Why I Love Sewing With Knits

This is my finished Coppelia.  I was disappointed with the fit when I first tried the ballet cardigan on – look at how baggy it is!!  I cut out an XS, which matched my waist and hip measurement and had a slightly bigger bust measurement, but never expected the ease to be so dramatic.  If I wanted a loose, casual fit I wouldn’t mind how this turned out, but I was picturing a fit more like on the model.  I want to wear this over cute dresses this spring.

Here’s another view with my arm down.  Look at the pooling of fabric at the underarm!  There’s a lot of excess going on here because the raglan depth is too large.

So what’s a girl to do?  Whip out her french curve and flexible ruler, roll up her sleeves, and get down to business.

I tried the cardi on inside out and pinned the left sleeve and side to how I wanted it to fit.  After I took the cardi off, I marked with a chalk pencil where I placed the pins and used my curved ruler to “connect the dots” and smooth out the new sewing line.  After trying it on after sewing, to make sure I got the fit right on the left side, I used my flexible ruler and shaped it to mimic the new stitching line.  Then, I lined up the shaped ruler on the opposite side of my cardigan.  A little tracing, some more stitching, and boom – I took out all the excess fabric and got the fit I wanted.  It was a good two inches I took out of the underarm, can you believe it?

And that’s why I love sewing with knits – I don’t think I could have done a fit adjustment this easily with a woven garment.  Can you imagine correcting the armscye?  Not to say it’s impossible to do, but correcting ease is much simpler in a knit garment. The stretch nature of knit fabric is so forgiving and it’s easy to get the fit just right.

I’m sitting on my couch wearing my new cardi as I type this post.  I can’t wait to share pictures of the finished garment!