My son is a soon to be teenager, and it appears at this age that hoodies are a thing. He wears hoodies and t-shirts all winter long. Now, while he has plenty of t-shirts, there is a lack of hoodies. He had one that fit and a few that were too small but worked, so he was wearing his hoodie that fit for days at a time. I think it was ready to walk off his floor and put itself in the laundry pile!
I asked in a pattern Facebook group if there were any tween/men’s patterns for a full zip up hoodie and got zero responses to that call. I looked at Wardrobe by Me’s patterns and she had a hoodie, but it didn’t zip. After some back and forth with the designer, she decided to release one since there appeared to be a dearth of this style in men’s patterns. I did the initial test (this is a size Small on my 5′ 8″ 112 pounder), so here are my versions of the hoodie for my boy. He wanted the character fabric on it, and he was really pleased. The only difference is that I faced the hood with the character fabric. On her pattern, it is a self-facing.
She is testing the pattern now, and should be releasing it soon. I will update with a link when she does.
EDIT: Just released: Ziggi Zipper Hoodie
These use a 24″ zipper, which is not the easiest to put in with the shifty knits. It is easier if your main knit doesn’t have a lot of vertical stretch. I also serged the edge so it would not stretch as much. Then went really slow. I think a walking foot would be fantastic here. I needs one. The second and third hoodies here went much easier due to lack of vertical stretch.
I put a mark on the zipper edges to make sure they are aligned at the same spot for the pockets. If they are off even a little bit, it is very noticeable. I did this for all of them, but unfortunately I was off on the Cylon hoodie.
I bought all of the main fabrics locally at a fabric warehouse. I didn’t have much luck finding a simple sweatshirt knit, but found these fleece and sherpa backed knits.
Hoodie #1 – Fleece backed knit and custom knit from Sugar Ink Fabrics (Fallout – Vault Boy). It will match his t-shirt. 😉
Hoodie #2 – This is a sherpa backed knit with a custom fabric from Sugar Ink Fabrics (Fallout).
Hoodie #3 – This is another sherpa backed knit with a custom fabric from Sugar Ink Fabrics (Battlestar Gallactica – Cylons). This one will be extremely warm, so I imagine he will wear it most of the time when it is cold out. He hasn’t watched Battlestar Gallactica, so I need to introduce him to the cylons. 😉
Now, he will hopefully be set on hoodies for a little while and I can work on something else! Sooooo much fabric, so little time!
