How to Sew Women's Zipper Sweatshirt AUTUMN MEADOW

The pattern

You can get the pattern for women’s sweatshirt AUTUMN MEADOW (sizes 32 - 60) in my online store: Pattern - Women's sweatshirt AUTUMN MEADOW

UPDATE: This pattern for women's sweatshirt has undergone an extensive update.

The design of the sweatshirt is still the same, but I have modified the pattern files to make sewing easier for you.

I used bolder lines in the “all sizes view”, so it's now easier to distinguish between seamlines of different sizes.

A4 patterns have pattern plans and guides for easier assembly.

I have also expanded the range of sizes (the pattern is now available in sizes 32 - 60) and created a completely new and clearer sewing guide, which contains useful info and tips.

Recommended material

I have been looking forward to sewing this sweatshirt for a long time.

I couldn't wait to use this wonderful warmkeeper from Unuodesign.cz.

Warmkeeper is an amazing material, it's basically laid-in knit with dense hairs on the wrong side... Welsoft meets laid-in knit. It warm, fluffy, and looks great!

The pattern also works great with materials such as elastic fleece, combed and uncombed laid-in knit, fleece sweater fabric or thicker sweater fabric, and so on.

My tip: You can easily sew the sweatshirt without an overlock machine, just follow a few simple rules outlined in this article: Sewing elastic fabrics with a regular sewing machine

Sewing instructions

Note: The process of sewing this sweatshirt has many steps, and because I want less skilled sewers to be able to sew it too, there are more than 100 photos in this sewing tutorial.

So as not to overwhelm you (and your web browser), I have placed some photos in mini-galleries. You can click the thumbnails and view the full-size photos so that you can see all the necessary details.

1 - Pattern layout

The pattern contains the following pieces:

• front piece
• back piece
• sleeve
• zipper underlap
• pocket piece
• hood piece
• hood lining
• hood facing
• hood crest
• hood crest lining

Cut the zipper underlap from your secondary - "lining" - fabric.

Fold your fabric in half and place the back piece on the fold, then position other pieces.

Start with the largest ones - the front piece and the hood pieces…

Your fabric may be cut at an odd angle, so you should carefully fold it selvage-to-selvage to make sure that your fold runs exactly "along the thread" so you can position the pattern pieces correctly.

You can save some fabric by positioning the pieces as shown below. Fold the selvage to about two-thirds of the total width, place the back piece on the fold, and the front piece right next to it. Sleeves (one above the other) should fit next to these two pieces. Think about your layout and whether you need to match the print on some pieces. You should also consider the directionality of your fabric when using warmkeeper or some other type of “furry” fabric. The hairs on all parts of the finished garment must point towards the ground.

Keep the fold aligned with the grain of the fabric (both ends of the selvage edge need to be the same distance away from the fold) and use it to align all pieces in the right direction.

Position the rest of the primary fabric pieces. Cut hood lining, hood crest lining and zipper underlap from the secondary (contrasting/lining) fabric. I wanted to have the furry side of the warmkeeper on the inside of my hood, but I didn't want to have seams there, so I made the lining pieces (hood & hood crest) from my primary fabric. Cut two pocket pieces from the primary fabric and two pocket pieces from the lining fabric if you want to make your pockets double-layered. Cut just two pocket pieces from the primary fabric if you want to sew simple pockets.

Cut the zipper underlap on the fold. Iron the zipper underlap thoroughly. You can also steam it and pin it to the ironing board for a few minutes to keep its edges from twisting around.

2 - Important marks

Transfer the marks showing the position of the pockets to the front pieces. I recommend transferring marks with a double-threaded needle. Pierce the paper piece and both layers of the fabric with your needle.

Carefully peel away the paper piece. Sew back through the fabric layers to create a small stitch.

Spread the fabric layers apart a little and cut the threads between them.

Mark all three corners of each pocket in the same way.

3 - Reinforce the pieces

Reinforce the zipper underlap with one-sided fusible interfacing. I recommend using stiffer fusible interfacings with warp threads. Also, reinforce the “collar edges” of the hood facing and hood pieces.

You can also apply the fusible interfacing to the center edges of both front pieces.

Mark pocket opening folds on both pocket pieces (if you are sewing simple - one-layer - pockets).

Reinforce the pocket pieces about 5 mm (0.2”) below this fold. Also, reinforce all remaining sides of both pocket pieces. (See photos below.) You can use regular one-sided fusible interfacing (without warp threads) on the pocket pieces.

4 - Outer hood

Let’s work on the hood now. This is the right time to insert drawstring eyelets (that is, of course, if you want to sew your hoodie with a drawstring). I recommend placing eyelets about 2 cm (3/4”) from the edge. The recommended eyelet position is shown in the photo below.

Pin the hood crest to one of the hood pieces (face side to face side) and sew the pieces together. Add the second hood piece to the other side of the crest.

5 - Inner hood - Lining & facing

Sew the lining pieces together. (Just to be clear now - my lining is made from primary fabric and I’m using the “furry” side as my face side and side with print as the reverse side.)

Sew the facing pieces too. Pin the facing to the lining of the hood (face side to face side). In my case: the face side of the facing is the side with the print and the face side of the lining is the “furry” side.

6 - Assemble the hood

You should end up with a primary fabric hood and hood lining (with facing attached).

7 - Sew the hood to the neckline

Insert the lining hood to the outer hood (face side to face side) and sew them together. Pin and sew shoulder seams. If you have a heavier material that might get stretched out, you can use a strip of firm cloth (or lastin) to underlay the shoulder seams.

Pin the hood (not its lining) to the neckline (face side to face side). Sew the hood to the neckline.

8 - Zipper underlap

My tip: If you want to sew a single-layer underlap (if you have a more stable material such as fleece or fleece sweater fabric), you can... Find out more about that in this article: Zipper with underlap

Now is the time to sew the zipper. Let’s prepare its underlap first. Fold previously reinforced zipper underlap in half (lengthwise, face side in) and sew its shorter edges. Then turn it face side out. Iron the piece thoroughly.

Place the pieces as shown below - the front piece and the first half of the zipper are both face sides up. Lay the zipper (face side up) on top of the zipper underlap. Start at the bottom - the bottom end of the zipper should extend about 1 cm beyond the edge of the underlap. Lay the rest of the zipper on top of the underlap. Fold the surplus part of the zipper tape at the top under itself, twist it towards the edge of the underlap, and pin it there.

Sew the top part of the zipper to the underlap.

Fold the top of the underlap over the top of the zipper and sew it in place.

9 - Zipper & Hood facing

Take the underlap with the zipper (pinned together) and place the two on the edge of the front piece. Order of the layers - the front piece is at the bottom then there is the zipper (face side to face side of the front piece) and then the zipper underlap on the top of the two. Align the upper edge of the zipper underlap with the top of the collar on the hood. Lay the hood facing over the underlap (and zipper) and pin it there.

Fold the edge of the hood facing to the reverse side (as shown below) and pin it there.

Sew the zipper and its cover to the edge of the front piece. You can clean the seam using your overlock machine and pull free ends of the thread chain under the loops. Skip this step if you aren’t sure that your overlock can cleanly sew through so many layers at once. Alternatively, you can clean the edge with bias tape.

Now lay the other half of the zipper over the edge of the second front piece (face side to face side). Start at the top this time - align the top of the zipper and the top edge of the collar on the hood. Fold the excess zipper tape under itself and twist it towards the edge of the front piece. Put the facing over the zipper, fold its edge to the reverse side and pin it in this position.

Sew the zipper to the front piece. Clean the seam.

If you don’t want to cover the zipper tape, just topstitch the edges of the front pieces (sew about 1 cm / 0.4” from the edge)

You can now cover part of the zipper by “rolling” edges of the front pieces over the zipper (over its tape, up to the teeth) if you are going for a more elegant look. Pin the rolled parts of the front pieces and topstitch them. Sew (by hand, use small stitches) through the zipper tape as well as the front piece.

10 - Sew the hood lining to the neckline

Fold 1 cm (0.4”) of the hood lining edge to the reverse side and pin it to the neckline.

There are several ways to sew the hood lining to the neckline. I like to do this by hand with a hidden mattress stitch because it’s nearly invisible. You can use your sewing machine and sew just a few millimeters above the fold but you can’t be sure that the result will look good from the face side. (I do not recommend this!) You can also add a second set of pins to the face side of the hood, remove the first set and then sew from the face side. You can make the seam look nice from the face side using this method, but it’s hard to sew the lining precisely because you can’t see it. I recommend doing this by hand - it may be a bit slow, but you can see what is going on and control the process.

11 - Hood - Topstitching

Pin the edge of your hood and topstitch it (sew about 2 - 4 cm or 3/4 - 1 5/8” from the edge). You can do this with your sewing machine or by hand. Machine topstitching will make your hoodie look “sporty” and you can achieve more elegant look with handmade topstitching.

I’ve done this by hand from the reverse side of the hood (along the facing/lining seam). Use small stitches to make the topstitching subtle.

12 - Sew the sleeves in flat

Now is the time to sew in the sleeves. Pin the top of the sleeve cap (marked in the pattern) to the shoulder seam. Then pin the corner of the sleeve cap to the corners of the armscye and finally pin the rest of the sleeve cap. Sew the first sleeve to the bodice and work on the second one in the same way.

13 - Sleeve seams & side seams

Next, sew the sleeve seam and the side seam in one go. Take care to align the seams (corners of the armscye/sleeve cap) in the armpit area. Sew the other side of the sweatshirt in the same way.

14 - Clean the cutting edges

Set your overlock to a denser (shorter) stitch if you want to “decorate” visible edges of the pockets. Also, set higher thread tension for elastic materials. Try your new settings on a piece of scrap fabric and make adjustments if needed. If you want to sew the pockets in the “usual” way (with folded edges), you can clean the edges with a plain overlock stitch or with your regular sewing machine (with a zigzag stitch, for example).

Decide if you want to show or hide the edges, clean them, and place the pocket pieces on the front pieces. You can now fine-tune their placement - move the pockets around and choose what works best for you. Just make sure that they are placed symmetrically.

15 - Sew the pockets to the front pieces

Pin the pockets to the front pieces (fold their edges to the reverse side if you want to hide them). Now you can simply sew the pockets to the front pieces. You can use your sewing machine but I recommend doing this by hand if you are using some kind of “unruly” material (warmkeeper, sweater knit, etc.).

16 - Two-layer pockets

(If you have decided to work with four pocket pieces ...) Take the two pieces for the first pocket and sew them (face side to face side) - leave a small gap so you can turn the pocket face side out. Then prepare the other pocket in the same way. Close the two gaps (you can use a hidden mattress stitch) and sew the pockets to the front pieces.

17 - Finish the bottom hem & sleeves

Clean the bottom edge and sleeve hems. Fold the bottom hem to the reverse side (over the bottom edge of the zipper) and pin it. Keep the size of this fold constant around the entire circumference of the sweatshirt. Topstitch the folded hem from the face side of the hoodie. Again - you can do this by hand for a more elegant look.

That’s it - your new hoodie is ready! :)

Pattern - Women's sweatshirt AUTUMN MEADOW

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