Project 1 - Flyaway Cardigan - 1,000 Days Left

Cost Breakdown
Pattern: $1.00 (normally $17.95)
Fabric: $2.76 ($1.47/yard, normally $2.95/yard)
Thread: $2.79
Total Cost with tax: $7.16

This project was fairly easy as my first project, though cotton jersey knit isn't exactly a breeze to work with. I started with this pattern made by McCall's.

It was fairly simple to cut out, though I have to say, the promise of a "1 hour cardigan" is really deceiving. I'd say all together it probably took me about 5 or 6 hours, between cutting, ironing, and assembling.

And can I just say too that cotton jersey knit is not only semi-difficult to sew, but it's really difficult to cut too, due to the stretch. This might not have been the wisest of first projects...

Bobbin's wound... Here we go. (Cheap Tip: This is probably just a bit of my OCD coming through, but I tend to wind only a small amount of thread on the bobbin so as not to waste any, mainly because I only have 4 bobbins total and I'm too cheap to buy more.)

One of the first steps is putting darts in the front of the cardigan. This is where the learning process comes in, because it took me a good 30 minutes to figure out exactly how best to approach these darts. I think a YouTube tutorial would have been a good way to go at this point, but eh, I preferred to wing it!

After drawing the lines for my darts, sewing it was pretty simple... Just sew down the line. I will say at this point I started noticing that my needle was catching a bit, and I figured it was mainly due to the fabric I was using.

So I changed my needle to one meant for more delicate fabrics and it was life-changing... Well, maybe just moment-changing. Off I continued...

Mmm clean lines, pretty seams. Next I had to pull out the most important of all sewing tools...

Yes, that's right, coffee. Coffee makes me drool like beer makes Homer Simpson drool, and it's 50% of my blood composition.

Thanks to the coffee I was able to zoom through and finish up the armholes at 12:00AM. At this point my baby's been sleeping for a couple of hours. The old saying goes "Sleep when they sleep," but sleep is for the weak, and I am not weak, I am on a mission to sew!

So here's the finished product (along with the photo I posted at the top). For some reason the focus on my camera decided to get screwy at the end of the night, so I will attempt to take better pictures tomorrow.

Overall rating of project: I'd say this is a fairly simple project, especially for the cost. These sweaters sell for upwards of $50+ in stores, so it was definitely worth it. However, the fabric is kind of difficult to work with for a beginner, so it might be better to get a little more experience with something less stretchy like cotton before taking this project on. I had fun though and can't wait to wear this over a white long-sleeve shirt or over a tanktop this summer. :)