Hacking the Lululemon Don't Hurry, Be Happy Pullover

In 2012, Lululemon released the Don't Hurry, Be Happy Pullover sweatshirt. It was made of a micro-fleece fabric backed in this crazy soft and warm minky type layer and had accents in Rulu (a warm, proprietary tech knit fabric). It came in ivory and black and sold out very quickly. I was able to snag one in ivory and it has been my go-to cold weather sweatshirt for the last 5 years.

Wearing the inspiration piece

The original website photo

I kept hoping that they would release another round, this time in colors other than white and black, but no dice. And while I kept hoping to find similar fabric so I could make my own version, I didn't have any luck in that department either.

This past fall though, So Sew English announced that they would be stocking a new fabric, made just for them, that they were calling "Super Plush" - a smooth, stretchy knit fabric backed with a plush, minky like fluff. I almost fell off the couch when I read it - THIS was what I had been looking for to hack my favorite Lululemon sweatshirt!


I snagged 2 yards of the charcoal super plush and then... a billion other things got in the way and it sat the in the sewing room for months. Ooops.

I *finally* got down to business last week and started hacking the silly thing already. Aside from the charcoal super plush, I also used some charcoal bamboo lycra jersey I had in the stash for the cuffs and waistband. I used the P4P Relaxed Raglan pattern (afflink) as my base, though any relaxed fit raglan pattern you like would probably work. I used the RR pattern as drafted for the body, sleeves and kangaroo pocket (which comes with the Raglan Add on pack afflink). One of my only critiques of the original pullover was that the extremely fitted sleeves/cuffs made it difficult to layer a shirt underneath. I purposely kept the sleeves as drafted for the RR so they would be loose enough for another layer underneath. I also made sure the cuffs were cut looser as well.

 The funnel/cowl neck, cuffs and waistband, however, needed some tweaking from RR pattern base.

Funnel/Cowl Neck
The neck piece on the inspiration piece is like a very tall funnel collar that is dreaming of being a cowl neck (just a smidge wider at the top than the bottom). I literally took tracing paper and drew the shape of the funnel neck with pencil and then cleaned it up and made sure it was even. The thing that is hardest to see with this piece is that the front dips down, while the back curves up.

In hindsight, I should have made the top of the funnel wider so it would fold over my shoulders a bit more. It sits fine, just more upright than the original. Since my version is narrower through the funnel neck, I skipped the cording and just turned up the hem 1" and topstitched.


Waistband
The LLL pullover has a 4 piece waistband - 2 outer and 2 inner pieces. The outer pieces are ruched and the inner pieces are just sewn flat. I decided to use a 7"x17.75" piece for the outer layer and then 5"x17.75" for the inner layer (includes 1/4" seam allowances). I used 1/4" elastic cut to 5" and stitched it to the seam allowance for the outer layer, which caused the ruching effect. There might be a better way to achieve this detail, but this technique was successful.

I then stitched the inner and outer layers right sides together and flipped them back out - ruched outer layer and smooth inner layer.  You can see here that the join line of the inner and outer layers rolls to the inside, which actually happens with the LLL version as well.

Cuffs
The cuffs are sewn in a very similar fashion to the waistband. The original pullover has a 4 piece cuff, but I simplified my version to 2 pieces - a ruched outer top layer and smooth inner layer. The dimensions I used for my cuff pieces were 9"x8" for the outer layer and 6"x8" for the inner layer. Again, I used 1/4" elastic cut to 6" in the seam allowance for the outer piece to achieve the ruched look. I stitched them together and flipped them over so they could be attached to the sleeves.

I topstitched all of the seams except for the 2 side seams to give it a sportier look and to mimic the inspiration piece. Topstitching tall, slim, cuffs in the round is AWFUL, but I made it work. Ideally, I'd have figured out and used a flatlock stitch for most of this, but since I don't have that skill under my belt yet, the coverstitch topstitching worked out pretty well.

Original:


My hacked version:


All in all, I'm SO happy with this sweatshirt! It's not exactly like the original, but it's close enough for my liking.




I can also see myself using the cuff and waistband pieces on other sweatshirts for myself to fancy them up a bit. They take longer to construct, but I love the ruched details on them both.


Even if you don't want to hack your own Don't Hurry, Be Happy Pullover, I can't recommend this super plush fabric enough for warm and comfy sweatshirts and jackets. So Sew English has even more super plush coming soon in jewel tones and a couple of prints and I have plans for at least one more sweatshirt like this. Yes, I realize I live in Southern California, but I'm often cold during the winter months and this pullover feels like wearing your favorite cozy blanket - but it's acceptable to wear outside of the house!