juxtapose hoodie...

Just finishing up the hood. I changed it up a little from the Manfriend Hoodie pattern. Because I decided the hood would be nicer in the 4-row, narrow stripe sequence, I thought the front edge would look neat with a narrow stockinette band around the face instead of the folded-inside hem which forms the casing for the drawstring.
The stockinette band would enclose the edge where the second colour is carried up the stripe and made a little smaller to naturally draw in the hood, so no drawstring is required, like Omega  (from Serial Stuff #4) http://www.knitwords.com/bookstore.html
 https://knitwords.blogspot.com/2017/01/multitasking.html
is done and like you’d do for a child since drawstrings around the neck are now frowned upon. Also grafted the shortrowed top of the hood and managed to get it looking just like the 4-row repeat!
Attached the hood according to my original instructions.

ready for the wash

The ends are all sewn in and it’s ready for the wash, just one final thing.

done except for sewing zipper
with the sewing machine

The centre front edges have had no finishing because that’s where the zipper goes (it all needs to be laundered to get the shrinkage out of the way before that) and the pocket isn’t joined at that side.I do a running basting stitch through the two edges to ‘attach‘ the pocket – I find this makes it a bit easier to deal with after the wash/dry process when you have to hang that edge.

This is so cute! And I’m so proud of it! Wish you could see it! Oh, yeah, you could! Come to Pigeon Forge! I’ll have it there, showing you how to sew in the zipper!!

zipper for the black and tan hoodie...

2 zips - which one to use?

Some extra notes on that…I did make sure to put my 10 cm yarn marks on the front edges to help with the zipper placement – it makes a big difference – to figure out the proper length (measuring it after the prewash came to 60 cm) – I pinned in a 50 cm that I had, matching the yarn marks with 10 cm on the zipper and it’s easy to see that  a 55cm is the right length.

chalk markings at 10 cm increments

When I went to the zipper store (lol – if there really was such a thing!) they had both a beige zip with gold metal teeth and a black one with bronze metal teeth – wasn’t sure which would look best because I sort of had in mind to make the bands in the PBT so it would be the same color placement as my original Omega. I bought both in the name of research, I hope you appreciate it. Now at home, in front of the PBT band, I think the black zip works best so I’m going with that.
I put the same incremental marks on the back side of the zipper as the yarn mark points on the front of the garment, using a blue chalk pencil…
For the zipper placement on the front band, you want your sewing line to be right on the T10/fold row so the fold row can still do it job of folding the band in half, but also marking your sewing line. I sewed at 3 for the stitch length, not the longest but not tight so that if it needs to be ripped out, it’s fairly easy – I did use black on the top thread and white on the bobbin so you might be able to see on the underside where the stitch lines are – click on the photo to enlarge it – the top thread should match your zipper tape colour because it does show on the inside of the garment but the bottom colour  ends up inside the casing.

start like this

move the pull behind the foot

When you start sewing the side with the actual zipper piece, have the zipper piece part way up so you can get close to the edge of the zipper teeth. Then after you've gone 4 to 5 inches up, pause with the needle down in the fabric. Lift the zipper foot and move the zipper piece back to the portion already sewn - this gets you past it without making your sewing line go wider to get around it...

stitch second side in same direction

So hang the right front – make notes of where the yarn marks are so you can match the other side. Hang the  male end of the zipper, garter stitch side, wrong side facing you...look back to 'Naturally', blogpost, April 10, '14  for the first set of notes....Oh, yeah, I made this hoodie a size larger than the original because it is a heavier fabric and I thought with the pockets, it needed to be a bit bigger.
Note to self – stop using that 4 ply wool for waste yarn – it felts when you wash it and is a b*%%#@ to remove…