Wiksten Tank sewing pattern by Jenny Gordy.
Liberty Of London Tana Lawn in Pointillism Orange.
I sewed a garment! As you all know, I have so many hand knit garments, mostly sweaters and mostly cold weather items. Which is all good since I live in Montreal and can wear my worsted weight sweaters 9 months of the year (even some summer evenings). This is the thing. I love sewing, I LOVE fabric, and I love the instant gratification of being able to make a top in an afternoon, so you'd think that all that would add up to a more extensive sewn wardrobe. Here's the kicker: I LOATHE machinery. Stuff with gears. Stuff that can break and requires some engineering or greasing or maintaining or really just any kind of fiddling. Suffice it to say I have a love hate relationship with my sewing machine. Oh! I also HATE all the set up and take down involved in sewing since I don't have a dedicated sewing space and end up pressing on my kitchen counter and sewing on my dining room table. A lot of people are able to make this sort of set up work, but it kind of makes my stomach turn so I very rarely sew at home. Luckily for me, my mother lives a short 10 minutes away and has a very functional, dedicated sewing space in her house. I spent the morning at her place and made this tank there rather than dealing with all the moving parts of my own set up. And there you have it. A big part of why knitting is so awesome and perfect for every single person on the planet is the fact that it's so portable, so accessible, so easy to pick up and put down. There is no excuse not to knit. ;)
Ok, so my beef with my sewing machine aside, I sewed this tank and there are things that I absolutely adore about it and other things that I'm still undecided about, but I suspect that the parts that I love less are more about the learning curve involved in sewing your first garment more than anything else.
What I love: The colour! The fabric! The shape! The fact that I made it and I'm so super proud of those lovely french seams and the pretty near perfect biased edging and that rolled hem that lays flat and doesn't curl and do all sorts of weird stuff that it did in my prototype version! I also find the length of this top really flattering on me. I love that when I wear it under a sweater you can see the bottom peaking out both in the front and the back. The curved hem is a really nice touch and, since I made this myself, I was able to cut the neckline a wee bit higher than the pattern suggested in order to make it hit exactly where I wanted it to. All in all, I'm crazy about it and though I doubt that my sewn wardrobe is going to overtake my hand knit wardrobe any time soon, I am pretty jazzed about having branched out a little bit. Since I had success with Jenny's tank pattern I'm considering trying her other super popular Tova pattern as my next sewing pattern.
I knit this sweater before I planned for this tank but as soon as the fabric I'd ordered arrived I knew that the two were a match made in heaven! This is possibly my current favourite outfit and the fact that I made 2 components of it (I have no desire to attempt making jeans! I don't think I'm that hardcore) is pretty rad. The sweater is a pattern that I am currently working on and that I should have ready for testing soon. Stay tuned!