A Julia sweater variation

Like I mentioned before when I posted about my first Julia, my breast and waist usually do not fall in the same size category (44 versus 40). For my first Julia I did something resembling a full breast adjustment, this time for my second Julia I did something different. I added a horizontal line by splitting the front piece just below my breasts to accentuate both my breasts and waist.

The Lillestoff jersey I used had been in my stash for over a year. It was one of the first jersey's I bought for some selfish sewing. I bought one meter without a specific project in mind. Shortly after I bought this jersey, I found several nice women fabrics and this fabric kind a moved to the bottom of my stash.

Last time (also my first time) I sewed a Julia, I first added fabric to the middle of the sweater to accommodate my bigger breast size in a size 40 sweater, to later see that I had to remove the approximately the same amount of fabric under my arms. Lillestoff is very stretchy and I decided to just risk it and to make a size 40 allover. When I started to draw my pattern pieces on the fabric I realized I again had been too optimistic about how much fabric a women's sweater (and especially a Julia) needs. There was no way I was cutting the two basic Julia pattern pieces in one piece from this fabric. Those are the moments that my creativity thrives and I decided to add the horizontal bar just below my breasts. Those horizontal stripes are also often found in store bought cloths, but they are never on the place I would like them to be. The stripe usually ends up somewhere around my nipples.

I measured the distance from the waist up to just below my breasts on my first Julia. to determine the optimal position of the bar. I cut a five centimeter wide strip from rib knit with a width of a few centimetres shorter than the main pattern pieces. I am very satisfied with how the sweater turned out. The fabric is not to tight around my breast and nicely curves around them.

I do not like throwing fabric away, but I also do not like all those small fabric scraps that I will probably never use but are taking up quite some space in my fabric closet. I usually cut and sew all the projects I want to make from a fabric at once, to avoid having to add to my very wobbly scraps pile. From the scraps for this sweater I managed to cut a baby onesie, but I had to be extra creative with the front pattern piece.

Our kids are very skinny and store bought onesies just keep on slipping from their shoulders. A year ago I  sewed three great baby onesies (which are unblogged). In the summer I tried to sew four more in a bigger size, but this lead a very frustrating sewing experience. I opted for a fast binding method and used a zigzag to quickly get that over a meter of binding done.

This left me with only a few scraps which deed not exceed my imaginary 15 times 15 centimeter or longer than 25 centimeter strips criteria, which I therefore just thew away (it feels like swearing when I am speaking about throwing away scraps). I already have enough small strips which might once be used to fill two pillows, so please please do not give me new ideas how to use those small scraps!

Feel free to leave a comment in the language you prefer (although Google translate might have to assist me if you choose something different than English, German, Dutch or Hungarian).