Sweat Courcelles

When I bought this pattern from Cozy Little World, it was with the intention of making the jacket that’s included in the pattern – Gilet Monceau. Well, somehow that hasn’t happened (yet), but instead I ended up making the other style included in the pattern – Sweat Courcelles.

When Miss Matatabi recently had a sale, I finally grabbed the opportunity and bought some of the really cool spacer knit Frances has in her shop. It’s usually a little expensive, so how could I say no when it was on sale? The fabric is partly made of polyester, something I don’t buy very often, but this time I just had to. I think I might get really warm wearing this as a dress, for example, but I think it works pretty well for a sweater.

The fabric is really hard to capture in a photograph, since the print itself is kind of “blurry” and easily looks overexposed in the pictures. The photos on France’s homepage are very accurate, while my pictures might show the fabric a little darker and with higher contrast than in reality.

When it arrived I was a little frustrated by another project and needed something simple to get me going again. And I really wanted to use the scuba as soon as possible! Although I love the flower print, the idea of making a tight scuba dress of this fabric intimidated me a little, while the idea of a boxy sweater seemed perfect.

I do love the Bento Tee, but I didn’t want to have dropped sleeves for this sweater. I also thought of making a Linden Sweater or a Lane Raglan, but didn’t want raglan sleeves either. I looked through my patterns and stumbled over the Sweat Courcelles – perfect!

The scuba is really easy to work with, you can just lay it on the floor and cut right around the pattern piece, without being afraid of wrinkles or the fabric shifting, and it doesn’t stretch a lot while you’re sewing.

I made the Sweat Courcelles even more simple than the pattern intends them to be, since I removed the sleeve cuffs and the band at the hem. Instead I lengthened the main pattern pieces and the sleeves a little. I tried using a band for the neckline, but the thick scuba isn’t lying flat, although I topstitched it. But I actually don’t mind the neckband standing a little, it’s cute and reminds me of my Bento Tee, where the wool is so thick that the neckband isn’t lying flat, either.

The only thing that didn’t work out so great with this sweater are the serged edges. They feel kind of hard and are scratchy, especially around the neck. I’m not sure why this happened, but I think I need to sew a thin jersey band on top of all the seams to be able to wear the sweater a lot without getting itchy.

Anyway, I’ll fix that as soon as I have the time (and the desire to deal with it…) and when that’s done, this is going to be a sweater that’s going to be worn a lot.

– This blog post is linked to the German blogger party RUMS. –