Smiling Cicero

No, this blogpost is not about the Roman orator.

I'm pretty sure that serious man was not known for smiling.

It's about an terrible injustice that was done to my son.

His sister already has a Cicero cardigan.

And he asked it first!

And the fabric he picked had been in the stash over a year!

It was about time I started that project ;-)

After my first attempt I  felt more confident with the zipper. I used a double ended zipper this time. My son loves it because he can tell people his zipper is broken and then magically fix it.

I did deviate from the pattern a little. The original hood is lined. It would have been a waste to cover up that soft side of the fabric. So I added about an inch to the side to make a tunnel.

The fabric has light sweater knit on the outside and fleece on the inside. You won't believe how soft it is! The fleece inside made me argue it was more of a winter fabric, but he could not wait that long. He is happy with every chilly day now ;-)

The fleece inside did make me think about the seams. I had already cut out all the pieces when it occurred to me: white fleece on the inside with blue peeking in the seams ... that would not look very nice. I did not have a wide enough seam allowance for a flat felled seam, but I tried something similar. 

Here's how I did it:

Step 1 : Stitch the seam with a stretchy stitch. I used a 1 cm seam allowance (not enough for an actual flat felled seam)

Step 2 : trim down one side of the seam allowance by half.

Stap 3: I put the long seam allowance over the short one and stitched it down. I used a stretch stitch. 

On the outside there is a extra stitch line. I did mess up at the pockets. I stitched down the back instead of the front. Not a problem when wearing the cardigan, but it looks a bit weird laying down.

My son does not mind at all.

He changed the name from " my finally done-vest" to "my smiley-vest". 

I think he may have forgiven me for the long wait.