!)
To be honest, I was too scared to just cut my pretty fabric without trying the pattern out first...! Wha.. what if I didn't like it?!😱

So I tried it out first with a fabric that I had gotten from a second hand store! 😋 It was a weird strip of fabric of 70 cm width and 3 meters length, so i just cut it lengthwise. Since I didn't have enough fabric to make it as long as the pattern, I made it approximately 20 cm shorter. It's a knit fabric a bit hairy/fluffy so, for some reason I took for granted that it was 2-way stretch. Excited about seeing how it'd turn out, I didn't pay attention. After cutting it guess what I noticed: it stretches only in the width (my length)... Yaay, I m making an uncomfortable cardigan!

Oh well, the whole purpose here was to test the pattern and see how it fits.
It turned out great! (Apart from the fact that it's too tight on the back and the sleeves, details...😥) Surprisingly the length is also good, just like the drawing. That's I guess an advantage of being short, you need less fabric 😝.
I also left out the welt pockets, ain't nobody got time for that! I made a pair of patch pockets instead.

Here's it is!

The test:front

The test:back

And now that we know it looks gooood, time to make the actual cardigan! 😃
Here's my "preeecious" fabric!:

💗

There's not much to tell about the process of putting it together, quite a straight forward pattern, stitch shoulder and side seams, stitch sleeves and attach them to the cardi. I did make this one a bit longer since I had enough fabric. I didn't make a facing but used stretch piping instead for my test cardigan. For the actual cardigan, I made binding from the same fabric and used it double around the neckline and the front of the cardigan. I also did this for the sleeves.  Finishing off the hem, a button and buttonhole and done! 😁

Front

Up close

Side view

The back

Obviously this is a bit wider than the test cardi since this actually stretches in the direction it's supposed to 😜.

I love this pattern! Great basic cardigan, comfy and flattering,the sleeves are nice and narrow (be careful though if you have fuller upper arms!), just great!💟

I'm definitely going to be making this pattern again, with a few variations maybe? 😏

Lutterloh! Blouse with square(ish) neckline!

And off to the next one! This time I'm making a pattern from Lutterloh!
Somehow my stash has become full of chiffon and other thin woven fabrics, and since I do need some more tops,
I decided to start using some of it.

The pattern that I'm going to be making is from supplement 286 pattern number 181 and this is how it looks:

Supplement 286 pattern 181

After staring at the fabrics for half an hour, rejecting everything and starting all over I chose this beautiful chiffon-ish fabric with a border print I bought a few months ago from one of my favorite online stores: Driessen Stoffen.They are the ones mostly responsible for the mountains of fabric I have! Here's what the fabric looks like:

 I drew my pattern and, as usual, I made my short-person adjustment: removed 4cm length above the waist for both front and back pieces. I usually also have to raise the bust dart as well but on this pattern it looked good enough where it was placed, we'll see how that goes I guess 😁.

I also decided to cut the back on the fold as well, so instead of drawing that back curve on the mid back, I just drew a straight line from the neck mark to the bottom mark. I also left the back darts out since I didn't want to put a zipper on the blouse.

After I measured the width on the bottom of my paper pattern ( I always measure at least the hip width before I cut anything, what a pity it would be if it wouldn't fit in the end!), I decided to add 1,5 cm on both front and back pattern pieces, so that makes a total of 6 cm added width to the circumference of my blouse.

The back after the changes

Aligning  the stripes was easy peasy since there were only a few of them.

All cut!

Now to the construction: Sewing front and back pieces together, nothing special there, but then we come to the neckline... In the picture it shows the blouse with a metallic cylinder thingy that I don't have nor have I any idea where to buy one. So I decided to grab a leather look band that I had, fold it in half , stitch it and use that instead.

Better view of the neckline

Here comes the part where I had to figure how to attach that to the front of my top which was more complicated than I thought. That little piece you have to sandwich between the front neckline and the facing. Putting it on both sides in between and then stitching all around won't work, this way you can't turn your facing under the neckline anymore 😕.

Instead, you have to sew one side first then take that side, twist it around and place the other end of that little strip in between the other side's facing and front neck ( I hope this makes sense...!). For some reason I didn't make any pictures of that, probably because I wasn't sure if that was going to work 😬.

I liked how the neckline was stitched all around a few centimeters from the edge on the picture/drawing so I wanted to do the same. Whoever has ever worked with chiffon knows that it can sometimes be hard to manage and make it stay in place... At this point I came across that problem 😩. After pressing the neckline (which was a bit of a challenge because eh... see above!), I pinned it, measured 2 cm all around and marked it to make sure that my stitching was perfectly straight. Guess what, it wasn't! It was a mess... The fabric was shifting and moving so I ended up taking it out and redoing it and this is the result:

Finished neckline

The thread color was fortunately quite forgiving! Good enough right?😐  Well, that's the best I could do!
Next, stitch the sleeves and add the little blue borders and in the process a nice blood stain on the inside of one of the sleeves because a pin was mean to me 😢

And it's all done! 💕

Supplement 286 pattern 181 front

Supplement 286 pattern 181 sleeve

Supplement 286 pattern 181 back

I guess I can say I'm quite happy how it turned out even though it's a liiittle bit tight around the bust. I'm really glad I measured the hip circumference before cutting, as you can probably see, it was kinda needed 😌.
Nice pattern, everything as it supposed to be, I might even make one more of those although I'd go for a different fabric, viscose perhaps?

Hmm, what should I make next? 😬