Neighborhoodie

I frequently sew for my 20 something daughters as well as for myself and had a request from my eldest for a cozy dark hoodie. Having searched through The Fold Line database, I was surprised by how few patterns there were for such an everyday garment. We decided to use Liesl & Co’s Neighborhood Hoodie pattern. This is described as being slightly boxy in shape, which doesn’t suit Hazel’s hourglass figure, so I graded the medium size in slightly at the waist and out to large at the hips.

We selected a gorgeously soft fleece back jersey in black with red, yellow and blue flecks from Bobbins & Bolts and some viscose jersey in burnt orange for the hood lining.

The fronts of the hoodie assembled quickly, starting with the pocket front and gradually adding top front and side front pieces. I decided not to use my overlocker, relying on my standard machine as a good deal of edge and top stitching was required. Attaching the raglan sleeves was very straightforward and I really began to feel I was making progress. The hood assembly, hem band and cuffs all went well.

However inserting the zipper was when my progress ground to a halt. I had chosen a good quality metal open ended zipper. I found the instruction to “pin or glue” down the zipper to the inside of the seam allowances unusual and had to have a couple of attempts to manipulate the small half inch seam allowances at the centre front to achieve a good finish.

The instructions blithely say “the top of the zipper can extend beyond the neckline; we’ll finish it later”. Well sorting out the zip almost finished me! I had to buy a pair of jeweller’s pliers and some side cutters to snip the individual zipper teeth and extract them one at a time without damaging the zipper tape – a bizarre time-consuming dentistry which left me with sore hands and a short temper.

I used home made bias binding to finish the neckline, hiding the unsightly hood to neckline inside seam. Wrapping the bias binding around the zipper tape also served to finish the upper ends of the zip.

I usually sew at least a garment a week and this was the only thing I managed to make in September. It is not a quick sew but worth the effort and I am now equipped with tools for shortening and mending zippers in future. I have a lovely, shapely jacket to despatch to Hazel in autumnal shades just hoping that she will like it too.