Made by Me File: Emerald Isle Knit on St. Patrick's Day. McCall's 6796.

Outfit of the Day portion first followed by the Made by Me Info.

I somehow, and by accident, managed to line up the side seam's pattern exactly right.  I call the "luck of the Irish" on that one.  :-)

Day: Tuesday, March 17, 2015.

Where:  Bowling!  And whatever else happens today.  :-)

Ease of Wear: (4.75 of 5 stars--5 being the most easy to wear.)  Like wearing a pretty sweater tunic pajamas.  It fits, it is super soft, it is paired with leggings, and I am wearing ballet flats.  The only thing that bugs me, and only the tiniest bit, is that I have a bit of excessive ease through the shoulders, but that is certainly better than too little ease.

Cool Factor: (4 of 5 stars--5 being the coolest.)  It's St. Patrick's Day.  I am a good Catholic girl in an area with plenty of Irish-Americans.  It's about as cool as it is possible to be for the day.  5 out of 5 for today, 3 out of 5 for the rest of the year.  So combined and then halved, you have a 4 out of 5.

(And yes, I will be wearing this on other days, not giving a rat's behind if tunics aren't really cool.)

Anecdote of the Day:  Two weeks ago I managed to bowl a game that was 50 points above my average.  Because of this I received a patch with the words "Star of the Week" on it at today's bowling.  Yes!  They see my progress.  Now, true, my bowling score that was 50 above is other people's AVERAGE scores, but I call victory.  LOL.

McCall's 6796. This is a pattern for a top/sweater, not a tunic, but I have seen so many other people be successful in converting top patterns into dress/tunic patterns that I decided with my two yards of Emerald Isle Knit from Fabric Mart (purchased last year at $2 a yard--I still have two yards to go!) I would give this pattern a go in a tunic shape.  Initially I hoped for a dress, but I really wanted long sleeves and the full collar with buttons, so something had to give, so I decided on a shorter length, with full sleeves and collar instead.  I know I could have cut an additional yard or half yard from my extra, but I have plans for that for other projects.

The collar on mine, btw, is cut the opposite way it was supposed to be, but I had to in order to properly fit it on the fabric.  Because this knit has both cross grain stretch and vertical stretch, it was fine.

All the pattern reviews for this pattern talk about how easy this pattern is to make up, and I was like, "sure, if you say so."  Well, yeah, they are right, it cuts easily, it has no darts, and if you use a serger, can be a very quick sew.  The only place I didn't serge was the neckline when attaching the collar and the hems of the sleeves and the bottom.  (On those I used my lightning bolt stitch.  Apparently that one stitch is a bit controversial--???--but I love it for all of my knitted hems and necklines--nice and stretchy.)

Sizing wise, I went with a ten through the shoulders, sleeves, waist and then graded to a 12 at high hip and down to a 14 at low hip/hem.  It was the right call.  The only reason there is even the smallest amount of wrinkling there at my back is because I have some extra ease at the waist (I think the 10 has a measurement of 33" and I am closer to 29"). 

I have one small problem with this pattern and it is the instruction to set in the sleeves.  Why are there any patterns that call for setting in sleeves on a knit pattern?  There are SO many of them!  It is baffling.  Sure, a structured blazer or formal top, but a casual sweater?  Hmm...anyhow, I ignored McCall's and set them in flat.

The fabric is a medium-weight sweater knit and if I recall correctly is a kind of poly knit with some lycra.  Will definitely keep me warm, but have zero plans to wear this in any temps above 75 F.  The fabric was super easy to sew on the serger, it only took the briefest amount of fiddling before I found the proper tensions on the dials.

I had these buttons in my stash.  How Celtic do those look?  Perfect!  I had an additional one, so I could have gone for the third button the way the pattern instructs, but I prefer to places buttons on my dress form, and this combo, in this position, looked best. 

Hope all of you are having a lovely day.  Wear your green and celebrate Ireland!  :-)