Finished Project: Strathcona Henley

This is piece #3 of my Merino wool stash. I haven't blogged about piece #2 but the opportunity to photograph this one presented itslef last week-end so I jumped on it.

This is another piece for B. When I first bought the fabric online, from New Zealand Merino and Fabric, I was really attracted by the color and thoughti it would be great for a garment for him. I can't remember how I thought if the Strathcona Henley by Thread Theory but it turned out to be a perfect pairing.

The fabric is a heavier weight merino knit, colour "Ottawa Blue", although it looks more like a dark blue-ish grey. Super soft and super warm. 

As far as the pattern goes, I cut a size M and it fit pretty well right out of the enveloppe. Looking at the photos now, i think it could have used a broad shoulder adjustment, but otherwise it's pretty good. The only change I made was to add a hem band. My previous two merino knit makes have folded over hems and those tend to twist and flip over a lot, so I thought with a band I would avoid this issue.

The construction is super simple, but I did struggle a bit with the plaquette. The fabric was too thick for my machine so I ended up having to  hand-baste everything to make sure it wouldn't shift or stick while sewing. I also didn't topstitch the collar or cuffs for that same reason. I left the cuffs alone as there was no issue with them flipping over, but I did an invisible catch stitch on the collar band to keep the seam allowance down. It worked well.

I had found the perfect buttons. but when came time to attach them, I could not find them. I went through all the bags of scraps and fabric and notions that are in a state of permanent hanging from one of my dining chairs, and nothing...Turns out my maching wasn't having it with the buttonholes anyways (I did a test on folded scraps first, and it was just too thick). I really wanted to call this finished so I ended up just hand sewing the plaquette halfway to the top, where Brice would have buttoned it up. The result is ok, but after a few wash, the plaquette has become to twist a bit. I think next time, rather than fusible interfacing I might use stay tape or even a lighter weight piece of muslin to keep the plaquette nice and straight.  

Sure enough, after I'd finished hand sewing the button-less button plaquette, B. found the missing butons under some paperwork on our desk...I'm still considering getting the buttonholes done at Spool of Thread (a local sewing studio with machines a bit more advanced than mine), but not sure if I'll even get around to it.

In any case, B. loves his new henley, it's the perfect layer for cooler spring days. We took the photos on while on a camping trip in the Squamish Valley. Doesn't he look handsome?

I have already used piece #4 of my merino stash and made it into a Plantain top, will hopefully take some photos of it soon. I now only have one piece left that is destined to become another running top - might be time to order some more!