Paola turtleneck times two

Wow, exciting, my first ever Monthly Stitch post. I’ve been following this blog for ages and loooove the monthly inspiration, it’s insane how many amazingly talented and creative people there are across the world, who happen to share my favourite hobby. 🙂 For some reason though I have never managed to get a post in on time.

After a very successful Me Made May, I was determined to make it for IPM 2016. So here my entry for the One Pattern, Two Ways contest. Just in the nick of time and with images taken in the evening after work… Still very exciting, whether my entry gets any further or not 🙂  (warning, I seem to like these three little dots…)

So here we go, my two makes of the Paola Turtleneck Tee. Well, one version is a top the other slightly modified into a classic winter little black dress, I hope that’s ok.

I am utterly in love with the Named Paola Turtleneck Tee pattern. These are versions 3 and 4 of this pattern (one and two were black and apple green Merino)…  It’s a classic, semi-fitted  turtleneck with full length sleeves. I bought the pattern pretty much as soon as it came out. I’ve always loved turtlenecks, even as a kid and then sadly in the last 6 or 7 years you couldn’t buy them anymore and at that time I didn’t have an overlocker and still had a bit of a fear of knits. So maybe I am overcompensating now for years of no turtlenecks 😉

For this contest, I decided to make one more Paola top out of blue Merino (missing in my wardrobe) and one Paola dress out of black Merino both from the Fabric Store. The dress is made from a slightly thicker Merino than the top, 260GSM vs 200 GSM for the top. I tend to run on the colder side in winter, so Merino is my big friend during the colder months. I am usually wearing at least one layer. One of the things I had been missing was a dress that was suitable for work, a nice dinner and a casual night at a friend’s house (lots of Kiwi houses tend to be colder with no central heating, not something this European is very good at).

Both of these are size 38, same as the last two times. I added an additional 1cm sway back adjustment to my previous 1cm sway back adjustment, for a total of 2cm, but it seems like I may still be able to take more next time. And I think there will be a next time (maybe in white or creme). In addition, I narrowed the top of the turtleneck by about 1cm and made it 2cm higher. I quite like a high and tighter neck and it seems like, similarly to my mum, I have a skinny neck so next time I’ll make it even smaller.

For the top, I made the sleeves about 4cm longer and added 5cm to the body.

For the dress, I added sleeve bands and the skirt part is copied from the Named Dakota Shawl Dress. All I did was align the waist of Paola with the waist of Dakota, et voila the turtleneck dress. I love the hem line of that dress and thought it would be perfect for my winter LBD.

The instructions were super simple to follow the first time, so that this time around I didn’t even unpack them. The only other change I made to the construction was to iron hem tape on the hem first and then sewing the hem. This worked really well, no wrinkles at all and the dress hangs really nicely.

I love this pattern! Paola and Renfrew both have helped me make real friends with my overlocker, to get to know it better, take my fear of knits. I love sewing knits now, it’s so fast and what’s not to love about New Zealand Merino in winter, fall, spring and even during a cooler summer’s night? Especially if you’re someone who tends to be a bit cold…

Here a few more images of the top, with some pooling at the lower back still:

I love turtleneck! Have I said that before? 😉

And here my Paola Dakota turtleneck dress. I love the fit of the dress, it’s slim enough without being too tight. And isn’t that hemline stunning?

And one more slightly artistic photos…  Ha…

Thanks for reading my post, and thanks for the great challenge. The nerve wracking bit is now almost over. That means I can move on to next week’s challenge…

I usually blog at kristinasstyle.wordpress.com or you can find me here on Instagram.