Frigid weather continues so I decided to cut up another piece of warm sweater knit from my stash: Morraine double cashmere in the all spice color with matching Banff ultra thick 1×1 rib knit, both from Surge (but no longer stocked). It is not actually cashmere: it is a soft 320 gsm 44.5%Rayon/35.9%Poly/19.6%Nylon fabric with 4-way stretch. I previously used the kelp color to make an oversized Pattern Emporium Sweet Cheeks v-neck sweater. I wanted to try a different pattern for the Morraine this time, something roomy, but less oversized. I decided to hack the Sinclair Soho Relaxed Dolman top pattern a bit to make this happen. I had made a ribbed sweater with the Soho pattern and then hacked it to keep the bodice and sleeves all one piece and made a lavender tunic. I wanted to try the sleeve hack again, but this time at a shorter length and with ribbed cuffs.

I cut out the bodice and sewed together the center seams (in the past I cut on the fold and omitted them) and then attached the ribbed V-neck. The center seam didn’t lie that flat with the bulky fabric, and when I top-stitched it down it was a little lumpy. The thin v-neck did not work well with the Banff rib and stretched out quite a bit. All of this would have worked fine with a different fabric, but it was not great with the fabric I was using. I thought about ways to save it, and I could have made it work, but I didn’t think I would be completely happy with it. I finally decided that since I had enough fabric left, I would make some modifications and try again. V1 goes into the scrap bin and will get turned into something else later.

The second time around I cut the front and back bodice each as one piece without the center seam. The sleeves are extended 7.5 inches and the bodice shortened by 6.5 inches from the top length. Instead of the v-neck that comes with Soho, I used the v-neck from the Pattern Emporium Sweet Cheeks sweater size AU6, which I had used before with the Banff. Since there are only two pieces, the bodice was very quick to assemble. The v-neck takes some time to get right. The bottom band and cuffs (the tall cuffs from the Sinclair Crew pullover pattern) went on pretty easily. I used my sewing machine for some v-neck basting, to sew the three pieces of the neck band together, and to join the ends of the cuffs and bottom band. Everything else was serged. The double-knit is the same on both sides, but the rib-knit is brushed on one side. I made the kelp sweater with the brushed side out, this time I turned it the other way for more define ribs.

So, in the end, this was a mashup of three different patterns plus hacking the sleeves. I’m quite happy with the result. I like the roomy, but not oversized fit of the bodice, which provides more shaping. It is a bit of an unusual sweater sleeve with seams on both the top and the bottom. It would also be cute to add a stripe to the top or to use different colors for the front and back.