Tag Archives: Halifax

Purple Mash Hoodie

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You’re probably sitting there thinking “what on earth is a Mash Hoodie?”… well, it’s simply a combination of two patterns. In this case, it’s the main body and sleeves of the
Hey June Handmade* Halifax Hoodie* with the neckline and hood of the Ellie & Mac Around the Block Hoodie.

This is the first time I’ve tried mashing two patterns together, let alone two patterns from different designers, but I wanted to try the hood and neckline of the Around the Block Hoodie without risking the rest of the hoodie being too snug as this French Terry wasn’t the cheapest fabric out there!

I was going to use the hood lining fabric for the cuffs, but it was disappointing in it’s thickness and strength. So instead, I used some premade ribbing fabric for the waistband, and found two premade cuffs that worked really well for the sleeve cuffs.

All I need to do now, is get it finished so it’s able to be worn!

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Patterns: Halifax Hoodie by Hey June Handmade*
Around the Block Hoodie by Ellie & Mac
Fabric: French Terry from Mibs Fabrics, hood lining from Minerva Crafts

The Halifax Crossover

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You know when you go into a fabric shop to look for a specific type of fabric, then spot the perfect fabric for something entirely different? That’s exactly why I ended up with two metres of this thin but snuggly sweatshirt fabric! I knew it was going to make either a hooded Lane Raglan by Hey June Handmade* or a Halifax Hoodie by Hey June Handmade*, but I stashed it away in the cupboard last year as I hadn’t even attempted the Halifax at that point.

Then I spotted a notice for a Halifax sew-a-long for the last week in January, and knew it was the perfect opportunity to use that fabric. Because it is so stretchy (for some reason it stretches most across the length of the fabric rather than across the width), I decided to size down for this one. I did want to try out the crossover hood hack just to make it a little different, and also to avoid having the facing and slit at the front neck.

The hood has my neatest ever top-stitching, but when I followed the instructions and tacked it to the body, the hood didn’t even meet at the front, let alone cross! After a few “what have I done wrong?!” messages, I had a very helpful response which pointed out that the neckline can stretch out of shape quite easily; to sort it, I needed to pin the back centre neck, then cross the front by about 1/2″ and pin, then stretch the hood slightly to make it fit around the rest.

Thankfully that did the trick, and some top stitching worked to hold the seam allowance down towards the body. I used the same technique with the shoulder and sleeve seams, which will hopefully make them a little stronger too.

Using a regular straight stitch, I tacked the sleeve and side seams at 1/4″ first, just to check the fit. That seemed fine, so I left the tacking stitches in (to give the seam more strength), and used the straight stretch stitch to sew the seam at 3/8″.

It wasn’t possible to top stitch all the way down the sleeve and side seams, so I zig-zagged the seam allowance on that just to keep it tidy.

Because I didn’t use a contrasting fabric for the pocket binding and hood lining this time, I felt it needed something to liven it up a little, so I added in a funky blue and white patterned cord. The cord is a little long still, but that is a simple fix to resolve that.

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Pattern: Halifax Hoodie by Hey June Handmade*
Fabric: Fashion Fabrics

 

Halifax Funnel Neck

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After my success with the Halifax Hoodie, I thought I would use up some oddments of sweatshirt fabric on another Halifax*.

I had just enough of the spotty and red fabric left over to make view D this time, but I kept the thumbhole cuff idea as that will save me needing to wear gloves!

I don’t normally wear funnel necks, so this was going to be a total experiment and a learning curve on how to fold the funnel to make it work properly. After reading the instructions through a couple of times, I folded the fabric the right way, and even inserting the eyelets went smoother than before!

If I want to be really picky, I could actually have made the funnel neck a little higher, so it would be cover my nose on a chilly day! But for a first attempt at a funnel neck, it’s come out surprisingly well.

If I’d thought things out a little better on the colour blocking, I would’ve used grey for the cuffs, probably grey for the pocket with the red on the edge, and maybe even red for the funnel. But that might have looked a bit too crazy!

 

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Pattern: Halifax Hoodie by Hey June Handmade*
Fabric: Fashion Fabrics
Trim: Sew n Sew

 

Halifax Hoodie

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Ever since I made a hoodie from a Craftsy course last year, I’ve wanted to make a hoodie with more of a traditional sweatshirt style. Searching through various websites, I eventually came across the Halifax Hoodie by Hey June Handmade* which looked perfect for the style I was after.

As this was my second ever hoodie that I’d made for myself, I decided to keep things relatively easy, and make style A – a regular-styled hoodie with a split neck. I did make things a little more complicated by choosing to line the hood, and add in the thumbhole cuffs from the Lane Raglan Top* too.

There were a few points where I started arguing with my sewing machine, especially at the point where the neck band is meant to cover the raw edges of the hood and the main body. But a couple of hand stitches helped just to hold the band in place.

I do need more practise (or maybe better instructions!) at adding in eyelets for the drawstring cord. The back of one of the eyelets came off as I was sewing the drawstring channel, and I’m not convinced it’ll stay in position when the top gets washed. At least with the drawstring in place, the eyelet won’t fall off completely – it’ll get caught on the drawstring itself, so I shouldn’t be able to lose it!

I lined the hood with some grey swan jersey fabric and used the same fabric for the binding on the edge of the kangaroo pocket. The drawstring tape is a little brighter than I’d expected, but it picks out the orange bills of the swans.

The instructions for the Halifax are really easy to follow, and it resulted in such a great hoodie, I’m already planning my next Halifax top.

 

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Pattern: Halifax Hoodie by Hey June Handmade*
Fabric: Fashion Fabrics