I've been waking up earlier and earlier for the last couple of weeks and have finally given in to the fact that I might as well stop fighting it and put the extra hours in my day to good use.
I bought this fabric last month, thinking that I would probably make a dress with it. I can't work out what the exact composition is, but there's definitely some natural fibres in there. The texture creates an almost quilted look, but the surface is almost flat and the sheen makes it look slightly metallic.
So, having woken up at 6am on Friday morning, I decided not to use it for a dress but to make a Linden sweatshirt with it instead. The pattern calls for fabric with a minimum of 20% stretch, and this only has about 15% (and even that's me being optimistic), but because the neckline is fairly large on the Linden, I didn't think that it wouldn't matter too much.
I cut out and stitched the main body of the top before the girls got up for school and then finished the neckline and cuffs off this morning.
The pattern is extremely quick to sew. You can have the whole thing done and dusted in not much more than an hour, especially if you use standard sweatshirting or jersey.
I've never been one for wearing sweatshirts but since making my first Linden a couple of months ago, I've been living in them. I've now made one in a lightweight grey marl, one in a grey sweatshirting, one in shiny spangly stuff and now this one.
This is far and away my favourite so far. The lack of stretch plus the textured weave stops it looking like a sweatshirt, and makes it look so much smarter. Plus I increased the width of the neckband (also the length, to make up for the lack of stretch), making it stand up slightly, which I really like.
Because it's so dark, and doesn't drape like jersey it's really hard to photograph (not that the photobomber helps), but in real life it hangs really nicely and moves well. And it got a proper 'wow' from Jim when I walked in the room.
So in short, I love it. Easy to make, easy to wear and different enough to stop me feeling like I'm in a boring old sweatshirt.
This is me wearing it on a trip to Ikea. And that's us trying to ignore the children in the back of the car....