I am now retiring this pattern, for now anyway. I didn’t plan to make Nathan yet another top with this pattern, but when he wanted a top with an airplane appliqué like Toby I relented and compromised with a sea turtle appliqué. Like the aeroplane applique, it is another free pattern from Helping Little Hands.

So here it is. I have mum to thank for doing the French Knot for the turtle’s eye….thanks Mum! The outer fabric I used on this jumper was a cotton French Terry with 5% Lycra and it was very stretchy. I found it quite difficult to sew until I realized that releasing the tension on the machine foot helps to stop the fabric stretching as I sew, and I have now read that using a walking foot might help….time to find my walking foot, I think! The only bit that I’m really quite unhappy with is that the hood stretched so much when sewing the binding on. On the other hand, I am really happy with the stitching around the pocket openings, sleeve hems (can’t see them in the photos since Nathan has them rolled up to deal with the extra length of the size 104 top on a 95 cm tall boy) and bottom hem. I have been lusting after a coverstitch machine for ages, but I think I am getting better at sewing knit fabrics without one (though I am never happy with the results from using a double needle on t-shirt hems).

This entry was posted on Monday, May 16th, 2011 at 1:55 pm and is filed under Nathan the preschooler, Sewing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.