Calling All Kids: Knight Hoodie

Well here I am, three days after the end of Alida's Calling All Kids series, sharing my make. Too late, but I might as well share it anyway!

I loved the idea behind this series. As I have said before, a big part of why I love making clothes for my girls is that I get fed up of the gender stereotype in store bought clothing. It's all blue for boys and pink for girls and just try deviating from that! I get especially cross when I try to buy shoes for the girls. Especially the 'proper' ones. I usually manage to find one red or purple pair. The rest are all pink.

Not that I dislike pink. Not at all. Fuschia pink is one of my favourite colours. But, I don't wear it often (I did dye the underskirt of my wedding dress bright pink, but that's another story) and I would like there to be choices.

One of my favourite pictures from our wedding, but I ruined my dress to get it!

Evie chooses princesses and Hello Kitty on her pants, but she would also like diggers and dinosaurs like the boys have. Why can't she have a 'Cars' or 'Planes' t-shirt? She has to have Tangled instead? She loves Tangled, but so do her little boy-friends. My three year old loves to wear top to toe pink and dress as a ballerina for the day, but she also loves to dress as a doctor, explorer or pirate, and if I ever get my act together to make the long-promised TreeFuTom costume, she will dress as him too.

When I ask her what she would like me to make for her, it often goes along the lines of 'a t-shirt with a dragon on' but she will choose pink flowery fabric and ask for sparkles on it. Now I'm not up for the mega shopping trip that it would take to find such clothes, so I'd better get making some for her, huh?

Anyway, you get my point. So back to Calling All Kids. The Knight Hoodie by Charming Doodle seemed just perfect for this to me. Evie would love a knight costume to go with her sword and shield (see?)

I've got to say that Calling All Kids and Kids Clothes Week didn't go as well for me as I had hoped. I had forgotten about the a Easter break from nursery and my two days of sanity in the week. Also, everyone got ill. Ending with me being in bed for the last three days of the challenge.

There were other challenges in this hoodie too. The pattern was great and none of my challenges were due to that. But I do like to make life hard for myself wherever possible, so of course, I chose this shiny silver fabric for the armour, that was slippery as hell and did some weird fraying when stretched even slightly.

 

Then I decided to line the hood. Fine, not difficult at all, especially having recently made Kitschy Coo's reversible hoodie. But, again, looking to make life hard, I chose the satin stars fabric left over from making Evie's superhero cape. It was difficult to work with then, so why I thought it should be any different now, I have no idea!

Also, I bought the wrong zip. I did not realise, until I'd sewn it in, that there was a difference between a separating and non-separating zipper! I know! Obvious now that I think about it, but that's the problem - I hadn't thought about it. I just ordered a zip. So, I unpicked that zip and left the hoodie sitting around for a week, while I waited for the new zip to arrive, by which time, I was ill.

So, yesterday, Easter Sunday, I got to finishing it off. I was very pleased with the matching seams on my pockets.

And at the neck

The bottom of the zip was a bit off, but that issue was with the cuff, and I wasn't going back to fix that.

But I wasn't happy with this:

The tops of the chin bit (proper term??) don't line up, and what do I do with those extra bits of zip? I showed the husband, who as usual, said leave it, it's good enough. Also as usual, I listened to him, and promptly ignored him. Off I went to find my unpicker ...

And I'm glad I did, because second time around, it looks like this:

Much better! I am so glad I changed this because it would have constantly annoyed me. And because when it's zipped up, it's right in front of her face, it's really noticeable.

Regarding the zip ends, I trimmed them slightly (taking care to leave a little bit of the fused bit at the end, that stops it fraying) and then turned and folded them over, and hand sewed them down.

At this point, I had to stop, because the family wanted to go out. Shock, they don't want to sit around the house at the weekend while I sew!! But Evie was eager to wear her hoodie now that she could see it had a zip, so we got these pictures before adding the hood armour.

Finally, last night, I attempted take two of the hood armour. The first had frayed too much when I turned it the right way out. (Before you say it, yes I do know that it was because I left too small a turning hole). Not quite done with making it more complicated than it needed to be, I decided to attach the visor with poppers, so that it could come down in front of the face, like proper armour.

Good in theory. Worked well as I tested it ....... And then she tried it on:

Ok so far .......

Oops! Got those measurements off then!

Ha ha, it would certainly protect her face!

So there will be a third piece of helmet armour. But not yet, because for now, I am so done with this make! I love it, she loves it, I am done.

And as if to prove the girl wanting 'boys' things on her clothes issue ..... Here's what she was wearing underneath.

Customised by me, at her request, this time a year ago (to wear on St George's Day). "A green dragon, with sparkly thread, and a button please Mum". Coming right up madam!

 

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