Boxy Sweater

There was a time where I only wore tight fitting shirts. They would look great at first but then I would wash them and they would shrink in the wash, leaving me with an exposed mid-riff and pulling on my sleeves to reach my wrists...and then I realized that wearing a loose top didn't have to look like I was wearing a sack, and some looser shape could actually work for me.  It didn't hurt that trends switched to looser tops and tigher bottoms, which I've definitely embraced, as the below pictures will demonstrate.

This is somewhat of a stash busting project, although the fabric hadn't been in my stash for very long (but stash-busting makes it sound so guilt-free). The pattern is #117 from Burda magazine October 2013. I liked the boxy shape and the clean lines, quite in trend right now.
The fabric is a medium/heavy weight forest green knit with a nice body to it, purchased from Gala fabric.

This was a fast project in that I didn't bother making  muslin. I did however make adjustments right off the bat. I compared it with another burda magazine loose-fitting pattern, my now TNT button-down shirt, and made the same ajustements as I had made to fit that one:
Small but adjustment, and I also pined out a 2cm horizontal tuck in the back (i'm not sure what "body flaw" this adjustement corrects but it seems to get rid of some extra fabric that otherwise gathers in the back). The pattern is a 'tall size' so I didn't touch the length.

First I machine-basted all the pieces together to check the fit, then took them apart to make some additional changes: I took 1cm off the sides and sleeves on both front and back, and took an additional 3 cm off the sleeve width at the cuff.

 

This pattern would be great for color blocking and different fabric textures, or to mix leather and jersey, etc... I only had the one fabric, so I tried adding some extra details to make it a bit more interesting. I considered using the wrong side of the fabric for contrast on the side panels (the color was a more wash-ed out version of the right side), but it didn't look right. I added an exposed zipper in the back and top-stitched the side panels quilt-style. I used two layers of fabric on the sides so that the "quilting " would be a bit more pronounced (even though you can't really see it very well).

 

 
I really enjoyed working on this project, which presented no big challenge but allowed me to try my hands at some new techniques: the exposed zipper (a lot more tricky than the invisible one if you ask me), the quilting (mostly time-consumng and also jersey tends to stretch as you're topstitching so I had to recut the pieces once all the top-stitching was done) and the front slit with facing.

I really like the final product. It's a pretty casual top, but it's super comfortable and has a bit of a modern edge to it I think. I could see making this again with leather accents or in a fancier, stiffer fabric for a more "luxe" look ...