The stylish sweatshirt
The story of Jarrah began last winter when I realised that I had a shocking lack of warm sweaters, and every sweatshirt was…well, really ugly. Warm sweaters are one of life’s necessities – so if you’re going to wear one, I reckon you should make it a good one! I started working on Jarrah to fill the sweatshirt shaped hole in my wardrobe, and my goodness me did it fill that void! I love this sweater pattern so much that I personally have 10 in my wardrobe. I know. Total overkill. That is how addictive this pattern is.
One of my litmus tests for a pattern is how many people stop me as I’m taking my kids to school to ask me where I bought said garment. And I have to tell you, the number of those questions I get about these sweaters when i wear them is truly staggering. I already have two in the works for good friends of mine. This pattern is a stylish spin on a sweatshirt, designed to keep you warm but still looking put together.
Details details details
As you know I love providing you with lots of value in my patterns, so I have designed this pattern to be modular. You can mix and match pattern pieces from any of the views to create your dream sweater! You can even use this pattern to make a loose fit long or short sleeve tee! I tried making a long sleeve tee with View A (leaving off the cuffs and hem band) and it’s one of my favourite tees. It’s getting warmer in Perth now, so I’m planning on trying a short sleeve version – i’ll let you know how i go!
Jarrah includes two necklines (crew and funnel), two sleeve options (cuffed and split sleeve hem) and four hem options (band, curved, tie front, cropped). That’s a lot!
You can make this pattern in a variety of different sweater knits. I’ve used french terry, polar fleece, ponte knit, jersey knit (for tees), even some quilted sweatshirt knits which turned out amazing. They honestly all work well. This pattern has enough ease that you really don’t have to worry about stretch percentage at all – just keep in mind that it will affect the fit. View A, C and D of our samples were all made with quite stretchy terry (around 40-50%) whereas View B we made from a polar fleece with less than 10% stretch. You can see they all work and fit well, but the View B sample is slightly closer fitting and more structured.
How does it fit?
Jarrah is an oversized loose fit with enough ease to fit another long sleeve clothing layer underneath. A pet peeve of mine is sweaters/sweatshirts that are so close fitting that you can’t get a long sleeve shirt on underneath, and if you can, you end up feeling claustrophobic and constricted the whole time. Not this one! Jarrah has enough room that you always feel comfortable and snuggly, with a good range of motion, but is close fitting enough to remain stylish. There is just enough ease in this pattern that I think you could probably make it in a woven fabric, and I’m really itching to make a long sleeve drop shoulder linen blouse with bias neckline facing.
The lengths differ for each view, but each should cover your waistband/natural hip bone. There are options in the pattern for lengthening and shortening the pattern incase you should like to adjust the length of any view (and we’ll show you how to do that in the sewalong).
View A sweater with cuffs and hem band
View A is basically what we expect a good sweatshirt to be. It has a comfortable fit, drop shoulder, a crew neckline and lovely wide hem band and sleeve cuffs. This version is really well suited to french terry fabrics as the ribbing in the cuffs and hem band help keep the shape. Having said that, I have made myself a ponte knit version, where I used ponte knit for the body, neck band, cuffs and hem band and it turned out awesome. One of my favourite things about this one is that you can sew the entire garment with a serger/overlocker (or zig zag function on a regular machine) which makes it an incredibly super fast sew. Of course you can add some topstitching detail if you like, but i have found that most of the time i skip that in this view. I love using matching ribbing for this view, but it would look equally good with a contrast ribbing, or self fabric if it is stretchy enough. This sweater is a lovely modern length – it will cover your waistband, but isn’t overly long and shlumpy. If you would like to lengthen yours we have provided lengthen shorten lines and will also be sharing some tutorials in a few weeks.
View B curved hemline and split sleeve hem
View B was the most popular with our pattern testers – that curved hemline just looks so good on everyone! This version has a drop shoulder, crew neckline, curved hemline which is longer in the back than the front and a split sleeve hem. This view is really well suited to structured sweater fabrics like polar fleece as they keep their shape nicely and work particularly well with the hem and sleeve detail. For our pattern sample I actually used two polar fleece fabrics in the same grey tone and I think it works really beautifully. The sleeve for this version is quite long and is intended to extend over the hand. It’s really wonderful for cold days where you want to snuggle up and feel extra warm. The split sleeve also looks great folded back (one of my favourite things to do if the wrong side of the fabric is nice!)- and we have also included lengthen shorten lines in the pattern to help you customize the length if you would prefer it shorter.
View C tie front and cuffs
Gosh I love View C! This version has a tie front, sleeve cuffs and a crew neckline – as well as the drop shoulder and loose fit of the other views. It is absolutely perfect for wearing with garments that are usually hard to wear a sweater with. You know what I mean – like skirts and dresses and lovely high waisted jeans and pants. You can adjust the waist fit with this one as well, by tying the tie tightly or loosely it will fit a little differently. In our testing we found that this version works really well with all sweater knits, even loose ones like french terry, as the tie front really cinches everything in. I have some gorgeous Liberty of London floral french terry I have been saving for this version and I can’t wait to cut it out! As with all the versions this view also has lengthen shorten lines for if you would like to make yours a little longer.
View D funnel neck crop with split sleeve hem
One of the reasons pattern testing is so important to me is all of the wonderful feedback and suggestions we get. The overwhelming request of most of our testers was to include a funnel neck option for this pattern – and that is how View D was born! This version has a cozy funnel neckline, split sleeve hem and a cropped length. One of the great things about this pattern is that the pattern pieces are modular – so you can mix and match all the pattern pieces to create your own version. This means you can add that lovely funnel neckline to any of the versions, swap out the sleeves, do what you like! For this view i really wanted to make a cropped length to remind me of my favourite sweaters from the 90’s.
All the sizes!
I’m so happy that Jarrah is available in my entire extended size range! Sizes 0-20 are available in printed and PDF format and Curve sizes 14-30 are available in PDF format.
Sewalong
We will be posting a full sewalong for Jarrah in a little over a week! There are a lot of fun details included in this pattern and we’ll walk you through how to sew them all and hold your hand for all the tricky bits.
This pattern was so fun to design and I hope you love it as much as I enjoyed working on it for you!
If you have any questions at all please let me know in the comments below or send us an email at hello@megannielsen.com . We’d love to see what you make with the new Jarrah pattern! Don’t forget to tag your creations #MNjarrah and @megannielsenpatterns to share what you’ve been working on, and check out what everyone else is up to!
