Friday Night Out Cardigan

I haven’t spent too much time lately sewing for myself. It’s been all about the kids. But my hubby and I had a night out that we’ve been planning for months and I wanted something new to wear.

I’ve had this piece of grey/silver/black sweater knit for more than a year (another awesome remnant bin find at SR Harris) and I had been thinking I wanted it to become a long cascading cardigan, and I had two patterns to choose from.

McCalls 6408 or

McCalls 6084

After looking over reviews on both patterns, I chose the second, M6084. Mostly because there were fewer pieces so it would sew up faster. I was, after all, just deciding to do this the day before our night out. =)

And it did sew up quickly, I constructed it mostly on my serger, with the exception of the shoulder dart. I sewed the sleeves in flat and it was finished in about 20 minutes. And it was enormous!! I cut out the XS and I was swimming in it.

The biggest problem was the shoulder fit. Or lack of fit. The shoulder seam fell off the edge of my shoulders by a good inch (it actually looks better in this picture than it did in real life). And the sleeve had an outrageous amount of ease.

So I cut off the sleeves, and scooped out an inch of the armscye from the shoulder seam to about halfway to the underarm seam, tapering to nothing. Then I sewed the sleeves back on (this time not in the flat as the underarm and side seams were already finished) and it was MUCH better!

This is after the first shoulder/sleeve was corrected, comparing it to the non-corrected side. See how much shorter I needed to make that shoulder seam. And I have broad shoulders! (and this was an XS!!)

Then, the second fit issue was just a matter of it was too big all around. I ended up taking it it 1 inch (so 4 inches total) at the side seams and I narrowed the sleeves by two inches each. Ah, much better again. Looking back at the pattern envelope, I realize it was intended to be loosely fitting, but it didn’t translate well in real life. It still is loosely fitting, just in better proportions for me.

Now the only downside: the sleeves came out too short! I added 1” in length when cutting, but I think the sleeves were on the short side to begin with (should have measured!!) and shortened even more after the shoulder correction. So I ended up wearing it pulled up to a 3/4” length for the evening. I think I’m going to go back and add cuffs to make them truly long sleeves.

This is how I wore it out last night. It was very comfortable and warm! I left the hem unfinished for now, since it’s a knit and it doesn’t ravel. I do want to finish it with a rolled hem in my serger, but I didn’t have the right shade grey/silver of thread on hand.

Over all, I’m really happy with it! Now that I know what changes to make, I do already have another sweater knit that I will use for this pattern.

Pattern Review can be found here.