Planning and Design
It’s now winter and my work shirt wardrobe consists of white and blue shirts. But my cardigan/sweater stash consists of mostly lightweight rust/black tops. The only heavy cardigan I have is the Sabel Boyfriend Knit Cardi so I made the Marlo Sweater (Long) out of Good Earth Cotton. But then I decided I should probably already have a pullover sweater too, so dug out the French Terry Good Earth Cotton. I tried out my existing Simpson and Fenix Sweatshirts to see which one worked better with a button-up shit and the Simpson Sweatshirt won. Thanks to my previous ochre GEC Simpson Sweatshirt I knew I don’t like the hem in ribbing. So this time decided to do only the neckband and cuffs in ribbing.
Materials
- Pattern
- Simpson Sweatshirt (Style Arc)
- Fabric
- Good Earth Cotton® – French Terry – Black (MaaiDesign)
- European Smooth Ribbing, Oeko-Tex Solid – Black (Wattle Hill Fabrics)
- Thread
- Maraflex col. 000
- Madeira Aerolock Overlocker Thread – Black
- SoftLoc™ Tex 35 Wooly Poly Thread – Black
- Notions
- Design Plus Bias Fusible Tape – Black
Sustainability Check
👍 Good Earth Cotton is really cool. Not only is it fully biodegradable, their website describes it as climate positive, audited and traceable cotton.
👍 Ribbing is 98% Organic Cotton, 2% Elastane so technically biodegradable
👍 Maraflex is compostable. I’ve been saying for a while it’s biodegradable but relooked it up and it doesn’t degrade in marine or fresh water. But given how I’m using it, the compostable factor is probably more relevant
👎 Overlocker threads are both 100% Polyester
👎 The Bias Fusible Tape is 65% Polyester and 35% Cotton
Construction
Since this is for work I omitted the two piece front and just cut on the fold. And omitted the gigantic pocket too.
Since this project used pretty much the same components as the Marlo Sweater it was quite straightforward to sew. The main difference was I fused the bias binding onto the fabric and sewed through it, instead of doing it the other way around. But one thing I should have done is immediately trimmed the excess because I ended up aligning one piece to the excess rather than the end of the adjoining piece. At least this is an oversized knit so I just fudged it 🙃 I also decided to press open all the seams to make things less bulky and topstitched them all down since I thought it would look nice this way (as well as adhering to my approach of securing all seam allowances whenever possible). The only seams I didn’t press apart were the side, hem and cuff seams.
Reflections
I think the Simpson Sweatshirt is one of my go-to patterns. Even small modifications make it quite a different look. And the black makes it feel good for work, even if it’s a bit oversized. Actually, it probably would work for workwear in another colour too…there have been some rust/red coloured knit fabrics I’ve been eyeing off… 😝
- Trim things ASAP so that they don’t get used as reference points
Categories: Sewing
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