jalie hoodie sew-along post 2: Step 2 assembly

Edit November 2015: the sew-along is finished! Below you can reach the different parts of the sew-along by clicking on an image. The tagset “jalie hoodie sew-along” contains any and all posts relating to the sew-along. Enjoy!

Hey there stitchers! Well, I thought I’d get crackin’ on Step 2 – getting to our sleeve and outer collar! This is by far the easiest Step of the process.

Before we get started, I want to remind you there is a Facebook group devoted to sew-alongs and contests, moderated by my friend Judy. This is a closed group; you have to ask to join. Here’s the skinny, though: if you join, and finish this hoodie by October 31st, you are entered in a random drawing for an amazing price pack: a Sew Chic pdf pattern, a Thread Theory pdf pattern, a Megan Nielsen pdf pattern, a $30 gift certificate to Nature’s Fabrics – and a shrinky-DON’T, made by moi!

Please note: this post is short and sweet, and I decided we didn’t need any companion audio. If you are catching up, and/or are new to sewing with knits or have fabric questions, please listen to my companion audio from Step one.

Let’s get started!

For Step 2, we are essentially assembling the sleeve, and affixing it to the fronts and backs of the hoodie so that we have most of the shell done. We are also sewing the main collar to the shell:

You remember how I told you (in Step one) that if you were new, you should carefully mark the notches – especially piece D (the upper sleeve)? Here is a picture of piece D – sorry about the serial killer lighting:

Here’s the thing about sleeves. They often have subtly different curves for the front part of the shoulder and the back part – as you can see here. I like to mark sleeve pieces – raglan, like this example, and standard as well – with a big ol “front” and “back” (shown here in red and blue Sharpie, resp.), delineating which part of the top of the sleeve affixes to which part of the shirt body. Some shirts are so simple that the sleeves are entirely symmetrical – and sometimes the fronts and backs are too (the latter case is very rare)! Also, after enough experience it becomes easy to guess which curve is which.

But! But. I get used to writing a few extra notes on pieces like this because nothing is more annoying than getting ready to sew up sleeves and thinking – “Wait – which goes where?” – unless you consider how annoying it is to sew the thing up incorrectly and have to tear out stitches!

And a final hint: in general, the front “notches” on a sleeve are one less than the back. So if the front has zero notches, the back will have one. If the front has one notches – like this sleeve – the back has two. However, that standard is less and less applicable these days – especially as we have more indie pattern designers.

So, this piece D – the upper sleeve – not only helps you know where the front and back affix, it also gives us a little notch in the neckline that will match with the collar piece (piece L) when we add the main collar to the body (figure 23).

Finally: in constructing all Step 2 seams except the final one (figure 23), we will sew, finish the seam,, steam-press lightly, then topstitch – if you’re topstitching. (Remember, I am not!) You will not need to finish the seam in figure 23 as the inner collar will obscure it, during finishing.

And finally: I realized I took zero pictures of this process. Because it would add literally nothing to the diagrams. It really is that simple a process and it’s good for you to learn to look at diagrams ( < grin > ). More photographs ensue in the subsequent Steps – trust me!

Figure 17 , our first figure in this Step, has you affixing the upper sleeve D to the lower sleeve E, right sides together. After sewing, finishing, pressing, and topstitching you now have the “middle” of the sleeve.

Next, sew the two identical side sleeve F pieces to each sleeve – four seams in all (figures 18 and 19). Remember: finish, press, and topstitch as you go.

Now: spread out the front and back, and pin the raglan shoulder seams right sides together (figure 20 – figure 21 indicates our topstitching). It doesn’t matter if you sew the back shoulder seam first or the front. Remember to sew, finish, press, then topstitch. Repeat for all four shoulder seams.

Next flip the hoodie inside out, right-sides together, then pin and stitch the entire side-seam from sleeve hem to hip (figure 22). If you cut your pieces correctly, everything will line up beautifully. Finish, press, and topstitch.

Yes, it is simply that easy! My hoodie – with sleeves attached, and no collar affixed as of yet – looks like this:

And by the way – how about that piece D , the upper sleeve, for adding a little zip-pocket? Or maybe an eyelet buttonhole so if you are jogging with your mp3 player in a sleeve on your upper arm, the headphones can slide on through? Just an idea…

So this set-up is ideal as we are going to want the garment mostly assembled for our my little additional option for our Step 3 – and that is, installing a thumbhole cuff. Having the main part of the garment finished will help us understand just where to put our thumbhole. I will be detailing this in the next Step, using a different fabric so those of you who don’t care about a thumbhole can easily skip.

Now let’s talk about the last part of this step, figure 23: installing that collar. If you’ve cut an inner collar in a different fabric (like I did, in my polka dot), set it aside. We will be working with the main collar piece and won’t use the inner collar until our last Step, Step 6. Here’s a picture of my inner collar piece – folded and pressed and set aside. But for now, you don’t have to worry about folding and pressing, as I’ll go over it later:

Grab up that outer collar piece. And before affixing it to the shell, let’s look carefully at the drawing for piece L:

We will be affixing the un-notched edge – the lower edge in the diagram above – to the neckline of the finished shell. Don’t attach the notched edge, as it is a different length. Don’t forget, too, to interface that front short edge of that outer collar. As I mentioned in Step one and the companion audio, I tend to interface along zipper installations almost every time – and this hoodie is no exception.

So while sewing the collar to the body, if you’ve cut and sewn correctly up to this point, these two raw edges will match. Because trust me, this pattern is graded properly! If something is wrong – post in the comments, and I can walk you through a correction. 

Ohmygosh! You are totally done with this Step! If you had any trouble whatsoever, post in the comments here, email (kelly at hogaboom dot org), or flag me at @kellyhogaboom on Twitter.

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