I made my tweens winter fleece jackets. They’re both around 5’8″ and 140-50 pounds, so we’re into adult patterns for both of them. They both are also athletic, are hard on clothing, and still growing, so I don’t sew for them too often, but made an exception for Christmas-ish jackets.
I used a local Oregon company called The Green Pepper. I don’t think they’re too big, or even very hands-on at this point, but I’ve been wanting to try them out.
The pattern is “Adult” – as in gender-neutral, and I’d say it’s even more neutral than the drawings portray. There’s a lot of ease in that waistline! It’s not at all a fit-line garment, but for our needs, that’s just fine.
I made the boy’s first as he was more immediately in need having lost his new winter coat. already. again. sigh.
The instructions are pretty straight-forward. There’s…what, 14 pieces and 3 zippers for the long-sleeved hoodie? Oh, and the bindings…so 16 pieces, plus 3 zippers and hoodie cord.
The pocket zips are a nice touch, and the pockets are HUGE. They go from the bottom hem, all the way up to the chest yoke. Seriously massive. Both times I inserted the zips the same way, so one zips up to close, and one zips down. Derp. Oh well. That’s what I get for skimming instructions. I don’t even know if the instructions say to flip it, but I keep missing that part.
They have you make a cord channel with the facing around the hood out of a lycra. It works really well.
I made a ‘tag’ on the boy’s version. The inside has a matching tag with his name in Sharpie. He likes to lose things. A lot.
The hood is a 3-piece construction which is nice, but a bit too shallow.
I deepened the hood on the girl’s version, and reinforced the shoulder seams. I almost brought the sides of the hood forward too, but I’m glad I didn’t – for better visibility. Her face is covered, but she can easily see traffic.
As you can see on both versions, there’s no problem fitting their wide shoulders in a Medium size, and lots of room below – which is great for self-conscious tweens.
I used a 3-step zig-zag stitch a lot more on the second version, which I prefer for stability.
Tween-girl had some glow-in-the-dark laces from her grandmother that work perfect for her hoodie strings.
Both fleece purchases and the pattern were bought at Joann’s Fabric – so nothing too exciting to report there.
What do you think about the visible zig-zag? I see it a lot in RTW lately, especially high end swimwear, and I like it, but some people still think it’s a little too….Becky From Home-Ecky?
Overall, I really liked the Green Pepper pattern and I’m happy to support a local, “little guy” company.
The second version took me two afternoons of a few half-hour chunks here and there to cut out and assemble…it gets a little tight there around the hood cord, and I used a cotton knit I had on hand instead of a lycra, so I tacked a few hand-stitches in there to keep it in place.
Overall, that’s pretty good in my book. They only take <2 yards of fabric for the XS-L sizes, so when fleece is on sale, that makes for some inexpensive work. Zippers can add up, but when at Joann’s, that’s when you use the coupons on those, right?