Appleton Dress My Review

When Kent and I were in the hospital in August I spent a lot of long nights scrolling my phone waiting for the midnight nurse to do her thing so I could go to sleep. It was during one of those nights that I came across Cashmerette's blog and discovered the amazing things she is doing for the curvier sewing community.

Side note: I almost never sew for myself. It is hard sewing for me. Patterns always have to be adjusted and mistakes are much more costly. If I mess up a dress for Lorelai it's not much more than a yard of fabric lost. If I mess something for myself it's often 3 or more yards down the drain.

So finding Cashmerette's blog was so exciting for me! She has been sewing her way through many, many patterns, blogging her adjustments and sharing what is worth making again and what was not. After following her blog for a month+ I felt motivated to try making myself something. I've been eyeing the ginger jean pattern and a few Simplicity patterns but then Jenny dropped an awesome bomb two weeks ago. A Cashmerette pattern release! The Appleton Dress is the first pattern by Jenny Rushmore. It's available in print or PDF and for sizes 12+ with a C-H bust. Be still my heart, no full bust adjustments required!! The Cashmerette team even offered a pattern and fabric option as it is so difficult to find quality jersey knit.

My mom bought me the kit for my birthday!!

The packaging is beautiful and I really love the instructions made up into a booklet. Cutting the tissue pattern was no joyful basket of flowers but then I never enjoy dealing cutting out patterns and fabric. The need to cut out patterns and material will often put me off starting a project.

Now the sewing, this dress was so fun to sew! The instructions were flawless and I sewed up the entire dress in two hours :D There's really nothing more to say about that: the notches lined up, the sequence of instructions flowed smoothly, and the sizing was accurate. Happy, happy sewing day!

There was only one problem with this whole experience and that was the fabric that came with the kit. The kits were advertised with, "we know how hard to find quality knit is so we've done it for you". I was stoked! It IS hard to find quality knit in fun prints. Unfortunately, the fabric didn't hold up to the hype. When it arrived I was a bit disappointed because it was thinner than I had imagined. After I pre-washed it I was really disappointed because it has already faded a bit and has that pill-y quality that some knit fabrics get. Finally, when I put on my dress, even though the fabric wasn't overly stretched across my chest the pink of my bra showed through. All that said, I still like the dress, I will still wear the dress (with an undershirt ;)) and I will be making another one! I have a gift card to Joann's burning a hole in my pocket... maybe today is the day, ha!

Spun Sugar Knitting Pattern

While I was hanging out on Instagram the other day I scrolled upon (you know, like stumbling upon) @stitchmischifs knitting project and it was love at first sight! I had to have that pattern immediately. I did some minor stalking and found the pattern called Spun Sugar on Craftsy.com by Anadiomena.

I wanted to link to it but for some reason I can not find it again searching through Craftsy.

My mom bought the pattern as a gift and I was casting it on to my needles that same evening.

I have been knitting for only about 4 years now and only made two complete sweaters. The broncos sweater I just made is on time out in the kids closet because everything was perfect until the very last minute. His head wont go through the neckhole. I was so angry at it I had to banish it to the closet for the time being. The other one I made was a pretty blue sweater Lorelai. I was working on it last fall just before Mark was born and kept thinking, "there's no way that I'll finish this before Baby gets here!" but I was so wrong. I finished it and I was in love with it. Coming off of that finish I was feeling like I could handle ALL THE KNITTING patterns. Up until recently I was feeling really confident in my knitting skills and on top of that @stitchmischeif mentioned that this bodice pattern is GENIUS! 

Ugh. Maybe it is. Maybe I got too big for my britches but I struggled with it. I unknit and reknit a lot. Then I did it again. I battled my way through this sweater and fell out of love with it for a quite a while. When it came time to decide to add pockets or not I had, had so much bad luck deciphering this pattern I said heck no to dealing with pockets.

Now in the original pattern the designer had put rings around the bottom of the sweater but I really didn't care for them. They looked out of place to me so I opted out on the rings and threw in some cables instead, to tie in with the shoulder detail. Now my inexperience really is showing. What I didn't know before, but I do know now is that, that many cables would cinch the sweater together.


At the end of the day this was supposed to have a bolero-esque look to it anyway so I don't really care. I still like how the sweater turned out and I've learned a lot of lessons. The experience is too fresh I don't think I could knit this pattern again anytime soon but maybe sometime down the road.

I am interested in trying another one of her patterns though. I'm curious to know if my issues stemmed from

• My deciphering skillz
• If it just happens to be the way this designer explains things
• Or was is a fluke

  I'm considering this one called Sweet Poppy.
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What do you think of Sweet Poppy?

Is it worth trying another pattern by this same designer?