This is not a hoodie

So, not long after I last made The Boy some new jogging bottoms, I cut out some more in a warmer fabric.This was at some point before our heatwave summer started, and the pattern pieces sat the whole time in my sewing room.

Well, now the weather has turned colder, I finally sewed them up. (It was a warm up to making myself a hoodie for a Sew A Long, or possibly a prevarication, hence the title.)

According to the Kitschy Coo Website where I bought it “This striking fabric has a large scale houndstooth in black on a heather grey background in a blend of 67% cotton, 27% polyester, and 6% elastane in a width of 160cm, with a hefty (but not overly bulky!) weight of 290gsm. The fabric is smooth on the top side with a snuggly brushed back on the underside.” It definitely is snuggly on the back!

The Boy chose the fabric himself, and I went from surprised at how subtle it was (there were geometric wolf heads on offer after all, I was sure he’d go for those) when I bought it, to slightly alarmed at how OTT it looked whilst I was making it up, to loving it once it’s made and thinking it looks really stylish.   The important thing though is that he’s happy with it, and has worn them several times already.

The fabric had shrunk slightly when washed and I struggled to cut the the pieces out of my 1m length. I decided to make sure the dominant lines went across at my seam allowances (although they do swap from grey to black) at the expense of the legs caming out ever so slightly short.

No problem, I put some black ribbing cuffs on.

I also reinforced the knees again with some of the scrap farbic, quilting it on the back along the horizontal lines of the print. Customer feedback is that I didn’t quite get the sweetspot on placement (they’re too low).

 

Halloween Sewing

I have so much catching up to do around here, but first, The Girl has been doing some hand sewing.

I ran a session at our kids Woodcraft Group last week and we made bats, spiders and rats from this book (don’t believe those reviews it’s excellent) and yesterday she finished off her rat (it needed ears sewing on) and embroidered fangs onto the spider that she made three years ago. It is now named Fang.

Her rat came out much better than my demonstration one, which looks like some kind of mutant Clanger. Hey ho.

And that is it for my Halloween sewing. They are concocting their own costumes out of bits they already have, hoorah. And obviously, they chose their costumes themselves, just like CJ quite rightly advocates.

 

Wonky Wolf Boy

I did finish this years birthday hoodie in time, I just never got around to blogging it. Here it is in action, worn over last years hoodie, by a boy who is helping his sister “fly” an impromptu tent kite around a very windy campsite above Plymouth Sound on his birthday weekend.

I used the same pattern as before,  sizing up two sizes, one for growth, one for the thickness of the fleece backed fabric. I wished I sized up more as it still looked a bit snug to me, then he went and wore it over last years jumper, so it can’t be too bad.

I used last years pattern hack to make thumbole cuffs again a la Kelly’s method. And like before I still managed to fluff up sewing them and had to unpick, at least it was only one this time. Note to self, pin/tack and turn the right way to check before sewing for real in future.

I used another one of Kelly’s tutorials to make some puffy elbow patches in taffeta (which really don’t photograph well) and learnt how to fell stitch them on as suggested, via the wonders of internet search engines. I was really pleased with how they came out, however, due to the rush job on this hoodie, I didn’t spend enough time thinking about placement. I cajoled his sister into trying on last years hoodie so I could get the right distance down the arm, but I just put them slap bang in the middle of the sleeve piece without thinking that the elbows are nearer to the seam allowance on one side than the other, so they’ve ended up in a really weird place. He doesn’t seem to mind though.

Spurred on by how my patches looked (at this point not realising they were in the wrong place), I made a larger wolf head patch, which ended up on the front (my orignal thought was the back, not sure what change my mind). I preferred it before it was sewn on, I think rounding off the shaggy fur for ease of application looses some of the wolfness. Also, I manage to painstakingly hand sew it on skewiff. Still, he seems to appreciate it.

This weird looking pocket is a phone pocket, made out of some scrap ribbing. You don’t see it on the finished garment as it’s inside the pouch pocket, an idea I got from a shop bought hoodie of his, but I added a top flap for extra security when climbing trees, flying tents etc.

This garment has been very hard to photograph indoors and he wasn’t co-operating with outside photo’s. Here it is half made, pretending to be a poncho and showing off the fleecey lining a little, the patch pocket I drafted (I didn’t even contemplate doing the hidden pockets from the pattern in this fabric), the hood in all it’s naked unlined snuggly fleecy glory, with knotted pajama cord drawstring and its “I don’t think grommets will stay in this fabric” button hole access.

Oh and I omitted the side zips. I’m such a rebel.

So no, it’s not as pretty as last years, but I had fun experimenting with new things, learnt a lot, and he is just as happy to wear it. Next year I need to start earlier though!