The easiest part of this jacket so far, the hood has also been fun to construct and model. Originally a 2 part hood, I divided each side into 4 quadrants, which resulted in an 8 piece hood. Again, as with the other parts of this jacket, I lined all the pieces with spare knit fabric, in order to balance out the different fabrics weights being used in the stashbusting process. The goal is to achieve a consistent thickness of weight, as though it was cut from one piece of the same fabric. This also serves to make the jacket wearable during the colder weather, the other goal here.
Here’s the Color Block flat pattern layout:
And the corresponding fabrics:
As you can see, the pieces are lined, and I basted them together before sewing them together as the hood. Basting is a very important step in color blocking, when working with multiple pieces that each have a lining. It battens them down, making them much easier to work with when assembling the final piece.
Here’s how it looks:
The hood is meant to have a fold over of an inch (2.5 cm) at the front edge. I didn’t draft that out, but I’m thinking that maybe I should’ve, because of the extra seams. Not sure what I’ll do for the final construction, I’ll have to think about it.
It’s quite a theatrical hood:
And finally, the inside lining, which looks more “normally sewn”, because of the hidden seams:
The upper left quadrant has the same fabric as the right side. I reinforced the 2 layers with Wonder Web, a double sided fusible interfacing. The lower left fabric is part of a large amount of light blue knit leftover that’s been sitting in my stash for a few years now. It was used to make pajamas for my son. I tie dyed it this summer because I knew that I’d be using it in my jacket, and I wanted to elevate it’s look from monotone to a print. I used purple Rit dye on it, but because it’s partly polyester, it didn’t absorb all the dye. Nevertheless, I still think it’s improved for the purpose in which I need it.
Conclusion: A swag hood is fun to wear.
Take care and thanks for reading 🙂
Sewcoordinated 