I was recently in Denver and I visited a little craft shop call Fancy Tiger Crafts, where a I hit a treasure trove of independent sewing patterns.  While I was there, I purchased a few downloadable sewing patterns available on Indie Sew.  One of those was the Julia Cardigan by Mouse House Creations.  You can read more about my haul here, in this post.

I’ve been making a lot of cardigans lately.  Mostly because I need a collection of layered pieces for work, and I can NEVER seem to find exactly what I need in the mall.  It’s soo much faster to just make what is on my mind, not to mention more cost effective!  FFC recently had a $3/yd anniversary sale and I picked up a bunch of solid ITY knits for my cardigans.  ITY knit has a mechanical stretch, meaning that the stretch is due to the knit and not necessarily due to the fiber type (like lycra, for example).  These knits, if they include rayon fiber, are incredibly soft and drapey.  I love them for this particular pattern.  For this project, I used the “egg shell white” color.

The downside to “print at home” patterns is that you have to go through the extra step of trimming and taping pieces together.  As you can see below, I made a huge mess! I cut this out, based on my measurements, in a small all over, grading to medium in the bust and arms.  I double checked the sizing by flat measuring the back and shoulders.  The fit was very true to size.  The one alteration that I forgot to do, was shorten the arms.  I’m 5’3″ and I usually have to take out 2″ on the long sleeves (oops).  A word of caution regarding this pattern … it calls for a lot of fabric, especially due to the long sleeves.  I did some creative arrangement, and I was able to make this out of 1.5 yd of the solid color wide knit.

Printing, Trimming, Taping and Cutting “print at home” patterns makes a big mess!

The construction was very straightforward, but a bit fussy due to having to align the huge collar to the body.  As you can see in this picture below, I used gravity to my favor when pinning it to prevent twisting by draping over my ironing board.  I also understitched the facing because it appeared from the model photos that the collar definition seems to slouch away, and I didn’t want this effect.  Because the sleeves were wayyy too long, I used a piece of elastic and “saved” the project by adding “ruched” sleeves.  I actually really like this addition and will keep it for future copies!  Below is the finished version, front and back, before washing.  Featured photos above show the cardigan after it has been washed.