Jalie Alex

As mentioned in a previous post we were woefully under dressed for camping in the mountains last summer so I've been a little obsessed with warm sweaters for this year. I was so excited to be chosen to test Jalie's Alex and it just feels like the perfect camping/cozy sweater and will be making a ton of these over the years with 3 kids!

I love this pattern. I unfortunately didn't pick the best fabric for my first version as the scale of the pattern was just a bit too large and I failed miserably with pattern matching. I'll be watching a few youtube videos to figure out how to do that properly on my next version. The cut off animals on this one are really bugging me. I keep reminding myself that many RTW pattern matching is often worse. 







 Despite the pattern issues I love this pattern. I just made up a version for myself and it is super cozy. 
I did make a few alterations to this wearable muslin. I made a Size S grading to U at the hips and added an inch to the length. I did hesitate adding the width as it is a looser garment and I could probably fit in the straight S just fine given the ease through the waist and hips. I'm planning to make my version up with a thicker fleece so I wanted to make sure that it stays comfortable. 

Due to the welt pockets in the side seams I graded up through the middle of the sweater rather than the sides which I would normally do. I'm not 100% sure that this is the best place to do it and feel that this may have lead to some very small drag lines coming down from my bust. But overall I feel like I've gotten a pretty good fit. 

I increased the sweater on pieces B, H and G (not shown, this is the pocket bottom). D I graded out at the side edge. 



The upper back is a bit wide for me. I think I have narrower shoulders than Jalie drafts for, or perhaps a sloping shoulder that should at some point be adjusted for. Might also be my sway back. I'll be honest though, not really a huge deal and I'll likely just leave it. I just love this cozy sweater I can curl up in and next plan is to make a version up for me in this fabric that I just bought from Discovery Trekking Fabrics:




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