Green Camo Hoody Cowl with mitts

 Well yes another version of a hoody cowl. This dress has ruched sleeves - mainly due to the fact I needed to use a seperate piece of fabric for the  lower sleeve section due to this being made from offcuts from other garments. 

 

I quite like the sleeves though because they are completely different to all my other versions of hoody cowls. Also being winter I do want long sleeves.

Must admit its now at the stage I should really try something new because I have loads of these and similar tops and dresses with hoody cowl necks. There are a couple ofdifferent patterns in my collection but they are really very similar. But I just love wearing this style so its a shame to take a risk on my usually much liked new fabric and make something I might hate.

I find this style so very wearable and it works over track pants, jeans and leggings and as a dress as well.  These leggings are old now. They were made usig coated woven stretch fabric - so not quite usual legginsg beinga  woven but the fabroic is very stretchy. I made several different coloured ones years ago and only have a couple of pairs left now. I suppose being green I wore these less than the black ones which have all died now.The link to that old post is here if you want to check it out. I was amazed how much younger I look there! But then that was back in 2016. Perhaps I should go back to having a fringe? 

It took me my whole life though to fially grow the thing out because its always so annoying when hair is in your eyes so I ended up always cutting it again.  It was only having an operation caused me to actually grow that fringe out. My Mum always insisted I have a fringe and I never got the thing to grow out until I was imobilised and unable to either cut it myself or visit a hair dresser. I have been quite liking not having a fringe but maybe I do look better with one?

Back to this dress then. 

Its got a hood or loads of different necklines as you can see depending on how its worn. Its the same with all of these tops and dresses and thats why I like them so much. 

Also which I never thought to get photographed but the neck also works as an off the shoulder Bardot neck too. I tend not to be so adventurous in winter though. Bare skin when its cold is something for people younger than me. I prefer to be warm nowadays rather than expose my shoulders in winter, but this pattern does also work off the shoulders so in summer thats a look worth playing with. I will try to remember to get another photo of that look next time I wear this dress. 

This hood has no added lining because the back of the fabric is acceptable so why line it?

Its just a plain black. I like the fact the hood weighs less as well. Its always a pain when a lined hood adds to overall weight making the hood pull back at the neck or in the case of hoody cowls at front when worn as  cowl. In most recent versions of this pattern though I have used powermesh or lace as the hood linings. The first two dresses I made were lined with cotton jersey or self lined and it was far heavier to wear them and they just never worked so well as the more recent versions. But then I suppose that is the point of making a muslin or trial version first. You get to check not just the fit but also how well the design works as a garment. I no longer own either of the original two dresses having sent both to the recycling last month as part of my wardrobe clearout. But I suppose they were my trials because they taught me what did and did not work and also what size I need to make since both were a little too large. I was new to Burda then though so did not know my size. You can see both of the original dresses here.

And of course I added mitts from the pattern in the Feyr Trade Make your Own Activewear Book which I have used lots. I am currently just in the process of pre-washing some fabric for a pair of trousers from that book - thats for another time though.

So the sleeves are really 3 pieces - top bit which follows the pattern from the narrower sleeved dress Burda Style 12/2014 #121 whereas the hoody cowl is actually Burdastyle 09/2015. The on the end are the mitts from the Make your Own Activewear Book. It works though.

I am really pleased with how this version has turned out though , because its genuinely made from weird shaped scraps that I kept but did not realise I could get something so good from them. I had to cut slightly at angles so most of the pieces are not on straight grain so this may go baggy or something but right now I don't care because its a free top/dress from scraps so from a environmental view this is a brilliant garment because the offcuts would normally either go to landfill or at best become pocket linings and believe me I have tons of offcuts to make pocket linings already.  

It might of course also mean the side seams twist as well being as its all cut at odd angles but its quite a stable scuba fabric so I have hopes it should be wearable for a while. It will eventually pill ayway being a knit so if I can get a couple of years out of this that will be really good for offcuts I might normally just have stored indefinitely or thrown away.

I have just one more hoody cowl cut out now - I cut all this years at once in one day - so I will sew that up and then I really think its time to try out a new style. Not too sure what I am going to make yet but something I have not made before is the aim. I will have to go back to my New Years planning and see which item I fancy next because this year I am really trying to stay on track and also to use my stashed fabric rather than add loads of new fabric to the rather large hoard I currently have.

Thanks for popping over to my blog, See you next week........

Bracken