Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Hot Pink Hoodie!!! - Jalie 2795

I hope your eyes don't go buggy, cuz you're about to be bombarded with a whole lotta PINK!!!  

I am so excited that I finally got to make myself something.  The last thing I made for myself was my white short shorts and plaid tank top back in August.  That's 4 whole months of famine!  I was in desperate need of some selfish sewing, and also in desperate need of a new hoodie, cuz my orange lululemon hoodie is getting pretty ratty.

This is my first time tackling a Jalie pattern, although I have 3 others (new bathing suit pattern, crossover top, and the famous jeans pattern).  
I traced off a straight size Z, which corresponds to the 41" bust.  I'm losing weight right now, and I'm pretty sure I'm down to a 40" bust, but for my first attempt, I wanted to make sure I had some ease so I can wear this over big t-shirts, not just fitted gym clothes.  The hips for this size are 44", which is at least 3" too big for me, but I'm quite happy with the fit.  I'm especially thrilled that there's lots of room in the shoulders, as I often have problems with RTW stuff being quite restrictive.

I decided to line the pockets with white mesh so it wouldn't add a lot of bulk.
I'm happy with how the welt pockets turned out.  The fleece welts kinda curled after they were sewn and pressed, but I'm pretty impressed with the final product.  You can kinda see the white mesh peeking out, but I'm totally okay with that.  
I'm not sure how long this took me, as I didn't feel like keeping track of my time, but I'm guessing somewhere between 4 and 6 hours.  I didn't alter anything, except that I added 2" of length to the sleeves, and I probably only needed 1".  The only thing I will change next time is to add some width to the bottom of the sleeves, as they are very narrow at the bottom, and I like them to be a bit baggier and ease into the cuff.
Another thing I will do before I cut out my next one is to fix some of the pattern pieces so they're not all cut on the fold.  There's a lot of them!  I think it must save them paper when they print the patterns, but most of them needed to be cut twice anyways, so it would be more efficient to have all the pattern pieces altered so that you only need to lay them out and cut once.
Speaking of pattern pieces, holy toledo, there's a lot of them!  Although the vast number of pieces and seams was what drew me to this pattern in the first place.  I love topstitching, and literally every seam on this hoodie gets topstitched.  I also loved the 1/4" seam allowances.  I sewed as much of it on my serger as I could, and for the rest, I just sewed straight seams at 2.5mm on my industrial machine.  Having a short stitch gives them a bit of stretch.
Besides using an orange zipper, I used orange serger thread and orange thread for all my topstitching.  I got a huge cone of orange thread at Davey Fabrics for $2, and I use it whenever I can.  It's great for muslins, quilting, and fun stuff like this.
I love how fitted the hood is!  Super cool!  I can't get over how well this hoodie compares to RTW sporty stuff like lululemon.  If I ever get my hands on some high quality fleece, no one will ever be able to tell I made my own.  Heck, they won't even be able to tell on this cheap pink stuff!
I can't wait to make more of these!  I absolutely love this, and it was just the thing I needed to give me a boost and start the new year off with a bang of PINK!!!
I'm overdue for a haircut; my hair is really long and quite fluffy (since I didn't style it today), but I don't care.  I wanted to show you how happy my new pink hoodie makes me!  *big smile!*
Yay for selfish sewing, and Happy New Year!

5 comments:

  1. That is so a keeper! Total cuteness! I am a hoodie gal, I could use a half dozen of those! I also agree no one will ever know you didn't get that RTW it totally looks fantastic.

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  2. Love it - selfish sewing at it's best!!! You will get a heap of wear out of this. And good luck with your continued weight loss - great start to the year...

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  3. You did a fine job, the use of the mesh is a great idea!

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  4. I like hoodies, too. In fact, I'm wearing the one I made this fall. Yours looks great and is a very fun color - and I like the orange accents. Isn't it funny Jalie puts all those pieces on a fold? I grumble whenever I make their men's t-shirt, but never go to the trouble of actually making a new pattern piece, hehh.

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  5. Your hoodie is awesome! Love the color. I desperately want to make this pattern too. I am ordering it tonight. Thanks for the thorough review. Enjoy wearing it. This color would make me smile too.

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