I really, really am not ready to start thinking about Fall. I’m still sewing summer clothes, abandoning all good taste to sip sickly-sweet fruity cocktails, barbecuing in the back yard, and playing volleyball at the beach on weekends. In fact, Fall can kindly kiss my ass while I continue to enjoy a hot, sunny summer, thank you very much!

But, let’s face the inevitable. The days are getting shorter, and in about four or five weeks the weather here in Toronto will be noticeably cooler. So the Sew Ready for Fall blog tour is timely. (It’s like an intervention that insists you pull your head out of the beach sand and get ahead of yourself for next season.) And exciting prize giveaways know no season! So scroll down for more info on the blog tour and how to enter to win a sewing machine and many other cool prizes!

This is my contribution to the Sew Ready for Fall blog tour. It’s the Long Knit Cardigan from BurdaStyle (01/2011 #126B). It’s just the drapey, flowing piece I had in mind: a very simple but versatile garment for layering.

Here I’m wearing it with my new Itch-to-Stitch skort, hot off the sewing machine, which I’m pretty much living in since I finished it. (I’ll tell you more about that pattern in another post.)

Here’s a more Fall-like ensemble. I love this outfit, but I am more than happy to wait quite a long time before it actually becomes weather-appropriate.

I used a very lightweight polyester-rayon blend hacci sweater knit, which Stylish Fabrics provided to me for free to participate in the Sew Ready for Fall blog tour. They describe it as “soft and durable as well as very light weight. Great for sweaters, hoodies, long sleeves, beanies, and cardigans.” Apparently hacci knits have a more open, loopy texture than regular knits. And it is indeed quite open as you’ll see from some of the pictures below. You can clearly tell the right side from the wrong side, as the tiny purl bumps and knit v’s are visible (if you knit, you’ll recognize this right away).

I omitted the sleeves from the pattern and therefore cut the shoulders to be much narrower before finishing the armholes with a simple twin needle stitch. It’s a very easy sew — that is, if you’re not a dolt like me who sews the two shoulder seams of the back piece directly to each other, and then carries on with the next steps as if that’s a perfectly normal thing to do. (Ah, Burda instructions, you and I have a complicated relationship, don’t we? If only you’d just say what you mean instead of beating around the bush coyly, playing games with my head, we wouldn’t be on this inevitable path to divorce court, now would we?) Anyway, dear reader, if you’d been a fly on the wall you would have enjoyed watching me try to figure out how this deformed piece was going to connect to the front pieces. I admit I spent a shockingly long time on that doomed endeavour. So on second thought, maybe I could do with a little refreshingly cool Fall weather to get the brain in working condition again.

Overall I’d say I spent more actual time ripping out seams than sewing them. (Ha, nothing new for me there, really.) And this fabric does not like to play very nicely with seam rippers–it was very difficult to pick out the sewing thread without accidentally grabbing a thread from the fabric. In the end, though, I managed to finish with only one small hole I had to darn with some navy thread.

Ok, prizes! I promised you prizes! There’s an amazing selection of prizes to be won, including a Brother sewing machine, gift cards, pattern packs, and more. To enter, you can add a comment to any one of the blog posts on the tour including this one you’re reading right now, and you can register a few entries here.

Want to check out all the other lovely creations on the Sew Ready for Fall blog tour? Don’t forget to comment on them for more chances to win. 🙂

August 1st: Sewing By Ti and Rebel and Malice
August 2nd: Gray all Day
August 3rd: Wild and Wanderful and The Sara Project
August 4th: Doodle Number 5 and Sweet Red Poppy
August 5th: Paisley Roots and Dos Natural Sistas and My Crafty Little Self
August 8th: Made By Melli and Sew Far North
August 9th: Sew Sophie Lynn and Creative Counselor
August 10th: Frivolous at Last and EYMM
August 11th: Lulu and Celeste and Sprouting Jubejube
August 12th: Adventures with Bubba and Bug and All Things Katy and Sewing by Ti