An Octopus Strathcona

Isn’t this octopus print awesome? I bought it towards the beginning of summer and am just now sewing it up…to continue my trend from my last post! It’s another cotton lycra from Raspberry Creek.

This Thread Theory Strathcona was such a weird trial of errors. I had initially used a triblend for the body pieces but everything was sitting very strangely, in the shoulder area particularly. I figured this was due to the fabric’s lack of vertical stretch contrasted with the extra stretchy cotton lycra sleeves (I did take a picture, but is sooooo bad I’d prefer not to post it – ha!). So I took them off and cut out a cotton lycra body and this is MUCH better!

I also took the liberty to add the pocket from the Thread Theory Arrowsmith Undershirt. I think this pulls the design together nicely. I don’t normally color block with set in sleeves since I’m not always the biggest fan of the way it looks, but when the colors are close-ish and there’s another element of the second fabric (in this case, the print), I can like it. Plus, I needed a break from men’s raglans, as much as I love them!

I’ve made the Strathcona Henley (with and without the placket) quite a few times for Brian, to great success. This was very strange. So, moral of the story is, if you’re going to color block, do so with fabrics of similar constitution!

Note the “space pants” above! These are Brian’s fave Men’s BBall Shorts. Also, you may have noticed that he was a little less than enthused in the first few pictures. That’s because he was done taking pictures of me (keep an eye out for my next post!) and hungry. Now, I give you “hungry man who will be eating food in 5 minutes”. Much happier. 😉

As I mentioned earlier, the octopus print is from Raspberry Creek. This is another one of their CLUB prints, which means it was exclusively designed for them. It was also printed in-house in the USA as well! I love supporting small businesses and made in USA is even better. 🙂 The CLUB prints are all so unique and their cotton lycra is seriously some of the softest fabric ever. Even Brian noticed a difference between this and “regular” cotton lycra. Sadly, there is just one yard of this octopus print left in the shop! After that, I believe it will be retired to make way for the new fall collections.