Honeydew Hoodie

Seeing as my lovely niece is only one year old, and Lisa Comfort had 50% off in her Black Friday Sale, I decided to make her a Honeydew Hoodie for her Christmas present this year. It's a great pattern for a reversible hoodie and a lovely handmade gift for a little one. I had this ready to go in an afternoon and can't wait to see if it fits.

Fabric

Lisa Comfort does have Honeydew Hoodie kits - they had sold out by the time I got to them but worth looking out for.

I happened to have about 1m of Atelier Brunette dazzle french terry fabric left over from my Named Sloane sweater, which has been waiting for a suitably special (yet small fabric requiring) project. It turned out to be the perfect weight for this project so I would recommend similar if you have it. (I still have about a foot left over after these two makes too). After a little bit more sale shopping I also managed to source some suitable contrasts and decided to to press ahead.

I bought 1m of ivory quilted jersey from the Fabric Godmother (15% off) for the alternate side. This is interesting stuff. It is quite bulky but I just about got away with it. It feels and looks amazing. The only thing I learned was to press it from the right side only - and exposed edges have all the filling inside them which can melt on your iron so be careful!

The only other item that needs sourcing are press studs or snaps. I don't have anything like this already, and you do also need a special tool to insert them. I bought the Prym Love Vario Pliers from Amazon (they are cheaper on their own elsewhere, but not once you've added in shipping) and the Gold Prym colour snaps. My hope is that I will use the pliers for other work as you can also punch holes with them.

If not my niece is getting clothes with gold snaps until they are all gone. Even if she is 30.

These are much easier to install than I thought they would be. I found a YouTube video to help me out because I was not convinced I could install them for a reversible fit, and all was well.
Good fun too.
Less scary than putting in buttons if you ask me.

Total spend (tools, fabric, pattern) was less than £20.

Pattern and Instructions

This is a pattern from the Poppy and Jazz children's sewing pattern collection, created by Lisa Comfort. Link here to the pattern.

In terms of construction, this is a good one. Straightforward and everything matches where it is meant to. The only part that I was worried about was topstitching all around the edges at the end (mainly because I didn't want to ruin it and navy stands out a lot on ivory!)

I set up my overlocker with navy thread and my regular sewing machine with ivory on a zig zag stitch and worked on the two parts concurrently. There's not a lot of pattern pieces and they are so small it's super fast.

I am a massive fan of Sew Over It patterns, and pretty much anything Lisa Comfort. So far I've only had massively positive things to say but in this pattern I thought that there were a couple of details that I really would have liked to have included. The instructions were clear, as were the diagrams, and there was a glossary, but I couldn't see any indication of what kind of stitch to use (which I like to be honest). I knew it was a zig zag or serger stitch because it was knit fabric, but designers differ in what they suggest you use for seaming and for topstitching. I referred to the Sew Over It Work to Weekend eBook to find a suggested length and width. That said, I used 1 width and 1.5 length for seaming and for topstitching and I doubt that this is recommended by anyone. I liked how it looks though.

I do also think it would have been good to have some more information on installing snaps, but they may well be different with each brand.

As it is, I'm pretty satisfied with the end product. I made the biggest size just in case. If it fits, there could well be more coming for my little friend and I definitely would recommend it.....in fact I'm wondering how to scale it up for a grown up version!