Ringing in the New Year Cozy Style with Afton of Sew Anxious

December 09, 2021 1 Comment

Hello everyone, I’m so excited to be on the RCF blog again! I’m sure we’re all still working on our makes for the Christmas season. I know I am! I also already started thinking about what I want to wear for New Years Eve. I’m a mother to two young kids ages 4 and 8, so I’ll be real. We’re just staying in and having our own little party with yummy food, dancing and karaoke singing. Cozy is my favorite style, so I knew I wanted to make a sweatshirt with either joggers or leggings. 

For this blog post I’m collaborating with Danielle from @sew_gr8ful. Earlier this year Danielle ran across a top on pinterest that said “Retired Hot Girl” we both could not stop laughing. Fast forward to now I asked Danielle if she wanted to be twins with me in a top with that saying and she said yes! I’ve had my eye on the bamboo cotton spandex sweatshirt fleece with coordinating ribbing in the shop for quite some time now so thought it would be the perfect time to try it out. If you have not tried this fabric yet you need to add it to the top of your list! It is so much better than I could have ever imagined. The wrong side of fabric has a very soft brushed feeling, and the fabric is very plush. It feels like you’re wearing a blanket, but not heavy, and is perfect for the cooler months. The ribbing has an amazing amount of stretch, very lightweight and not stiff. The texture of the “ribbing” is also so subtle which I really like. 

Once Danielle and I decided on fabric we started thinking about patterns. We knew we wanted an oversized sweater type. Nothing really caught our attention until Greenstyle Creations added a short video to their IG of a pattern they were working on, Sav’s Sweatshirt. It was everything and more that we had imagined. We’re both on the promo team so I immediately went to that group to ask Angelyn when she thought it would be ready for testing then released. To our luck it fit with our timeline!

One thing I’d like to note about the fabric that I noticed when it arrived is that the heathering on the fabric is vertical to the greatest stretch of fabric. With the pattern I was using it didn’t call for much if any stretch, so I wasn’t concerned about having little to no horizontal stretch. Danielle cut hers going with the greatest stretch and I love how we both got slightly different looks by doing this. 

I have a Cricut, so I usually design all my things in the design space that is included. However, when you design this way, you can’t save the file directly to your computer to share and I needed to get it to Danielle so they could be the same. With the recommendation of another sewing friend, I used the program Inkscape. It was all new territory, starting over trying to learn the different things you could do with it. With the help of a few YouTube videos, I was able to figure out exactly what I needed to do to get the design we had in mind. 

I’m not the biggest fan of standard fonts when it comes to designs for tops or decals. A while back I discovered a website called dafont.com. There’s an array of different types of fonts that you can install on your computer for FREE if you’re using them for personal use. There is an option to reach out to each individual designer if you’d like to purchase any for business use. Both fonts I used came from dafont.com. Danielle and I wanted the “retired’ font to look like a stamp, using the search feature on the site I was able to find multiple fonts that had a stamp look! Then all I had to do was add a box around the font to give it that finished look. Another fun thing to note is that with each font you have the option to type in word to see how it looks, which saves you time in deciding if it’ll work for your project or not. 

For my pants I knew I wanted a fabric that would work well with the HTV color we chose but still be loud and fun to really go with the saying. After adding multiple prints to my RCF wish list I finally decided to on the tonal leopard print Hacci. I also purchased the solid black French Terry to pair with it. I ultimately decided to make the brassie joggers also from Greenstyle Creations. Since Hacci doesn’t have as good of a recovery I decided to size down one from my regular size. If you haven’t tried Hacci for pants yet I strongly suggest it. They are so incredibly comfortable! 

This outfit will be my go-to whenever its clean! I can’t say enough how comfortable yet not looking like a hot mess stay at home mom that I always feel like I am! I love that I can wear it at home as lounge wear while homeschooling my son and continue to wear it while running him to his therapies or my daughter to school without feeling like I’m wearing pajamas. (Which I totally have no problem doing all the time LOL) 

Make sure you grab any of the bamboo cotton spandex sweatshirt fleece with coordinating ribbing ASAP. I promise you; you will not be disappointed!

You can check out Danielle’s blog post on her top here.

Here are my #afflinks to both patterns used 

GS Sav’s sweatshirt  https://bit.ly/3xJ2EQ7

GS Brassie Joggers https://bit.ly/3BJU3xG

Thanks for hanging out with me today!

Afton

Sew Anxious on Instagram

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