Love Affair

What's this? A Love Affair? Desperate Housewives episode you ask? No! Not at all. I've fallen in love with sewing knits these days! So much fun and sew easy ;) I don't know why I waited so long. I've only scratched the surface starting with these pieces but I tell you a bazillion more are planned. It's too fun to stop!

Here's is an Ottobre Designs pattern done in a pique knitAdmittedly not the best for achieving a nice lettuce edge, simply because you need to be able to stretch the fabric alot, and pique knits aren't as stretchy. Still, this first attempt worked out well. And then there is the FOE - that's sew speak for Foldover Elastic. Where has this stuff been all my life? Seriously, this makes knits completely painless - delivers a beautifully finished edge with stretch and return and looks great too. Oh and did I mention that it's foldover, so there is that nice easy to turn groove in the middle of it! Can't get any easier. Hmm there is a commercial in there somewhere...
Attempt 2 is a plain brown turtleneck spiced up with pink lettuce edging (another Ottobre Designs pattern). The turtleneck matches my new cupcake twirl skirt design. This top is made of cotton lycra and is very stretchy thus delivering a very nice lettuce edge. Used a wooly nylon thread here to really fill out the stitches and show off the pink contrast stitching.

True, I used the serger to achieve that nice rolled edge effect - while not absoluetely necessary, I'm pretty sure you need the serger to achieve a professional look.

The finished set. Now go buy some knit fabric and give it a go!