I’ve had the Tilly and the Buttons Bertha cardigan on my to-sew list since the Make It Simple book was released last February!
I had found myself wearing a lot of sweatshirts and hoodies over the last few months and wanted to smarted up my work wardrobe a bit, hence looking for a cardigan to make.
I chose the Bertha as I already had the pattern printed out and it looked like a fairly quick and easy make with some cute details.
I made mine from one of our new sweater knits, in the grey colour. It was easy to work with and is lovely and soft to wear.
I decided to add both the slash pockets to the cardigan and the thumbhole cuffs. Tilly does a good job of explaining these extra steps in the book, so there’s no need for me to go into it in any great detail!
You can choose the size of the pocket that you want – just beware that if you add the pockets, you are going to be sewing through a lot of layers of fabric, when it comes to adding on the neck and hem bands, so make sure you take it slowly and you may need to baste it in place in some sections, to prevent things shifting around.
Once finished, I found that the front bottom edges were winging out quite a lot. I’m not sure if it is prone to do that anyway or if the pockets were causing it to distort. I know the Bertha is not meant to have closures, but I decided that an easy solution would be to add snaps to the front to keep it in place.
I used these cute Prym snaps and I think they came out really well. The only thing I would add is that, had I known I would have needed to do this, I would have added some interfacing inside the neck band, to stabilise and strengthen this area.
I love the 00’s vibe of the thumbholes – they will be perfect for keeping my hands toasty on cold days.
Overall, I’m really pleased with this little cardigan and I think it is going to be a wardrobe staple for the foreseeable future!
I made size 2 with no adjustments.
This pattern is available is sizes 1-10 (UK 6 to 24) at present.