yesterday i talked about my desire to have less fabric, which means i made one of my goals for 2015 to sew through all my good but not great fabric.

today i am going to talk about the other goal I set for myself in 2015: sew more knit fabric.

story time: growing up my family belonged to a pool. while my sisters and i were on the swim team at this pool i always wished we belonged to the infinitely cooler swim club across town. that place had a killer swim team, trampolines, all our friends from school and and a high dive. every summer i would inevitably go to the cool club a handful of times and each time it would take most of the day for me to summon the courage to attempt the high dive. once i did and remembered it wasn't that scary or hard and did it again and again for the rest of the afternoon.

this is how i feel about knits. i'm terrified until finally start, then i realize it's not so scary, wonder why i was afraid in the first place.

compared to oven fabrics, especially cotton, knits are tricky. but for apparel they are just so practical, not to mention comfortable, so really learning to sew them is a must.

in 2014 i sewed my first successful knit project: maya's snow day play time dress and leggings.

i can credit the positive outcome to two things: the high quality knit fabric i got from stonemountain & daughter and nicole's awesome tutorial, which made the whole process look easy.

confident from my recent success I embarked on my second knit adventure: a hopscotch top and playtime leggings in the same fabric for baby neela.

it was with this project I realized hand sewing was useful for knit fabrics especially on the neck bindings on things made for tiny humans.

so what have i done with knits this year?

early in 2015 i made a rugby shirt for victor with some dreamy jersey procured from britex. with courage from nicole's endorsement of the pattern instructions i managed to successfully mix knit and woven fabrics and produce an excellent collar and placket.

also with this top used my double needle for the first time for the hem. it came out just perfect.

i found my confidence again over the summer when and made the playtime leggings as part of the farmers market outfit for the daughter of our friends pat and heather.

love aunt maggie | farmers market outfit

let me tell you those pants were a major emotional hurdle for me. the fabric was originally used for a epic failure of a hopscotch dress for etta. While I know that disaster was my fault (i didn't know to use a ballpoint needle) i still had a mental block about that fabric.

next up i made two hopscotch shirts for nora and etta to wear on the first day of school this year with some awesome fabric the good folks at oliver + s sent me.

once again, hand stitching the neck binding = crucial.

that brings us to halloween this year. using the play time leggings and school bus t-shirt patterns, both from oliver + s, i made maya an entirely knit costume for her to embody the incredible violet incredible.