Liberty Pull-Over

Remember the Liberty shirt from the Sewing Workshop? I think it may be the most popular top pattern they ever produced. I've certainly used it lots. There are similar shirts in the Cutting Line Design pattern list, as well as Tessuti, but the one from TSW is my personal favorite.

About 5 years ago, I book-marked a tutorial for making this into a pull-over knit t-shirt, as I just love that hem. And Elaine's t-shirts are great looking, I think.

The fabric I used is a rayon-wool boucle from TSW. They call it English boucle. It's a knit but fairly stable without a ton of stretch. It does not ravel, so no need for any special seam finishes.

It was fairly easy to cut, no curling but fairly thick so I cut it single layer. I'm finally convincing myself that this is almost always a good idea. 

I redrafted the front, filling in the lower center front cut-out, as described in Elaine's tutorial. The center front cut-out is so that the cut-on front facing is not bulky. And I remembered to make a forward shoulder adjustment. Yay!

It came together quickly. There were only 4 pieces: a front, a back and 2 sleeves. The exception was the neckline.

Getting the neckline right for pulling it over my head took a few tries. I have found that, with knits, the amount of stretch is hard to predict. Each fabric requires a different circumference in order to easily go over my head. I chose to finish the neckline with some bias-cut silk from a kimono remnant to reduce bulk. 

I cut the silk 2" wide, folded it lengthwise, and pressed lightly. At first I tried Linda Lee's 7/8 rule for making it but my bias silk did not have enough stretch for that. Instead, I sewed the binding onto the shirt almost one-to-one, two raw edges of the silk matched to the raw edge of the garment. I kept the silk on top so that it drew in the neckline just a bit as I sewed it on. I had previously stay-stitched the neck edge to keep it from distorting. Then I joined the ends of the silk binding, finished sewing it on the neck, pressed it away from the garment, folded it inside, and top-stitched.

At this point it looked like a sweat shirt to me. Not in a bad way, just a very casual garment to wear any time. I like that vibe during these COVID times. I won't feel too silly wearing it around the house.

I wore it a day or so, and decided it needed more. 

First I added a little kantha remnant to the back neckline, with a piece from the silk binding stitched on top of it. 

Then I just had to add a little sashiko, and then some more. 

Liberty pull-over with rayon jersey Picasso pants

I also added a little sashiko to the shoulders, as this fabric has a tendency to stretch out. I even noticed that on one of Linda's garments made out of this. The sashiko allowed me to draw it in and stabilize it in one pass.

Now I'm done with it. I'm really quite pleased with it. I want to make another maybe with a collar like the one in the tutorial. Maybe with Alabama Chanin vibes. 

I also have some re-sizing on some old pants to fix. I enjoy fixing things. Recently when I was wearing this wool coat, I realized I would really love pockets. I was lucky to find remnants in stash and added them. Voila! Just right.

fabric: heavy quilted wool & brown silk; pattern: A New Dimension, CLD