Finished! A jackety-cardigan thing

 

 Behold, a finished make! My mum gave me an overlocker a fair few Christmasses ago. I’d been over at hers and she’d been saying she never used hers, so I said if she ever wanted to get rid of it, I’d give it a home, but themn she went out about bought me a brand new one. So for a while we both had overlockers we weren’t using… Anyway, I decided I was going to use it or I’d have to find it a new home, and as patterns go McCall’s M6996 looked simple enough. This flocked, heavy jersey fabric came up in an end-of-line sale at Minerva, so I thought I’d have a stab at it. 

Have you ever tried threading an overlocker? They are absolute gits. I’ve now got it down to less than 30 minutes from getting mine out to being able to start sewing. That’s half an hour to get all four threads in place – they have to be done in a precise order, and run through all sorts of faffy eyelets and hooks – and test it on a piece of fabric, then to repeatedly rethread it and retest the stitching until it decides to play nice. 

There’s a famous meme of Pingu sitting with his wings folded, looking grumpy, and the caption ‘Well, now I am not doing it.’ The overlocker has a name. The overlocker has been named Pingu Bastard. Because well, now it is not doing it. 

   

Sooner or later even the most recalcitrant overlocker has to do some work. Using it scared the life out of me to begin with; it is extremely loud and fast, and as overlockers cut the seam allowance off as you sew, there’s no going back if you make a mistake. Because of that I’m not entirely happy with the side seams in this jacket. I was hoping it’d have slightly more of a ‘frock coat’ fit-and-flare shape. I was quite tentative at first, and probably stitched too close to the edge out of fear of slicing off excess fabric, meaning it feels a little too roomy. 

Despite all that, I do like this! I really love the fabric. The colouring feels quite goth, but the paisley interspersed with pop-art flowers is very psychedelic in feel. And this autumn and winter it should prove a good alternative to a conventional cardigan, especially with my beloved black velvet jeans.