Can you also sew knitted sweaters?

I love knitwear. Unfortunately, what I don't love is knitting. I can knit and purl, it looks pretty neat, but it always takes sooooo long for me that bigger projects are out of the question. Hats and scarves - doable. Sweaters or cardigans? Help no!

Sometimes you can also find beautiful knitted fabrics by the meter in fabric shops. Far too seldom, in my humble opinion, but they do exist. So I built a suitable pattern and sewed two sweaters as test objects.

Sweater number one is knitted from a very fine yarn, 100% virgin wool. The pattern is also very fine. Unfortunately, the fabric already had a small hole when it was bought, but it was easy to plug. No new holes have been added so far.

The material was very pleasant to work with. The bust darts did not cause any problems either and are not bulky.

I love this sweater. It's already got a lot of wear time. So far, the fabric is also quite dimensionally stable. Unfortunately, only the collar is a bit short, so I usually don't wear it turned up.

The material for sweater number two is rather borderline. The fabric is knitted from thick wool (mostly virgin wool, but I think there is still a bit of synthetic fiber in it) and has a rather rough pattern. The pattern literally dissolves into its components when you look at it. Immediately after cutting, I overlocked all parts with the overlock and so far nothing has ripped. Keep your fingers crossed that it will stay that way.

I didn't trust bust darts in the fabric any more than cuffs, I feared that it would get a bit thick. This is definitely desirable for the collar though.

Without a bust dart, the front part naturally slides up a bit, but since the cut has a different length at the front and back anyway, this is not so noticeable. After sewing the fabric there was a lot of waviness, but that seems to be slowly giving way. I only washed the sweater after sewing it, because of the risk of tearing it off. It won't go into the washing machine anyway. ;)

My conclusion: Yes, you can also sew knitted sweaters. However, the rougher material sometimes presented my machines with quite a challenge. Sewing on the collar almost failed because the fabric barely fit under the presser foot. An overlock for overcasting the edges seems to me to be almost a must.

Oh yes, and about the pattern: I actually wanted to have it ready for Christmas 2020 and have it ready for you as a Christmas present. Unfortunately, the plan didn't quite work out, but I bet you'll still be happy about gifts in January, right? ;)

I still have to deliver pictures with the instructions. But before it gets too warm for a sweater afterwards, I finally wanted to publish the pattern.

Free

Sweater "Azalea"

Azalea is a pattern for medium weight knitted fabrics, sweat or cooked wool.

The back is longer and a slit is worked into the side. A version can be sewn with and without bust darts and with or without cuffs.

Severity:

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