One of my friends had a baby shower on Saturday, so on Friday night I decided to make a hoodie and pants for the mommy-to-be. I cut everything out Friday night and sewed it all together Saturday morning!
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I decided to use the Halla Patterns Kids Stardust Shirt* as my hoodie pattern base, since I knew I could trust the sizing on it and already owned a copy. I wanted to modify the design to incorporate color blocking in a different way, so I looked through the International Knit Sewalong Facebook Group and found a sweatshirt with a curved and banded color block on the front and arms that looked simple enough to draft myself.
The bottoms were made using the Halla Lounge Pants*. Since it’s for a baby, I didn’t bother using the pockets.
About the fabric
I picked out most of these fabrics during Mabel Madison’s recent sale. Mabel Madison carry lots of boy friendly fabrics and most of them are European. Euro fabrics are just beautiful to work with. They’re a little bit pricier than some other commercial knits, but usually cheaper than custom knits. Mabel Madison also has super fast shipping – they’re located in Pennsylvania and since I’m in Virginia she usually can refund my shipping a little by taking advantage of regional flat rates.
The zebras and melange dark gray are both French Terry knits. The shirt waistband, arm and leg cuffs are all cut from dark gray ribbing, which is a beautifully sturdy rib knit.
The cotton Lycra accents were all in my stash already – the stripes are from Purple Seamstress and I don’t remember where the aqua and charcoal solids came from.
How to do this hack
I used my French Curve to draw an arc on the front and back bodice pieces, then added the seam allowance to each side. For the sleeves, I used the short sleeved pattern piece as is, then added seam allowance to the top of the lower sleeve portion. For the short sleeved arm bands, I measured the pattern piece and made the length of that band exactly the same as the width of the short sleeved edge (the included band pattern piece is shorter than the sleeve so it wouldn’t have worked for this version).
In terms of construction, I sandwiched the binding between the surrounding bodice and sleeve pieces first, then assembled as normal.
I think this will be a really nice cozy outfit this fall/≈winter!
I’m a VIP Blogger for Halla Patterns and received the lounge pants in exchange for review/promotion.
auschick sews 