Hey June, let's make a Tallinn
Don’t you mean let’s go to Tallinn?
Haha, yes I know Tallinn is Estonia’s capital on the Baltic Sea but I’m not sure if indie pattern company Hey June named her sweater after that.
Usually when someone says jumper I think thick, uncomfortable, bulk, wooly thing and when someone says sweater I think of thinner material, but for me this garment could almost be a long sleeve top.
I was recently looking for a top that had an asymmetrical front and some sort of cowl neck to it but I couldn’t quite find a RTW (ready to wear) top that had the type of detail I wanted. I wanted a long sleeve top with a cowl neck but I wanted something more eye catching than just a Primark long sleeve cowl top. That’s when I stumbled across Hey June’s Tallinn sweater, a drop-sleeve top that had options for a turtleneck or slouchy cowl neck. As I already had my eye on another pattern for a turtleneck sweater I opted to make the slouchy cowl neck. Tallinn’s front features an asymmetrical cross-over bodice finished with bands. It wasn’t exactly what I wanted but its front detail made me curious to find out how the construction of the piece went.
Still keeping true to my 2019 resolutions and #sewfrosting I decided to break out from the dark colours and try something a little lighter. Despite the challenge of sewing a new sweater pattern by a new indie company that I hadn’t ever tried before, I had also decided to make it out of this gorgeous polyester crepe fabric called Florenza, in Dove Grey from Minerva Crafts. It is very soft, has a great finish and has lots of drape. As you may know from previous makes, I’ve been struggling with much thinner and slippery fabrics and some parts of my garments have puckered due to my struggles.
Everytime I use crepe fabric I always have to look up which side is the right and the wrong side of the fabric. This might sound silly but as most of the fabrics that I use are plains it is sometimes difficult to work out whether the rougher side is the right side; it turns out that yes the rougher textured side is the right side of crepe fabric.
As this garment is asymmetrical I didn’t think twice about reading the instructions and ended up with the usual two pieces per pattern piece, where the pattern instruction only called for 1 piece for most of the pattern pieces. What a wally. The pattern said that between sizes XS and M I would be looking to use 1.8m (2 yards) of 55’ fabric and even with my blunder I only used up 1m - I guess I’ll be making another version of this sweater but perhaps a little bit modded to use the pre cut pattern pieces. I did struggle with the neck pattern as it called for a double fold in the fabric. I recommend copying out the pattern piece to either the full size or even half to remove the second fold. This would also help if you wanted to add more length to your cowl but you didn’t know which folded side to add to.
With thinner fabrics I usually struggle when sewing more than one layer of fabric and often one will end up being much longer or shorter than the other. As I didn’t have a walking foot, like the pattern called for, I added more pins and just really took my time at sewing my seams, trying to make sure that I wasn’t over stretching either the top or bottom layers. Everything was going so smoothly that I managed to forget about sewing the neckline altogether. Not to be put off, I stitched slowly from the point of one shoulder seam to the next instead.
In the end, I’ve got to say that this make was most definitely a good one. I finished with no puckering at the seams, each joining piece lined up perfectly next to each other and the weight of the fabric was divine. Personally, I don’t like the feeling of crepe and the colour really washes both me and my model out. I really enjoyed the make of this sweater and if the fabric was a darker colour, and yes probably black, it would have been in the heavy rotation pile. I very much like the style of it and the asymmetrical style livens up what could of just been an ordinary cowl neck top into something more. This style gave me feels of sci-fi end of the world style and I would definitely make this again in a darker colour, different fabric and extend the cowl; I’m a sucker for anything that has a large hood or cowl.
A note on the instructions
I’ve been noticing that, predominantly, the instruction booklets aren’t as good as they should be. I’m not pointing the finger at any one company, but it is definitely quite widespread in the lack of clear formatting of instructions. Perhaps it is because I’m an adventurous sewer, who enjoys trying out different pattern companies, that I’ve noticed more than others. I get to compare different company styles of writing instructions, which helps make it clear to me, as an intermediate sewer, what is good and what isn’t. For example, I never print out my instructions and prefer to keep them as digital copies. I know that usually in the pattern front cover will have colour and different text styles such as bold, underline or italics and then no where else - how strange is that? I think companies and makers neglect the instructions quite a bit and I would like to see this change in the future, making it easier for all sewers and not just the ones that have the years of experience or someone to point things out to them.
