Statement Graphic Print Sweatshirt

The idea for this sweatshirt had been percolating in my brain for a while. Ever since I saw the sweatshirt fabric on Instagram, I couldn’t get it out of my mind. Later on, I found a couple of inspirational images on Pinterest, with some cool details, and finally, several months later, I’ve been able to bring my statement graphic print sweatshirt idea to life.

As I said, I first saw the graphic print sweatshirting on Instagram, worn by a couple of sewists. One had the same colourway as mine, and the other was wearing a version with a black background and cream writing. Stylemaker Fabrics was tagged in one post, so I looked online, but sadly, they don’t ship to the UK.

Then, a few months later, my interest was piqued again when I was looking at a completely different fabric via an Instagram link, and there was the graphic sweatshirting on the same website! It was an online fabric shop in the Netherlands called SDS Fabrics Webshop, and after reading their FAQs, I found out that you had to make a separate enquiry if you were outside the Netherlands, Belgium, or Germany, and they would work out a postage quote for you. A few WhatsApp messages back and forth later, and my sweatshirt fabric, plus two others, were on their way to me 🙂 I love a happy ending, don’t you?

The first thing I needed to do to create my sweatshirt was to find a base pattern to adapt. I dug out my much-used Nikki sweater pattern by Vikisews. I kept the yoke at the back, which I’d added myself and used before (see here), so all I had to do (apart from shortening the body and sleeves to accommodate ribbing) was add an angled seam on the front.

I didn’t have a magic formula for how I did the angled seam; it was literally guesswork and a bit of finagling, and trying on/adjusting. After that, it was easy just to sew up my top on my regular sewing machine using a slight zig-zag. I also added some black topstitching to highlight the main seams.

When I’d sewn up the body, I tried on my top to check the fit and realised that I didn’t have many of the ‘Paris’ words with the mini Eiffel tower in them, so what did I do? Why add some to my cuffs, of course, just for fun 🙂 And isn’t the ribbing a perfect match, too?

It was pretty easy to add the hem ribbing with the two slits, and then I attached my gold rectangles and threaded the grosgrain ribbon through. I’m so pleased with how it looks, and it emulates the inspiration photo just as I hoped.

The neckline was, however, a bit more challenging to create…This was the inspiration image I got from Pinterest.

It looks as though the parts that the ribbon threads through are sewn on separately, so this is what I did: The neckband is cut so that it’s narrow in depth at the back and deeper at the front. It’s cut straight across the top edge with a simple hem turned to the inside. I sewed two strips of fabric down the centre of the neckband, and they’re joined in the middle. The ribbon is then encased inside the centre pieces, secured at the top edge. The whole thing is finally sewn onto the body of the sweater and topstitched afterwards.

I went fairly generous with the wearing ease, but not enough to call it oversized. And the length is very slightly cropped.

This was such a fun project to sew, and the fact that I sewed it up when I was at a lovely sewing social, spending the day in great company, made it even more pleasurable. I hope you like it as much as I do 🙂

Thanks for reading. See you soon!