Fall Liknit

A while ago I bought a couple of yards of PyLos LiKnit in almost every color. I’ve previously used the black, seafoam, lavender, and linen colors. There are also several lovely warm Fall colors that I have been contemplating using in coordinating garments for months.

I started with a pair of orange pants (LiKnit “metal rust” color), very similar to my previous Pattern Emporium Urban Boldly mashup pants with the low rise size AU 10 Urban pants mashed with the Walk Boldly wide leg and a high contour waistband lined in athletic knit. This time I tweaked the contour waistband a bit from my last mashup and sewed half-inch elastic into the waistband.

I wanted a LiKnit top to go with the pants. I previously had made a black Sinclair Bondi LiKnit top, but I find the LiKnit doesn’t quite stretch enough around the bust and has drag lines, even though I sized up. I decided either darts or a boxier cut was probably needed for a LiKnit top so I went with the Sinclair Loop drop shoulder knit top pattern, which I had previously used to make a sweater. I made this one in Marsala LiKnit with the scoop neck, cropped length, simple hemmed bottom. I think this pattern works well with the LiKnit fabric. The LiKnit stretches surprisingly well for the neck band. I would like to try this pattern with a narrower neck band too. I think the split hem might also work well with this fabric.

I actually finished the top and pants back in August and took them on my Switzerland trip. I didn’t post these photos earlier because I have plans to complete my me-made Fall ensemble with a jacket made from light mustard LiKnit. But I’ve been super busy with other things, my sewing machine is in the shop, and I need to finish a quilt and some pants for my daughter before I sew any more clothes for myself. So the mustard jacket may not materialize for a while. In the mean time, I’ve been wearing the outfit with a store-bought purple sweater. I also have a surprising number of other tops and jackets in my wardrobe that go with orange pants… who knew?

Before I took my youngest daughter to college in August, she insisted that I make her some more black “flowy pants.” She has a pair of black LiKnit pants I made using the Sinclair Cleo pattern extended into palazzo pants that she wears pretty much non-stop. They have held up really well through lots of wear and wash and dry cycles. They are not stretched out and have no pilling. Unfortunately, they did come in contact with a spot of bleach, so there is a light spot that my daughter periodically colors in with a black sharpie. Anyway, she asked for another pair of black LiKnit flowy pants, as well as black ponte pants for cooler weather. She is about the same size as me but taller and a little slimmer so I used the same Pattern Emporium Urban Boldly mashup approach with the same base size as I used for my orange pants, but added 1.5 inch to the waist height (basically the high-rise version plus an extra half inch) and didn’t shorten the leg before hemming. The pants fit her very well and she loves them, but I didn’t manage to get a photo before she packed them up to take to college. She asked me to make another pair just like them in black ponte and send them to her.