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

Dark Faery hoody cowl dress 1

Well this is a black T shirt weight fabric ( unknown fibre but I think synthetic) Hoody Cowl dress so similar to my blue velvet one but maybe more wearable being black. I used the sleeves from the A symetric velvet dress - also Burda style and they are the same size/ shape at the shoulder and top so I thought probably I could exchange them for the annoying flared sleeves meant to go with this hoody cowl dress. Or at least the origial sleeves lok brilliant but are hard to wer in real life and end up dipping into water when hand washing or getting butter on when making sarnies etc etc so I find I keep rolling them up. Not ideal for my life anyway. Fine for going out though but I want wearable in everyday life including for my job.

The hoody /cowl hood is lined with stretch lace the same as the blue dress I made a few weeks ago.

Not sure whats happening with that gathered look at the back of the shoulder. I realised after seeing these photos I need to remove and resew that up. The other side works just fine. Maybe I stretched the fabric as I sewed or something? I will repost an update once I resew that sleeve. And VPL too. This dress has all the problems possible!

It was hard to sew this. Very slippy fabric and I ended up with wavy hems everywhere so I sewed stretch lace on all hems. It kind of makes it a bit better but does not eliminate the wavy hems really just disguises them a bit.

The sleeve seams look puckered in the above photo as well. In real life there are no puckers or gathers on this sleeve but it definitely doesn't look quite right in photos. Maybe its down to me changing the sleeves?

 So I am not so sure about this dress. I like it and once I fix that sleeve will wear it, but its very imperfect really. I still expect to wear it lots despite the imperfections - especially since its black. I think maybe the fabric is just a bit too thin for the style. But drapey should work I would have thought. The fact my overlockers need new blades has not helped either. I really must get round to replacing them before I end up wrecking something.

So what do you think? Its another hoody cowl but not as good as I had hoped. But it does work for my Faery theme. I will have to make another version in black though and try to get it better than this one. Maybe with a slightly less soft and slippy fabric - something more stable I think will be better. After all, I cannot have too many of these hoody dresses!

Bracken

Faery- Hoody Cowl dress in blue velvet

  

I made the same pattern before - twice in fact but both times it came out with the hood being bulky so this time I decided to line my hood with lace and I am very happy with the results and intend to make more of these.

These are my original versions: 

Click on the pictures for links back to the original posts. 

I since made the yellow version into a top, and I wear it much more so will probably do the same with the black and white one - when I find it. I think its currently under the bed in storage bags with my summer clothes although really this dress works well for spring so its probably time to unearth it. And maybe chop it!

Despite making this before and looking at the yellow version for how I managed it I still got in a mess. You have to sew the shoulders, then back of hood, then accross back of neck/hood and then its kind of eventually makes sense. I tried to explain when I made the yellow version but I do not think I made it a very clear explanation. Burda as usual does not explain well either so its a puzzle. I would say do not overlock the neck, but instead sew a basting seam for this till you get it right. Then you will not go cutting off the sewing allowance before you want to (like I did!). And this is very precious stretch velvet which I liked so much I bought some more of. And its floral! Wow! shocking for me. 

Here it is with the collar folded down.

So other than I shortened the hem to a high low mini there is nothing different from the original pattern in this dress. 

 

I think this really does fit my Faery theme though. 

 Love this. Going to make more of this kind of dress. Not a lot more can be said here but I do like this very much and will be wearing it lots. I am even considering another in the same fabric but maybe with different hemline and sleeves and just keep the hoody dress part. It feels good.

Happy weekend, and do come back and visit me again soon

Bracken