Green Hoodie and more

In all my years of sewing, I have never made myself a regular, zip-up hoodie.  Once I decided that was what I wanted, I trawled through my pattern collection to find a pattern.  I landed on Ottobre Family 7/2018 pattern 11.  I bought this magazine for the great selection of men's patterns, but so far the only pattern I have used are the elastic waist pajama bottoms.

Anyway, back to the hoodie.  I knew that I wanted to add stripes.  Deciding what colour stripes was the tricky bit.  In the end, I went with the other fabrics that were already out on my cutting table.  

I made a couple of alterations to the pattern.  The pattern looks like it has princess seams, but when I lay the pieces beside each other, it became clear that the seam lines were for colour blocking, rather than to add shaping.  My usual alterations are square shoulder, narrow chest, broad back and small bust.  I decided as I was doing these alterations that I would add a small bust dart into the front panel, similar to a Kathmandu fleece jacket I wear all the time.  This hoodie is not as fitted as the Kathmandu one, so probably the dart wasn't necessary.  Next time I make this up, I should raise this dart by ~2cm, as well as broaden the back.

I changed the design of the pockets.  With the placement of the stripes, the pocket area was getting all a bit bulky, So I made a pocket opening facing, and then just used one layer of fabric for the pocket back.  You can see the facing stitching in the above photo.  I then changed the shape of the pocket to a rectangle so that it would be caught in the front and hem and not flap about.  I used the top-stitching of the strips to secure the top edge of the pocket.  

I bought the wrong size zip (because I was in the shop for something else when I saw the zip and knew it would be a good colour match and just guessed the length).  Rather than shorten the zipper, I decided to lengthen the hoodie by 5 cm.

I used some green tape, that I dyed for a project years and years ago and never ended up using, to finish the inside neck edge.  It was a great colour match.

I used the leftover green French terry fabric to make my daughter a jumper using Jalie 3355.  I added some stripes to the sleeves to get it to fit on my remnants, but I like the stripes better than a plain top anyway.

 

I used some of the left-over ribbing to finish the neck and sleeves of a t-shirt for my son.  Sadly, I think the sizing is off (it's a bit short...again, using up remnants...thought it would be okay) so he may not get a lot wear from it.

I used Ottobre design pack 301 for the t-shirt.

Now, just to cram a few more garments into this post.  The pink fabric in the stripes was a bamboo jersey that I used to make a pair of True Bias Hudsons.  

I then used the last of this bamboo to make a pair of sleep shorts.  I used a pattern that I made as a rub-off from some running shorts years ago.  

Now I've had a good clean-up of my sewing room, cleared off the cutting table, and am ready to start on a new match of fabrics.  

Happy sewing xx