In my head, sewing is “quicker” than knitting, because it’s not like you have to make the fabric from scratch! But really…it’s not, at least, not for me. But after a solid month of working a little bit each weekend, I now have a piece of clothing that I made all by myself that’s actually wearable, and I’m pretty darned excited about it!
I keep wanting to call this a “jumper”, but that gets confusing because I know that’s what my UK-friends call a sweater. It’s the York Pinafore, from Helen’s Closet, and it’s the first “clothing” item I’ve ever successfully sewn from a pattern! And it has POCKETS!
I used some Kaufmann herringbone flannel that I’ve had sitting around for quite awhile, because I thought a jumper/pinafore/whatever like this would be really nice as a transitional piece – I can wear it like I’m wearing it today, on a cool but not even close to cold late summer day, but I could also layer wool tights and knee-high socks and boots under it, and layer a cardigan and cowl over it, for winter. And grey is such a useful color for me – it matches basically everything!
I don’t really know anything about sewing patterns, but to me, this one seemed really well-written, and the only part I was confused by was the instructions for the bias-tape binding. I’ve never done that before, and for some reasons the instructions in the pattern just weren’t clicking for me, but I found a few videos on Youtube and that helped me sort it out. I’m really pleased with how it turned out!
I’ve always been a fan of overalls, and this jumper has a bit of the feel of wearing overalls, but in dress form. And in fact, once I’m feeling a little more confident about clothes-sewing, I’m hoping to sew myself some Yanta Overalls in a striped linen/cotton blend. I have enough of this same flannel, but in a dark blue herringbone, to make another one of these pinafores, so I think I’ll do that first before I try to tackle a new pattern!
I definitely still have so much to learn about sewing garments…it’s a whole different world from knitting and I just don’t really have many skills yet. But now that I have a sewing machine that isn’t constantly fighting me, I feel like I’m ready to learn, and I’m excited to sew myself more clothes, even if it takes me just as long to sew a pinafore as it does for me to knit a sweater. Slow is fine. There’s no rush.
whit::knits 
Looks great! And I feel ya on the “sewing is faster… right?” thing. For me, my sewing mojo hits in waves, so I’ll be able to get through, like, 90% of something in a day, and then it languishes for eons until (or unless) I’m actually ever struck with the urge to finally finish it, resulting in things that ultimately take waaaaaaay longer than most things I knit.