Hoodie, Reconstructed

I haven't been blogging for a while because the wrapping-up of school stuff gets crazy before winter break. That, and I'm busy making Christmas gifts (which I can't blog about just yet). But last night, I spent a few hours reconstructing a hoodie (finally). I think I blogged about doing this months ago, but I needed to do it last night because today was Winterfest. Don't ask what Winterfest is....it's enough to know that it's a random/ unique holiday/ celebration that my school has developed over the years that incorporates as many faiths and cultures through their winter holidays (including Ramadan, which is only applicable when it falls during a winter month, but whatever.) It's goofy and zany and I love it.

Each year the juniors design a hoodie that has Winterfest written on the front and a theme word (like peace, light, hope, or faith) written on the back in as many languages as they can find. As Winterfest was today and I had been planning on converting my hoodies into zip-ups for months, last night was the night. Having a deadline and a limited amount of hours that I could actually stay awake for this task was an important aspect of my success. Not having any time to mess around, I just dove in. Usually I hem and haw. A lot. But last night, I grabbed my scissors and cut the whole thing up. I used a favorite-fitting zip-up hoodie as a template and cut the arm holes in, refitted the sleeves and made them bracelet length, took off the weird elastic ribbing part of the bottom, and released the hoodie from the neckline, lowering and widening the neckline as a result. I used bias tape on the bottom hem and the sleeves with mild success.

(This is a shot of the good part, there are some lumps and bumps elsewhere.) I had some vintage tape in an old sewing basket that I bought at a yard sale (filled to the brim with gobs of vintage notions - best 10 bucks I've spent in a while) but the color tape I wanted to use was pretty narrow. So I slapped the tape onto the hoodie and just double stitched it to make sure it was really on. I decided I'd be going for the deconstructed Free People look pretty early on, so this gave me room to just stitch and restitch over things until they stayed put. Putting the sleeves in worked fine except for dealing with the armpit where the sleeve and side seems met (again lots of random stitching and just trusting that it would all work out,) and I took the sides of the hoodie in while I was at it. I chose to put the zipper on the front (that sounds funny, as opposed to in the back?), leaving the raw edges of the sweater visible so that I didn't lose any of the Winterfest logo.

Again, think: Free People, loosey-goosey, weird seams are hip. I used my cute star stitch on my machine around the brim of the hood, and that was it.

Many hours later I had a perfect-fitting hoodie that didn't make me feel like a lump of oatmeal when I wore it. Of course, this completely took time away from getting Christmas presents ready (perhaps procrastination was an important ingredient in getting it done too.)

There, Megan. I posted.