a velvet short sleeved hoodie.

this is my newest creation. someone at sometime posted a hoodie from the 1930’s on their blog, and I loved it so of course I saved the pics and decided one day I will have a hoddie like that!
my obsession with hoodies dates back to being a small child. I had this striped hoddie that I absolutely adored. it was the hood I loved about it, always the hood. and as a child I would wear the hoodie backwards so I could see the hood I held such an adoration for. I was three, and my mom let me wear it that way. she tried to tell me the proper way to wear it, but I would have nothing to do with that so she relented and I wore it like that till I out grew it.

now that I am grown up, I no longer wear my hoddies backwards. I enjoy them properly worn with the hood in the back. actually I’m not really sure why I like hoddies so much as I very rarely put the hood up. I guess I just like the way a hood looks hanging down.

now on to the construction

here is the hoddie from 1939 that I fell in love with. one night I was looking at my stash and I thought oh my god I totally have velvet, and that silky matryoshka doll fabric would look so cute as the collar.
I dug out patterns choosing three of them to get me started. obviously I wasn’t going to have anything quite like the original. I have looked around online for collared hoddies both to buy and patterns to make. but they seem to be a fashion from the 1930’s that has gotten lost over the years.

I chose McCalls 6614 obviously for the hood. which is the only piece I used from the pattern. McCalls 5093 for the front top bust. and newlook 6675 for the sleeves and the back, which I extended . in length by I think 10”.
the bottom front I drafted on my own. and then there was the making of the collar. I had no idea how to do this. somehow I had to attach the hood to a collar but only on the lining. I realized from the pics of my inspiration that velvet part of the hood is separate from the collar, but the lining piece it was not.
getting this right was not easy. and took two tries. I thought I had it the first time. it looked like it would work but then when I had the whole thing put together I realized I was shy by like 2” in width, so the collar didn’t fold right. and that is when I just kind of threw the whole thing in the corner and left it there for days.

here's the one I had to tear apart, see how the lining is too short and the wrong side of the green fabric is showing.
after a week or so though I went ahead and tore the lining out. once I did that I made a new pattern piece this one extended by four inches just to make sure. I had thought about just piecing the missing 2” but then there would have been a weird seam that I just couldn’t wrap my brain around. I had plenty of fabric so I went ahead and cut an entirely new lining part of the hood. it then went fairly quickly. but it was turning out a bit shorter then I wanted so I added the cuff at the bottom which I drafted myself, and yea! it was finally done.



* This blog is not to be used for training AI*

Ka-Pow!!!!

If you read my last post and guessed from the scraps I was making a Robin from Batman Hoodie you were right!!!!!



I based this off the Robin played by Burt Ward. in the 1960’s television Batman. I love that batman. its the bestest.


I have know for a while that I wanted to make this but I had to come up with the design. which meant of course research and TV watching. I didn’t want it to be exactly like Robin’s shirt in the show for several reasons. one its a Hoodie so it needed to be long sleeve two the shirt in the show has rounded ends which won’t work on a hoodie. three the shirt has no zipper and hoodies need them. and the main thing is this is not a costume its a Hoodie!!!



I wear Hoodies a lot as it tends to be cool in the mornings and get hot during the day so I like something that can slipped on and off. without making my hair a static mess. hence the need for a zipper. I made this out of regular T-shirt fabric so its not too hot to wear in the spring/ summer months.



I used McCall's pattern #M6614 for the Hoodie since I had it already. and for fabric I actually bought two extra large T-shirts because they had enough fabric and were on sale. I did have to completely disassemble them before I cut them but it saved me quite a bit of money to do it this way. I did have to buy the Green in yardage though because of sleeves taking up a lot of fabric. the black is scrap from a hemmed skirt.
I did the hood in Yellow because I actually very rarely wear the hood . this way it hangs down like a cape, and Robin’s cape is yellow. though I do think it still looks good when it is up.



putting it together was pretty simple but very time consuming. I had to keep trading thread colors every ten minutes because of the order of putting it together. nothing could be okay all red, now all green, now all yellow, nope it was sew a it in red, okay now green, okay back to red. it was very much back and forth, back and forth. I did enjoy though being able to use a real cover lock on this. it made putting the black on so much easier plus kept the stretch and just looks so nice because it doesn‘t wop thing out of shape. I will say I wish I had one of these, but alas I will have to settle for borrowing a friends. I also used it to make the belt loops. four for the belt and eighteen to look like the looping on the front. those were fun to line up! actually I was surprised at how easily they did line up when I installed the zipper. I was very careful with my measuring when I put them on but still I was worried about them stretching this way and that as I sewed in the zipper. but they didn’t so that was a happy dance in my head!



Making the R patch turned out not to be as easy as I thought it would be. I thought for sure I could go to a craft store and find a yellow R in the letter appliqué section. Wrong! I mean I could if I wanted the R to be only an inch tall. but I needed it to be bigger. I even looked to order something online. and found lots of letters in lots of different sizes and colors, but not big and Yellow. in the end I thought well I will just try to make my own, if it doesn’t work I can see if I can get someone to make me an Embroidered one. but the one I made turned out, I was so happy! all I did was make a pattern of an R, cut it out sewed it onto stiff interfacing, I think I did two layers of it so it would be thick enough. then made me a black circle the same way and just zig zaged around everything to make a nice patch. which I then sewed on to the hoodie.



I do have to say that the most challenging part of this whole project was lining up the belt. because it goes into the pocket yet stays on top of the pocket as well. it took some careful figuring to get that just right, not lose any of the pocket, nor have the yellow loops be on top of it. I had chalk marks all over the place. man I love Tailors chalk its one of the best things out there. I am so happy with the way this turned out, and can not wait to wear it all the time!!!!



* This blog is not to be used for training AI*