Don't Sweat(shirt) the Details

A few years ago, I thrifted a few yards of an amazing "old enough to be trendy again" chintz-type printed lightweight interlock knit.

I also, around that time,  thrifted this pattern, McCall's 5070

 which I fairly quickly used to make this

(and I am wearing it as I type this, and I have worn it just about every winter day since I made it)

But from the start, I knew I wanted to use the fabulous chintz-ish interlock to make a sweatshirt, and yesterday I finally did!

And I am also wearing it right  now, along with the jacket.  They coordinate well, which I probably shouldn't admit was a complete surprise.



The pattern is from 1987, when shirts were expected to have considerably more wear ease than they do now, so, even though the pattern is a Small, it still has a 45½" finished bust measure, which is more than enough for me even now.  I wanted it shorter, though, so I carefully measured 6" up from the lower edge and folded things to that length.  I also did not want the sleeves to be as roomy as they are in the jacket, so those I folded out some width. I didn't measure--since I was wearing the jacket, I just pinched out what seemed like a good amount and approximated that in the fold.  That made the whole pattern piece a bit uncooperatively three-dimensional, but I made sure that lengths were maintained where they'd be sewn to other things and didn't worry too much.  And it worked!

And, behold: the only top stitching on the whole thing.

 Wild, I know!  I did want to top stitch along the sleeve seams, but I also wanted this to be a quick project.  And I couldn't decide which side of the seam I wanted the stitching to be on...  So here we are.

The pattern itself didn't even call for the stitching around the ribbing, but I feel like the stitching there helps shape things...no matter what size it is

(yeah, that I made in 2016 right after I thrifted the cloth.  Anyway.)

I used a waffle knit for the ribbing again

I do have black rib knit in my stash, and quite a bit of it, but I think, at this point, I'm dedicated to using this stuff until it's gone.

And even though I got the seams decently aligned on the sleeves, I can't say that for the waist band and the left side seam

 But it ended up being offset to the back, so that's fine!

And here is the back!

I didn't worry about centering the right-side-up roses on this side.

So, yeah--raglan sleeves and knits (that don't, ahem, need to have their seam allowances finished inside) with ribbing on every extremity go together to make a nice fast project.  I feel like I don't have a lot of knit cloth that I could use to make more, but I'm probably basing that feeling on what a relatively small part of my stash the knits are...so...I probably have many more pieces of yardage I could use to make more shirts like this.

I also have well over a yard left of this cloth, and I am really tempted to hack a shirt pattern into a little fitted cardigan made from it...