Ellie and Mac Favourite Jumper Pattern

 I bought this pattern when I came accross it about two years ago. I bought the fabric shortly after to make this jumper but I never got round to actually doing anything with this pattern until now and having finally got my Brother overlocker up and running as its supposed to I decided its time for this top.

First the pattern is a bought pattern from an indie company - as in yes I paid for this and to be honest until I put it together I had no idea how badly its designed. Its not like any other pattern I have ever bought and this is supposed to be an actual compay who sell patterns. Well its less professionally designed and harder to put together than many free patterns that amateur sewers around the world give away for free and I would not buy a second pattern from this company at the current time.

Sorry Ellie and Mac but this was a big disappointment!

You can see here that it does kind of go together but its hard to line the bits up and if you had never ever put togeher a downloaded atter this would be difficult. I have put together loads and it still was not fast and usually they are easy to just line up with arrows or dots or some kind of shape to match to know you have the pattern piecec dead on. Here there is a grid but its all very vague and not very professional at all for a so called pattern company. 

It does not seem to have layers and you end up wasting paper - though I can cope with that one and often use bought and free patterns with no layers. But it does take a while to put together and it feels hit and miss as to where you attach the next sheet so you are constantly guessing if its positioned right.

However, I do like the end result.

 

I added the cuffs onto my sleeves to extend them and sew as one piece because I did not fancy the cuff effect so my sleeves are Uber long and in one section. I overlocked and hemmed the edges and missed out the band at the bottom as well and just hemmed the edge there too.

But and its a massive BUT I had to hack the neck because its awful. I paid for this because of the neckline yet ended up with a top I could have made using several previously owned and used patterns. 

I actually wasted quite a bit of fabric cutting the cowl neck out twice in different directions to make it work. It did NOT work!

In the end I chopped it down and made a tube and sewed that on to the neck but lets face it any reasonable sewer can do this with no pattern. All you have to do is ensure the neck fits the neck hole and sew.

So I ended with a wide band at neckline which has side seams. Usnally these kind of sweater necks do not. They are one contiuous piece but I had already cut the annoying thing out twice and wanted to avoid wasting more of my fabric because I really like this fabric. I think I have enough left to make some matching flares but thats just an idea right now.

So here is my version of the Ellie and Mac Favourite Jumper Pattern. 

Its a very warm and stylish winter top and has already been worn so I know its going to be a big part of my look over the holiday period but other than Ellie and Mac give away loads of freebies, I have to say I will not be buying from them again at least not in the near future.

Have a great week, See you soon..........

Bracken