I’ve been making double fleece toque and mittens winter sets to revamp some of my winter wardrobe. I have a horrible collection of mismatched toques, gloves and mittens that don’t often even fit well, so I was in desperate need of some of these garments. I’ve decided I would make 5 sets with different feel and impressions for various times and events, as well as variety and fun. This is the first set I’m showing.

I can’t remember where I got this colourful puzzle print but I only got a metre or yard of it. I didn’t measure before cutting it up to know now but if it had been a yard, I’d have gotten it in the US instead of Canada where we’re metric. Most of my fabric comes from only 3 cities (Halifax, NY and LA) so deduction might have actually worked. I love the print but in some ways, I don’t mind having only gotten a metre or yard. I’m not sure I can see myself wearing many other garments in this fleece. Maybe a fleece jacket, but I have two already and shouldn’t be getting more considering I have many other coats and jackets as well.

5 panel, 1 piece, double layer tuque pattern

This set came together rather well. My one piece toque pattern, or two if I want the out of sight under layer to be a less expensive fleece, assures vertical alignment of the pattern. I can’t do horizontal alignment because of gaps in the top parts of the pattern. And where the pattern comes together at the one full edge, it just happens. I can’t do anything about that.

I was pretty good with aligning the mitten pieces, though about an 1/8 of an inch off. I could only align the outside edges due to the nature of the pattern on the inside with the thumb separating edge pieces, and width of the mitten in a reflective manner not being the same as the repeat distance in the pattern. I had overestimated how small I would end up sewing my seams to the edge before turning it inside out, so it was impossible to gauge in that sense. Still, at a glance, it looks like a pretty good match. I think I’ll go and redesign the pattern a bit to make the outsides next to each other to avoid this problem in the future.

The fit was just right, after having made a few muslins and one-off toques and mittens to learn, with fabrics I didn’t have enough for matching sets to finish off what I had.

SILVER Rating

Very happy with everything except that slight mismatch on the mitten edge sewing.