This weeks Crafty Bloggers' Club post is from Zareen. You can find more of her makes on Instagram @zareen_kad 

Hello again. It's me, Zareen - a member of Team Crafty Sew and So - coming to you with another blog post. I love to try out new fabrics and patterns, and this time around it was a soft pink Lurex true knit fabric that caught my eye. It looks absolutely beautiful and it’s honestly so soft! As soon as I saw it I knew that I wanted to make something with it, but I had lots of questions on my mind like “where will I wear it?”  I have never worn anything sparkly before! 

I had been resisting the temptation to buy the fabric until a few weeks ago when my girls had a Christmas Jumper Day at school and they wanted to wear something sparkly and bright and cheerful. Then I thought “if they can wear sparkly clothes, why can't I? I have been sewing for more than a year and I don’t own anything sparkly in my wardrobe”. So I paired this beautiful fabric with the new Billie sweater pattern by Tilly and the Buttons. I couldn’t resist those big sleeves - they are new to me and so  I had to give them a try before I decided whether or not they suited me. 

As true knit fabric is very stretchy I went with a size smaller than usual, and I used interfacing on the shoulder seams so they won’t stretch out over time.

I didn’t struggle sewing this fabric. I used my sewing machine with a walking foot and used the lightning stitch on my machine with the stitch width 3.0. When I neatened the edges with my overlocker I set the differential  feed to 2.0 to avoid creating a wavy edge.  Because this fabric is very stretchy I decided to shorten the neckband by 1”.  It worked out beautifully

I was very excited to start working on those big balloon sleeves. Like any sewist I did manage to make a mistake in my excitement. I overlooked and didn’t compare my sleeve measurements. I am a short person and the sleeves are definitely designed for long arms. (My sister-in-law is quite a bit taller than me and when she tried my finished top on, the sleeves looked perfect on her!) 

So the first thought that came to me after trying it on was “ urrrmm I can't  see the cuffs!”  But fear not every sewist knows how to comes up with ideas to rectify the mistake. 

I unpicked the stitches on the cuff and trimmed the sleeve by 3” and sewed the cuffs back on again again as per the instructions. Here is my finished Billie Sweatshirt in the Soft Pink Lurex True Knit Jersey. Ta da!

I really enjoyed sewing this pattern. As I said before, I have never owned a sparkly garment, and this top filled that gap in my wardrobe. I hope you enjoyed reading my blogpost. Thank you for reading it!

Happy sewing!

Zareen

“Crafty Bloggers' Club Contributors are given products and materials to test from Crafty Sew&So. We hope you enjoy their honest and impartial reviews of the products. All opinions are their own.”