Sweater vests into a hoodie--Thing-a-Day 10

A few weeks ago, I was scouting the thrift stores looking for sweaters to reconstruct, when I saw these two cotton sweater vests that looked like they would work well together. They were on the quarter item table, so I grabbed them. I wasn't sure how I wanted to do the neckline of my project, so I waited on it for a while, then remembered I had some green turtleneck-type jersey fabric that would work well as a neckline and cuffs. I wanted to try making a hoodie, though, and did not have a pattern.

What I ended up doing is using my favorite toddler raglan sleeve top pattern, Kwik Sew 3149, and instead of using the neckline that comes with the pattern, I traced a hood from a hoodie that fits my little guy, and added on a seam allowance. I had a picture of this, but it failed to upload. Anyhow, here's the raglan sleeves being laid out. I use downloadable patterns from sewingpatterns.com. I don't mind taping together tiled patterns. I hate dealing with fragile and cat-enticing tissue patterns much more. This pattern has been used and used and used and still is holding up well. If you go the download route to get this pattern, set your printer for fast draft, to save a ton of ink. The pattern here was printed on fast draft, and as you can see, it worked out fine for my purposes.

A hoodie! I overlapped the two center front sections of the hoodie hood, because my example hoodie was assembled in that way. It made it easier to insert as well. I started serging at the center front, and inserted it just like a regular neckband, other than starting at the front. Now that I am no longer intimidated by the thought of making a hooded garment, my kids and I will have hoodies galore! The green sweater I used for the torso section is darker than it appears here---more of a granny smith apple green.

Action shot! The hood fits, but he took it off as soon as we walked into the store. We were buying juice to drink on our walk. As soon as we went back out, the hood went back on and stayed on.

I'm going to look for more cotton sweaters so I can make more of these. I screwed this one up, but made it work anyway. The sleeves were accidentally sewn on backwards. Front sleeve notch, to back shirt notch, et al. I didn't catch it till I was sewing the front shirt section on. Since I used to work in a garment factory with a cutting crew that was frequently hung over, I learned how to jam together pattern pieces that don't quite line up. LOL. Anyhow, it worked out okay in a child's pattern. Little kids are basically cylinder-shaped and the front and back sections are not hugely different in this pattern. In an adult pattern, my boo-boo would be really evident. I'd like to see how this hoodie idea looks when sewn together the right way. Maybe later this week there will be more recons. It was fun.