For years I have been wearing my husbands old sweatshirts. They are XLs and while it was great having big shirts to wear while pregnant, I am very much not pregnant anymore so I finally decided to get out the old sewing machine and make them fit me. I had never refitted anything before. I tried to measure my body and draw an outline but it was still really loose and unfitted. After trying different ways to fix it I finally just threw in the towel and traced a shirt I have that already fits well. And, ta da.. a great fitting shirt.
After I finished that I thought it was too boring of a shirt so when I found this website I was very excited. I also really enjoyed seeing that the blogger was redoing a shirt that hadn’t quite worked out, as I was hitting a lot of stumbling blocks myself. It’s always great to see a reminder that just because something doesn’t come together right, it doesn’t need to be thrown out. With a little work things will come together.
So I followed her patter pretty much straight forward. Obviously I used a sweater instead of a tee shirt, although I did use a tee shirt for the weaving portion. Also I used Heat Bond Ultra Hold as my interfacing, seeing as I had some laying around. My experience with it was good, but for anyone going that route, READ THE INSTRUCTIONS FIRST! I got the whole weave done then realized that the paper was supposed to be on top for ironing and I had it on bottom. Luckily my husband, being the sweetheart he is, helped me to get it turned over with out destroying it.
And there it is. My basket weave sweater. Notice that I sewed around the edges of the weave. The instructions recommended not sewing over the heat bond, but I am young and reckless so I did. I didn’t run into any problems although there was some glue build up on my needle I kept scraping it off. I haven’t checked the bottom of the machine yet but I’m hoping for the best.
The one thing I would change on this is that I would use two colors in the weave to make it stand out more. I think a dark blue or maroon would have looked really good with the gray. So, if anyone decides to try out this pattern I want to see the pictures! It is such a fun design.
Sew In Love 