Made by a Fabricista: Dia at the Apple Orchard

Hey lovely folks! Nice to see ya again, and I'm so excited we are finally to my favorite season of the year: FALL!

This Autumn has been a bit different with the COVID factor, but we were still able to make it to our favorite orchard for some apple picking in our fabulous Misusu Dia sweatshirts (and Jalie 2918, more on that in a bit!)

The black fabric is a super luscious modal blend sweatshirting that has unfortunately sold out (check out some other great options here). The way it looks on the backside and with it's drape it's almost more of a very brushed french terry than a sweatshirting in my mind, but it's still dang awesome. It's so soft and awesome that I worry a bit it may not wear well, but inside and out it is absolutely delightful now.

Misusu Dia (available in both Kids and Ladies versions) is a great pattern that has a ton of options: sweatshirt or tunic with a straight or hi low hem, plus straight or puff sleeve for kids and 3 different ladies sleeve lengths. I used the straight sweater with regular sleeves for Cheeks, the straight tunic with puff sleeves for Peaches and the hi-lo sweater with long sleeves for myself.

I finished the sweatshirts for the kids and myself and then thought...Daddy needs to get in on this, too. Misusu doesn't have men's patterns, so I drafted my own Dia Dad out of Jalie 2918. Bonus for him: I used the v-neck option (Mr. 5 doesn't dig crew necks).

I decided to only piece the front, instead of also altering the back to swoop around the side seam like it does in Dia proper, so it's not quite as cool, but I was tapped out after the (albeit simple) patternmaking work I'd already done. I'm really pleased with the result! Only thing I may have done differently would be to move the diamond an 1/2 - 1" higher.

And here's the result!

For the diamond innards (and neckband/wrist cuffs for Cheeks' sweatshirt) I used a wonderful mottled gray cotton lycra jersey and a great feeling ivory modal blend french terry (also both sold out, but the latter was available until last weekend). A ponte or double knit would be a great sub for either.

Along with the many silhouette options in Dia, there's also the option to make a pieced diamond, as I did for the kiddos and myself, or you can just cut a one piece simple diamond (or use it as a base for applique, as I did here!).

I'd seen a hack to make a fox from a creative sewist in Misusu's Facebook group and decided that's what my kiddos needed! The ears are just two of the small triangles sewn together and then folded over part way and sewn into the seam. They didn't end up totally symmetrical, but a kind friend reminded me that animal ears are often floppy and asymmetrical. :) I also spent a bit of time deciding on eyes...and you can see which of these won out!

Cheeks says they're skunks. OK, sure, I've got nothing better. Haha.

We had a pretty great afternoon picking apples in our new superbly comfortable shirts.

I really love how all of these turned out and am anticipating we're all going to get lots of wear out of these awesome sweatshirts!