Versy Jumper (Grasser Patterns)

The Versy sweatshirt is a new project completed on my 2022 list! Yay! Along with the joy of the finished project comes the small satisfaction of the checkmark in the list. Gniiiii.

It’s totally riding the 80’s square shoulder trend. The Versy sweatshirt is almost straight out of V. But if V (keep reading if you don’t get the ref).

Hop, the 5th project checked off my list of 2022 couture projects!

The Versy jumper pattern

The Versy sweatshirt is a pattern in 2 versions: the dress and the sweatshirt.

For both versions, the top offers a medium fit (neither loose, nor fitted) with an elasticated waistband.

It reminds me a bit of what I did with my Teddy HD jacket.

The princess cut-outs on the front and back allow for the insertion of the famous shoulder pads that look like they came straight out of “V”. 

“V” and the reptilian invaders. Kssssss…

I’m allowed. We’re still just getting out of the Halloween costume craze on blogs and social networks… at least my costume is usable in real life.

Oh well, they don’t look too friendly, do they?

This series gave me a few nightmares when I was a kid… my mother forbade me to watch Nikita at 15. But she totally missed the nightmarish potential of human-faced invaders suddenly mutating into slimy green reptiles. Anyway.

That said, the only possible nightmare of this pattern is the right-angled bottom of the armholes and the inlaid sleeve assembly.

All the lines of the pattern are streamlined with straight & long sleeves and a high collar closed by a zip at the back.

When I bought this pattern (well over 2 years ago), the English version did not exist… so I have it in Russian. So I can’t really judge the clarity of the explanations.

That said, everything is clearly illustrated with photos, for the 2 versions (top and dress) separately. The steps are detailed, and a lot of additional information (cut, type of stitches, finished measurements, ease, etc.) is available.

Russian patterns often offer several heights & size by size downloads. Beware: Russian sizes are much smaller than ours: check your measurements carefully to choose the right size!

The Versy sweater pattern is no exception to the rule with a range of sizes from 38 to 52 in 5 heights (152-158, 158-164, 164-170, 170-176, 176-182).

Sewing the Versy jumper

So I sewed it in size 46 which is more or less my waist size… but I’m more of a 42 for the chest size and 44 for the hip size.

This is where size-by-size sales have their limits. You can’t easily grade between sizes.

Most of the assembly was done in straight stitch on the sewing machine, as recommended in the instructions. 

I serged the seam allowances after sewing… but that’s a really stupid idea.

Better to serge BEFORE sewing. It’s considerably less messy.

If you’re not too terrible at the game of 7 mistakes, you’ll probably have noticed that I’ve modified the collar.

For a start, it’s half as high as it should be.

Also, I absolutely skipped the zip on the back. It works because my knit fabric is particularly stretchy (= stretches a lot) and elastic (= comes back into shape after being stretched).

So I can get my head through without any problem (but I take off the glasses). Warning: don’t repeat this stunt at home without checking if it fits before the final sewing!

As for the half straight ruffles, half shoulder pads, no problem. They fit all by themselves once the rest is assembled.

To make sure the yokes don’t fall apart, I fused them along the whole length in the centre with a 5 cm strip (instead of the recommended 6 mm).

And just to be on the safe side, I added an 18cm piece of iron-on fleece across the width at the shoulder.

Sometimes it just hits just right anyway (⇢ the front left shoulder ¯_ (ツ)_/¯ ) !

You can see that I didn’t even try to make tile matches. Honestly, on such small squares in a fluid and super elastic knit fabric, it was lost from the start.

And besides, when I see what I see in the subway… I tell myself that we’re getting into a lot of trouble for not much in the sewing community.

But you’ll tell me, we don’t sew to compare ourselves to the rotten standards of ready-to-wear.

By the way, let’s talk about fabric: well, I don’t know what it is actually. I bought it second hand but I don’t remember where or from whom.

But I remember jumping on it because I regretted not having taken more of another very similar milano that I had picked out for lingerie and liked a lot.

I suspect viscose, elastane and ?

To continue, I had more problems with the bottom of the sweater than anything else.

For one thing, the bottom front is fanning out. This makes the instruction to “tuck in 4 cm to create a slider” a bit complicated. That said, it’s quite possible that I missed a bit of the explanation because of the language barrier. 

On the other hand, the yokes create 4 zones of overthickness at the waist. And, as we know, overthicknesses always trouble the machines.

The idea is to :

• Close the elastic to form a ring
• Overcast (or zigzag) the elastic directly to the edge of the garment on the wrong side 
• Then fill in along the elastic
• Finally, fix the whole thing with a stretch seam, sometimes with up to 5 layers (overlapping, double-needle or zig-zag)

And everything would have been fine if my serger hadn’t decided to piss me off by making me redo the last 15 centimetres about 8 times in a row…

Finally, I was surprised that the sleeves were a little short.

As they were just right without a hem, I finished them with a pre-folded elastic to keep the length intact.

If I were to do it again, I would add 2-3 cm to the length.

Conclusion

This little sweater is very nice and original!

I find 2-3 imperfections in the making but it’s mostly due to the first time effect (the first time is always worse, isn’t it?)… and probably the language barrier on the instructions.

I just have a doubt that it’s warm enough for winter. Maybe it will wait until spring.

Will I make another version or the dress? Probably not as is. But I do have some ideas for copying these tabard style looks seen on Pinterest by removing the sleeves.

If you have any other pattern ideas for these sleeveless jumper… feel free to ping me. This is where I regret not knowing how to knit (ㅠ﹏ㅠ).

Otherwise… you may have noticed the skirt?

Do any of you have any ideas about the pattern? There’s a link in this article that should give you a clue. JDCJDR!

At worst, the mystery will be solved next week 😉 So see you soon!

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