When Liesl sent the Advisor's Circle the sketch of the Neighborhood Sweatshirt, we were all excited to try it. Normally, a sweatshirt wouldn't be a pattern that would excite me, but this one with the different style lines just seems to have so many possibilities! You can choose to use two different fabrics for the sleeves as I have done here, opt for a plain front, or princess seams, add the pocket and a front zipper, or have fun with the hem treatment! I also love this pattern because it goes together so quickly on a serger. You can view my blog and video tutorial on serging the neckband here. I made the top pictured here for my daughter. It is View B made from a lightweight sweatshirt knit (the solid blue fabric) and a matching flannel. As Erica mentioned in her post, it works fine to use a woven on the top of the sleeves, but as Camelia explained, the bottom of the sleeves need to be in a knit.
For this design, I changed the pattern by shortening the body by one inch at the lengthen/shorten line and shortened the width of the bottom band by 1 inch. I wanted to reduce the overall length because I was adding the shirt tail hem.
For the hem I used the back body piece from the Classic Shirt pattern. I used the bottom 7 inches of the pattern to form the tail. To determine the width, measure the front and back of the finished seam that unites the bottom band and the body of the sweatshirt. If you need more width than the Classic shirt pattern gives, just slide the pattern piece over from the fold to get the correct width.
Sew the back and front pieces of the shirt tail together at the side seams. Hem the shirt tail as directed in the Classic Shirt pattern and use your preferred method to finish the top of pieces.
With right sides together, attach the finished shirt tail to the seam connecting the body of the sweatshirt and that of the hem band. Let the shirt tails hang down and you now have a cozy layered sweater look which is very in right now!
I will be over at the Oliver + S blog soon with another version of this shirt (for my other daughter) and before all is said and done, I think I need one as well!