I told you I was a quilter now...
This combination quilt/garment project is the Sew Liberated Nest Sweatshirt, the perfect pattern for scrap busting and trying out some quilting techniques on a garment.
This is view A, the pieced front view with no hem or sleeve bands. The Nest pattern spans sizes 0-34, up to a 58.5" bust and 61" hip. I cut a size 24, which corresponded with my measurements.
Like my last quilt project, I used entirely scraps and leftover pieces from garment sewing for this Nest sweatshirt. So, so satisfying. All of the fabrics are, I think, deadstock J.Crew "vintage" sweatshirt fleece or bamboo sweatshirt fleece from Imagine Gnats back in the day.
The green was leftover from these Hudson pants I made Tim; this was the largest piece I had, at about 3/4 of a yard. The grey was leftover from this Staley top, the pink from this Toaster Sweater (this was like tiny scraps- I had to cut the neckband with a seam at the center back instead of in one piece), and the speckled white leftover from this Tobin sweater.
I had planned my Nest out in advance by printing the line drawing and coloring it in in different combinations until I found the one I liked best. However, my limited fabric scraps had me changing things up mid-cutting process when I couldn't fit the pieces onto my scraps.
I ended up cutting the back of the sweatshirt in several pieces and switching up the color of the side front panels (I had originally intended green there). But I like how the final color arrangement looks!
Piecing the quilt square in this thick fleece was a little bit tricky and my points are not perfect, but good enough! The wool pressing mat my mom got me and my clapper really helped getting these pretty crisp in the poufy fabric.
I ended up not liking how it looked to have all of those raw seams from the quilt block on the inside of my garment (even though I know they shouldn't unravel in a knit), so I lined the quilted section with a piece of sweatshirting. I did the burrito method to enclose the top and bottom seams. It's a little thick in the front now; maybe I should have considered lining with jersey or something lighter.
I considered topstitching/quilting the Nest, but tried both machine- and hand-stitching around the quilt block, but found the stitches just sank into the thick knit. I ended up skipping it.
I definitely regret not topstitching the neckband, as it's wanting to roll and show the seam allowance!
I'm finding the neckline on the Nest to be a bit big - you can see in these photos how my scoop neck tee is showing at multiple spots around the neck.
My large neckline might be at least partially due to my fabric not having a lot of recovery. Maybe it would work better in a ponte de roma or something?
This was a super fun and creative project! I find making something from scraps to be very exhilarating, and this was no exception. Problem is: I'm not feeling like the final product is "me."
I don't know if it's the muted color combo, the country quilt aesthetic of the quilt block itself, or the strange (to me) combination of thick fabric and wide neckline, but I'm just not that into it.
Part of me is tempted to make another one in different fabrics in colors that are better for me (and that have better recovery?) to see if I like it more then. But I'm not mad about it; like I said it was a really fun project!
