Deer and Doe | Ondée — The Notions Tin

Ooo oui, oui! Deux Ondée!

Introduction

I wanted a few new makes especially for our trip to Italy, and was particularly excited about this lovely little cropped number as I wear a lot of high-waited pants and skirts. This is my third time sewing with merino, and the first time sewing a quite fitting silhouette in a knit.

The pattern is Deer and Doe's Ondée. I love how D&D break down their patterns into Botany for woven patterns and Meteorology for knits, and also their names for the individual patterns: Ondée, from the Meteorology collection, I think translates to downpour or rain shower. I decided to make a wearable toile in some black merino I got on sale at The Fabric Store in Wellington, holding off on using the luscious ochre 200gsm merino, once again from The Fabric Store.

Process and Progress

I've had a bit of a rush of D&D patterns and simply find them excellent. This pattern has several variations: a short and long sleeve, and a high collar or lower neckline. I made a long sleeve no collar version, but I envision changing it up in future. I love that there's plenty of mixy-matchy options with this pattern. This is a level two make, and I found the directions clear and easy to follow. D&D's diagrams are great, and I also find their super-clean designs very pleasing to work with.

Apart from some super-rough finishing on my part I was really happy with my black toile. I graded between a 42 at the bust and a 46 at the waist and the size, while not perfect, is pretty good for where I'm at, skill-wise. I decided to add an inch at the 'lengthen/shorten' line which sits at the waist as I was having the occasional puku flash (tummy flash, for overseas folk)—more on this later. So, here's the wearable toile!

Onward to my sumptuous ochre! ...

Fit and Finish

... Which was a bit litany of woes. Entirely my own fault but the whole make was riddled with rookie errors. I cut the ochre with the grainline going the wrong way (this put the kibosh on it being a make for our Italy trip, but I still had my oh-so-wearable toile for comfort); I used the wrong yellow thread; I would turn off my machine and then forget to reset my stitch length; I even managed to overlock it to itself at one point (thank goodness no blades were involved). In spite of the painfulness of the make, I love it!

I added the inch at the waist, but wouldn't do that again: it didn't solve the peeky-puku and messed with the shaping—my black toile hits my waist perfectly but the ochre bunches lot more. I'm not overly concerned by this: a singlet underneath solves one problem, and realising that this sewing gambit is trial and error, and not being too hard on myself solves the other problem.

I think this is a really good, simple pattern for a newbie garment maker. Like I said, this is my third attempt sewing with merino, so knit-sewing is all relatively new to me. The first thing I made wasn't all that useful in terms of understanding how to make a garment fit properly, but I think Ondée is going to be the pattern I use to learn a few new fitting skills. Now I have a couple of attempts under my belt, I feel like I know it well enough to try for some more advanced pattern adjustments to nail that fit.

In the mean time, I love both these imperfect little Ondées!

Notes to future self for future makes

Pay attention! Don't make rookie errors.
Looking at the side and back photo, I wonder if a FBA is what I need to do to fix the peeky-puku?
Also, is it ridiculous to consider a sway back adjustment on such a cropped style?
Maybe shorten sleeves by an inch.
Find a tutorial for how to sew a damned neckline!
It's also so close to being an amazing partner to the Airelle blouse; I would love to figure out how to tweak one or the other of their necklines to make this a glorious little set. The Airelle neckline is slightly larger than the Ondée, which makes them sit and move slightly awkwardly together, but there must be a way!