I usually do an anniversary sale the first week of April, to celebrate another year of Scroop Patterns, and Felicity’s birthday. This year I was away for work that week, and couldn’t run the sale.
I’ve been planning to find a reason to run a sale, and I just realised the best reason of all: Mother’s Day.
My mother is pretty much my favourite person in the world! She definitely deserves a celebration! And my mother-in-law is equally deserving and wonderful.
So, this is in celebration of my mother. It’s in celebration of all the women who have helped to nurture and support me: mothers, friends, aunts, grandmothers, and just generally lovely human beings. It’s in celebration of all the women out there who nurture and support.
Testers are such an important part of the indie pattern design process. They help ensure that a pattern fits just right on a wide range of bodies and makes sense to the average sewist across the world. Good testers help me to polish off any last bits of roughness from a pattern, asking all the questions I might have missed answering.
The testers for the Mahina Cardigan were just wonderful. You can tell how amazing they are by how many of them made multiple cardigans, just because they enjoyed sewing them and wearing them so much!
Kerstin’s Mahina is a wonderful example of what the cardigan looks like in a very light, sheer knit. And she sent me photos with 13 different ways to wear the Mahina. Versatility!
I’ve restrained from showing you all of them (but go check out her hilarious blog post to see them for yourself!), so here are my two favourites. A classic View C Mahina:
And a rectangular hack of the pattern. The pattern includes suggestions for playing with the shape, and the basic construction techniques, and Kerstin decided to have fun with the ideas. I love it!
She particularly loved the fabric I used for my original cardigan, and I had quite a bit of it left in my stash, so was delighted to be able to give her a cardigan length to test with.
(Nina is my editing tester, who tests every single one of my patterns for stylistic consistency, so giving her fabric is a thank you for her amazing help – not a bribe for a good review!)
The Mahina can look so different depending on the fabric used, and how you wear and style it. I LOVE how this ponte de roma falls in View B, especially pinned at the neck like this!
Do pop over to her blog to read her lovely review of the pattern.
(also THOSE SHOES!!!!!! Did you see the shoes!!!!)
I am absolutely in love with the fabric that Teresa chose for her View C Mahina. That lattice pattern really shows off the drape and cut of the cardigan, and it works beautifully with the wide binding.
I like to have a mix of experienced testers, and people who are new to testing, and testers I’ve worked with before, and testers I’ve never worked with, for every pattern. It ensures that I get a range of viewpoints and perspectives on the pattern, and that some of those viewpoints are familiar with my usual fit and instructions, and can point out if I’m doing something really differently to what I usually do.
Alyssa is one of the testers I’ve worked with a lot, because she’s great at testing – really thoughtful, and notices all sorts of things I could improve.
And also, she takes photos with baby goats! Do check out her blog post for this one – it’s all spring blossoms and baby animals, and looks like a fairy tale!
Pink was a bit of a theme with the testers (and one of the pattern samples is pink!), but Nicola is definitely winning the bright contest with this amazing hot pink and black reversible fabric.
Last week’s Rate the Dress was extremely revealing, and rather incomplete. This week I’ve got in the opposite direction, with a very covered up 1890s dress, that even comes with its original matching hat.
The vast majority of you adored last weeks dress, and appreciated the way it melded historical references (medieval sideless surcoats & neoclassicism) with an extremely modern feel that wouldn’t be out of place on today’s red carpets.
You correctly noted that the dress was missing a very important feature: an underdress which filled in the neckline, and the sheer gates-of-hell-esque side mesh.
And then, a few of you thought it was terribly tacky…
The Total: 9.2 out of 10
(I’m mildly amused that this weeks rating is 8.4 — both numbers that always look like they are pregnant to me!)
Not only is the ensemble perfectly matched but it also comes with a coordinating hat: a little percher designed to sit tipped over the front of the face, with a wired flourish of the chine silk.
What do you think of the ensemble? The dress, in its muted greens and purples, with its jaunty topper, typically 1890s in shape with a rather quirky twist to the design. Do you enjoy the combination, find it whimsical? Or is it just a terrible mis-match?
Rate the Dress on a Scale of 1 to 10
A reminder about rating — feel free to be critical if you don’t like a thing, but make sure that your comments aren’t actually insulting to those who do like a garment. Phrase criticism as your opinion, rather than a flat fact. Our different tastes are what make Rate the Dress so interesting. It’s no fun when a comment implies that anyone who doesn’t agree with it, or who would wear a garment, is totally lacking in taste.
(as usual, nothing more complicated than a .5. I also hugely appreciate it if you only do one rating, and set it on a line at the very end of your comment, so I can find it! And 0 is not on a scale of 1 to 10. Thanks in advance!)
