This month’s Making Zen had so many lovely classes and one was, of course, the one by Liz Haywood – Sew a Jersey Knit Top, Using a Tessellating Pattern. I made one from silk jersey and I love it, but as the weather has cooled down I wanted one that would be suitable for layering. Keep in mind that the fabric requirements are for something with lots of stretch and lots of drape, which I had in my mind as I interrogated my stash. I pulled out lots of candidates but I felt that none would work. Then I found some navy ponte which has little stretch and pretty much no drape. It was donated to my stash as a scrap so I felt I could risk it.

I had to put in a back seam as I had very limited fabric, but managed the tesselation, where the front and back pieces fit together. Certainly minimises the cutting out. I forgot about the limited stretch and used the pattern I had modified to fit me better when using stretchy fabrics, only remembering this after I had cut it out.

This is a free pattern and all the instructions are printed on it, which is handy, although I did rewatch the video to check. It is such a quick make and I put it on and wore it for my daily walk. Worn with self drafted check ponte trousers and a Pattern Union tee. And glorious camelias.

I need to note that lack of stretch and drape is not a massive problem, although there are wrinkles at the armscye position. They don’t really worry me too much.

I decided it was a bit plain so added a bird and a heart (for awareness of women’s heart health). It goes with my Kawandi quilt beautfully!

When I considered layering it, I really thought of wearing things underneath, but it goes so well with my Outlander hooded shrug, which I knitted in 2018 based on something Claire wore in the tv series, and immediately wanted to copy. It is a möbius strip which can cause me confusion when I put it on, but it’s so comfortable and very warm. If you haven’t heard of it before, a möbius strip only has one side and one edge, and is knitted in a particular way. It is not a twisted and joined strip. I was obsessed with these for a while there.

I love the yellow wattle contrasting with it. This wattle is near the edge of our dam.

With a different wattle on our daily walk in the bush. There are so many varieties and they smell and look beautiful.

I’m wearing the top with some wool ponte trousers, maybe Style Arc Elle, and a very old, pieced together wool Sew House Seven Toaster Sweater made in 2017.

Posing with a pincushion hakea. They are all coming into bloom, such a lovely time of the year in the bush.

This top has worked exactly as I had hoped. Now I want to make a patchwork one!

Wandering around our place in the bush at night can be risky. This was strung across one of the paths! Quite beautiful and fascinating to watch, but I wouldn’t have wanted to walk into it – it was huge.