Anthropologie Knockoff

And this is why I shouldn't make plans! I had planned on sewing some simple, easy basics this week. I had a couple t shirt dresses in the works, a skirt, and then a sweater dress but no, I had to go and get all creative and decide to knockoff this Anthropologie cardigan.



Best of the Bunch

I Googled it and found a ton more pictures and personal blogs of Anthropologie fans who bought it or tried it on and reviewed it. I found one in particular who was built like me and it looked really nice on her so I decided to go for it.

I didn't have any boiled wool, but I had some thinner melton that had been aging in my stash for 2 years or so that I got inexpensively from Fabric.com. I pulled it out and washed it in Eucalan, then dried it on low heat. Yes, dried it because I wanted it to get softer and look a little more like boiled wool and a bit roughed up.

I had just bought this pattern without any thought to use it for this but it was one of the multi sized bust patterns of which I buy just about every one now. I can't get the picture to upload but here's the link.

Simplicity 2284

The only changes I made to the pattern were to the front center pieces. I started with Version E I believe which is designed for front buttons but no overlap. I doubled this piece for the underlap and then copied that piece and slashed/spread it for the overlap piece. I just eyeballed it really and then laid them on top of each other and did a bit of tissue fiddling to see how much bunching I wanted. I'm pretty darn sure I don't have as much as they do but my fabric is a lot thicker I think and I didn't want the extra bulk. I'm still getting the idea of the jacket. You can slash and spread as much or as little as you want to get your desired effect. Also, I cut out one version on grain but decided that I wanted a bit of stretch so I cut out another version on the bias. I like it a lot better.





Here are some in progress pictures. First off, my dress form does not fill out my clothes the way I do. The jacket/cardigan actually fits me pretty snugly. I am waiting to tweak the waist fitting until I get ready to put on the buttons. I'd also like to have the collar on before I do too much more. The shoulders fit very well. I pinched out the sleeve cap ease as I was inserting the sleeves, wow, that makes such a difference. Not more easing sleeves! I also narrowed the sleeves down, they were more full than I wanted for this jacket. I like the two piece sleeve construction. This is a nice pattern.

Second, I still have quite a bit of overlap on the fronts, moreso than I want in the end. The RTW version only comes over to halfway on the front center pieces. I'm waiting to decide how far I want mine to come over.





I hit the yarn shop yesterday and casted on the collar, twice, man, this knitting will take me three times as long as the sewing did. I'm a very novice knitter and I need to do this on round needles which I hate! The collar itself is around 33 inches which is too long for regular needles. I still haven't quite figured out how I will attach the collar. I'm going to finish the sleeves edges, they look bad without finishing. I think the RTW version is unfinished.

Well hopefully this will turn out decent. I love this cardigan but no way was I spending $230 on it and likely it wouldn't have fit my bust anyways.