FINISHED! The inside out cocoon cardigan

It's a little bit embarrassing to admit that for the second week in a row, I've copied  been inspired by the Project Sewn outfit by Groovy Baby and Mama.  This week it is the Burda Cocoon Cardigan.

It's starting to get cold now as Autumn starts to look to Winter and when I saw the Cocoon cardigan I knew that I needed this snuggly in my wardrobe and I knew exactly the fabric for it.  For a while now I'd been eyeing off a ginormous roll of knitted boucle type fabric at Addicted to Fabric, called Colombine  (Style 70031427: width 145cm 30% polyseter, 65% wool, 5% mohair). It is quite thick but there are some gaps in the weaving which provide little air holes (Have a look at the photo of the insides to see this effect).  It was rolled with the boucle side (left) out but for some reason I always thought that this was the wrong side and that the simple stocking stitch side (right) was the correct side.

I bought and taped up the pattern on Thursday and on Friday raced off and bought 2 metres of the fabric in my lunch hour, only to find from the lovely ladies at A2F that my assumption of what was the right and wrong sides was completely wrong. Never mind, I prefer the wrong side.

I had done a little bit of research on the fit of this jacket, which is gigantic. I was worried about it swamping me and so I read in detail the Ginger Makes post and comments on her cardigan.

I'm 5'2" (at a push) so I made the following adjustments on the 36:

• No hem allowance and removed 20cm through the waist
• No hem allowance on the sleeves, they are overlocked and underturned by about 15cm.  One thing I noticed about a lot of the versions was the length of the sleeves that in my opinion seemed too long. I haven't yet stictched the sleeves down, but I will along the seams. I like the weight that this large underturn provides in the sleeves
• I took a small wedge from under the arms as there was just way too much fabric there. There is still a lot but it is better.

I used the same fabric for the inseam pockets - I wanted them to be snuggly as well and there is already so much bulk with this cardigan that they don't add extra bulk.

I admit to having white line fever with this make and it might not be my best sewing.  I sewed it up on Friday night and got it into my head that I wanted to wear it the next day so sewed beyond where I should have.

 The instructions call for you to bind the seams but I convinced myself with the ladies at the fabric store that I didn't need to do this and just overlocked them.  That was fine until it came to attaching the 'binding' onto the edge of the cardigan which I ended up doing twice. The first time I thought I could attach it like normal binding but 4 layers was just too much and the width of the binding in the pattern was just too small to cope effectively.  I ended up cutting it off and starting again.. with just enough fabric. The second time, I simply folded the binding in half and sewed it on, overlocked the edge then stitched it down.   I used my walking foot for the whole make to help with the thickness.  There are a few wobbly bits but generally it works and the fabric hides everything.

The result? I can see myself often reaching for this when the chill creeps in. It was certainly a stylishly snuggly option yesterday morning at soccer