Style Archives - Tailoress Studio

My most recent make is my favourite Autumn dress of all time. My sartorial holy grail for any season is comfy meets pretty. It’s all about comfort for me, but I don’t want that to be at the expense of looking somewhat put together.

This dress can be worn day or evening and to be honest at a push I reckon it’s comfy enough to sleep in! The secret- I designed it to be made in viscose elastane jersey.

For those of you unfamiliar with fabric types, jersey is knitted fabric. The fact that the fibres of this fabric are knitted means that structurally the fabric has a good amount of stretch. Throw some elastane content into the mix and you have an incredibly stretchy, forgiving and comfort focused fabric. The main fibre in this instance is viscose which creates a wonderfully drapey cloth. Did you know that viscose is also naturally breathable and has one of the lowest environmental impacts of all the fabrics out there. Winning all round? I think so.

This dress could easily be styled in a variety of ways. During this transitional time of year my favourite thing to pair it with with has been my veja trainers and various hand knits. The September days here in England have been starting out really chilly and autumnal but by the afternoon it’s like summer is seriously attempting to have its last hoorah. Lose the hand knit, grab the sunnies and the outfit works as well for school pick up as it did at drop off. Once the Autumn takes a firmer hold my knits will get chunkier and my trainers will be switched out for handknit socks and boots.

Chilly legs you ask? Well maybe a little but it’s worth it for the break from eternal jeans.

I’m loving all the moody florals that have been popping up so far this season so this fabric from Minerva crafts was exactly what I was looking for. The black background paired with the autumn toned flora felt perfect for all the autumn prairie styles that I have been coveting.

I love the demure length, contrasted by the long slits. The deep v neckline is flattering and pairs well with a variety of cardigan styles.

I constructed the whole dress on my Decor 3050 which is a combined coverstitch and overlocker machine. I made the majority of the seam allowances 6mm so stitching this together with a 4 thread overlocker stitch was a one step process with no additional trimming required. A cover stitch machine makes sewing jersey to a professional standard a breeze but jersey garments can also be sewn with a beautiful finish on nearly all regular domestic sewing machines.

How do you feel about the idea of a jersey maxi dress like this for fall? Have you made anything similar recently?

Thanks for reading

Ami

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Chunky knit sweaters, blankets, cushion covers… There is something so classic and comforting about the way they look. Gradually the odd one has been creeping into my knitting rotation, the most recent is the chunkiest of all: the Wool And The Gang Cable Bomber.

About the Kit:

The Wool And The Gang Cable Bomber comes as a kit which includes 7 balls of Crazy Sexy Wool yarn which is super soft for anyone who has been wondering. I chose the natural colourway as i have finally embraced the fact that i truly am ALL about the neutrals! The kit also includes the whopping 15mm circular needles, 10mm needles for the ribbing, a cable needle and the pattern in all three sizes.

You can opt out of any of the needles you already own. I needed the 15mm circulars and I am really impressed by the quality. Their join is nice and smooth and the tip is just the right amount of pokey. I was already in possession of these incredible gold glitter Addi 15mm dpns which I was able to use as the cable needle and for the sleeves and for adding some girly glee to my knitting basket.

Difficulty Level:

The Cable Bomber kit is marketed as intermediate but i think an ambitious beginner would be just fine with the plethora of knitting tutorials available on youtube these days.

Construction:

Okay lets talk construction. The wool and the gang instructions would have you knit the body of the cardigan and the sleeves flat. The body is knit in one piece meaning no side seams so that’s FAB, but i wanted to avoid any stitched seams on this project so I did the following things differently than the pattern.

1- I kept my front and back shoulder stitches live and on holders rather than casting them off when instructed. Then I cast off the corresponding right and left shoulder seam together with a three needle bind off. This means less work, less yarn and less bulk in the seams.

2- I decided to pick up and knit the sleeves top down rather than knitting them cuff-up in the flat. This avoided a seam in the sleeve and having to stitch the sleeve to the body. To do this i did need to modify the pattern from flat instructions to ‘in the round’ instrutions which means switching out some knits for purls and vice versa. The cable pattern also needed reversing as i was essentially knitting my sleeves upside down. It was well worth the teeny bit of extra brain power upfront though as i do think seams and super chunky yarn are an undesirable combination best avoided where possible.

Project Speed

The sweater did not take me long, i knit much slower with the huge needles but the fabric grows so rapidly as there are so few stitches compared to a fingering weight or even an aran knitting project. I completed my cable bomber within two weeks!

Much of this cardigan was knit while we watched Safe on Netflix which i recommend if you haven’t seen it! Anyone else addicted to the theme tune?

Knitting With Chunky Yarn

A few people have enquired as to whether working with yarn this chunky and needles this big makes my hands ache and my honest answer is no but this is only because i don’t knit the same way as i do with more ‘normal’ sized needles.

I am both an English and a Continental Knitter and I switch between the two styles depending on the project and to give my hands a rest from the same movement over and over.

When I knit English style I flick rather than throw my yarn meaning that my whole hand doesn’t move, just my right index finger. For my regular knitting this saves me hand-strain. I’m so pleased I learnt this slightly different style of English Knitting and Continental for when my hands need a total change in motion.

However, when knitting on anything approaching this level of chunky I ONLY knit English Style and I throw. By which I mean my whole right hand travels with the yarn all the way around my left needle and my fingers do very little of the work.

I would be in pain in no time were I to let my fingers take up any of the heavy lifting on a project of this weight . So my advice? Learn to throw and do it like a ~~pro~~ absolute novice, seriously, i look like I have literally just learnt to knit when doing this! It will take you longer but pay off in the long run! Hand-ache is just such a bummer.

Wearability

The other big question I’ve had about this garment is it’s wearability. For me this is a coat. It is definitely warm enough to be a coat. Also this garment is just not something that I would find practical to wear while cooking the dinner or doing things like laundry. I may wear it indoors if i were sat watching a movie or reading a book but only if our heating was broken and we were clean out of firewood as this thing is a whole other level of warm!

As a coat it is fabulous. Deeper into the winter I will need some kind of pin to keep it closed. I was thinking something super simple in gold like this which I would also use for shawls and scarves to do the same thing.

My cable bomber was perfect on bonfire night 🙂

Have you knit anything like this before?