Tuesday 2 February 2016

A colour block White Russian

Today I made a sweatshirt. Not the most exciting garment to talk about I'll admit, but this one turned out way better than I was expecting, so it gets its own blog post!


My plans for sewing a sweatshirt were hatched after I was sent some rather lovely Andover Jersey samples by the Village Haberdashery. I wanted to see what two different colours would look like used together and the idea for a colour block sweatshirt was born. The pattern I used was the White Russian from Capital Chic, which I've sewn up once before here. I made a few adjustments last time for a closer fit and made some further tweaks for this version: 

- Increased the sleeve length by 5cms. 
- Lengthened the front and back pieces by 6cms.
- Added 1.5cms to the side seams.


Looking at these photos there's one other adjustment I'll made next time round - reduce the size of the neck band. At the moment, there's a slight hint of Vicar's Dog Collar going on! Apart from that I'm pleased with the final fit - the additional bit of room means I can wear an extra layer underneath without everything becoming too tight for comfort.  


The pattern specifics sweatshirt fabric, but the 100% cotton Andover Jersey knit I used was a perfectly good substitute. It's a medium weight knit fabric with a decent amount of stretch and good recovery. There was a bit of curling up after I'd cut the pieces, but nothing a good press couldn't sort out and overall it was a lovely quality fabric to work with. It's obviously not as cosy as a sweatshirt knit, but it still has a good weight to it and feels pretty warm and toasty too! It's worth noting that the fabric is wider than average (178cms), so I only needed 75cms of each colour and still had plenty left.



The Andover collection includes some gorgeous bright colours, but me being me, I was drawn to two of the more subdued ones for my sweatshirt: Cypress for the body (it appears to be out of stock at the moment) and Celadon for the arms and neckband. Both colours are a bit greener in real life than they appear in these photos and I really like the two together, they're very serene!

I think for my next version I'll be brave and mix up prints and solids together. Here are a few gorgeous versions that have inspired me:

Rachel's super classy Geneva sweatshirt 

Winnie's cool floral Linden sweatshirt

Josie's amazing faux leather Linden sweatshirt
They make me want to sew another one immediately!

This is the last thing on my cold weather sewing list to be completed and I'm amazed I've actually made everything on it. I suppose the threat of not being warm enough is a pretty good incentive to get sewing. Now that all my practical, cold weather basics are out of the way, I might just have to start thinking about summer dresses…! x


Fabric was given to me free of charge for review. All views my own.




12 comments:

  1. Hi Jane, check out my Luxemburg raglan too - http://jellybeanjan.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/raglan-from-luxembourg-fabric.html. I used the pattern from Wendy Mullins book U-Stretch.

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    1. Ooh it's lovely, thanks for the link! x

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  2. It looks great and I love the fabric. Really enjoying following your blog and thank you for all this inspiration, only sorry I don't get the time to sew myself.

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    1. Aw what a lovely comment, thank you so much! x

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  3. Pretty! I love the colour contrast!

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  4. Hi Jane,
    I left a comment on your sweater knit skirt then realized maybe you won't see it but FYI the aran knit sweater fabric is available again at Miss Matatabi since a few days ago. Hopefully they're not sold out by now ...

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    1. Oh cool, I'll go and investigate now and add a link - thank you! x

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  5. This sweatshirt has worked out beautifully. I like the colour blocking as it gives some interest to such a simple garment. I'm with you already thinking of the summer dresses, trying to restrain myself at the moment.

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    1. Thanks Christina! Yes, now that I've got all my boring basics out of the way I want to make all the dresses in the land! x

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  6. I love this Jane! DO you take commissions?!! xx

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  7. I kinda like that neck binding, it makes it look different not RTW. My combo of colours too. Jo x

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