Memento Mori (Clothes for All Seasons)

It\’s not October without one spooky make, right? I got the idea for this memento mori sweatshirt from Madeline, who recently made an awesome Brooklyn sweatshirt. I immediately wanted to copy her (#sorrynotsorry) but I am much less cool and do not live in Brooklyn. Since I knew I wanted a black sweatshirt with black text, a seasonally-appropriate phrase seemed to fit the style and the month!

I was honestly surprised at how difficult it was to find a good RTW-style sweatshirt material–I looked in all my usual places and read a bunch of reviews and it seemed like most of the sweatshirt fabric available was going to be stretchier and/or lighter than I wanted. After a lot of searching I tracked down some actual RTW-sweatshirting (from Champion!) at a new-to-me fabric store, Nick of Time. They even had the matching Champion ribbing, too, so my sweatshirt is, like, super professional. I think the number one thing home sewers can do to make their garments look handmade, not homemade (aka Becky Home-Ecky) is appropriate fabric selection. Knowing that this is exactly what a certain brand is using for your chosen application makes that a bit easier, don\’t you think? Obviously if you know that Wrangler uses this denim for jeans, it\’s a safe bet that you, too, can use it for jeans. (They have a ton of fabric from J. Crew too!! omg)

The pattern is the men\’s sweatshirt from Clothes for All Seasons in a size small, with a whole bunch of modifications changing the style–adding a split hem, lengthening cuffs–but you could use whatever sweatshirt pattern you have on hand (I like the Grainline Linden a lot too). By the way–there are a bunch of patterns out with this hem recently, but it\’s so so easy to add to a pattern you already have; I wouldn\’t recommend buying a new pattern just for this small detail.

To make the appliques, I used leather scraps left over from this jacket–it\’s pretty thin, so it stitches on easily. After cutting them out, I laid them down how I wanted them, and then lifted them up one at a time, sprayed the back lightly with spray adhesive, and replaced them on the sweatshirt. After they were all nicely stuck I just topstitched around the outsides! My topstitching is not perfect but it\’s passable.

Don\’t forget–use code ALLIE15 for 15% off of your next purchase from Nick of Time!

xoxo,