Forest Faerie Hoodie Revisited

Christmas 2009 there was a serger under the tree.

I got it out of the box and spent hours twiddling with it, learning to thread it, and jumping up and down excitedly.  I'd wanted a serger for years, and now that I had it, I wanted to make something amazingly beautiful and warm, just for Me.  Enter: my first hoodie.

I chewed up a whole box of colored pencils sketching, deciding on each seam, each detail, each line.  I drew so many different sleeves that I fell asleep dreaming of sleeve designs.. and this multi-leaf design (which has become a bit of a signature for me) came to me in a dream that night.

It took me about 2 weeks of sewing (and re-sewing), and what resulted was the first ever Forest Faerie Hoodie.  I fell absolutely in love with it and have worn it almost constantly for 2 years now.  I've spilled on it, slept in it, walked and biked in it, gone camping in it, and once dropped a flaming torch on it while showing off my fire eating skillz.  It's still my favorite hoodie.

However, after two full years of warm cuddly goodness, and watching other hoodies come and go and not quite measure up, I decided it was time for a new Forest Faerie Hoodie. 

I've gotten a bit better at making hoodies since that first try, and two years of wearing this hoodie gave me loads of ideas for improvements:  

• I ride my bike in the cold, cold morning air and my upper arms still get cold.  New hoodie has double-thick sleeves that go all the way up.
• The pockets are warm but my hands fill them up.  New hoodie has inside pockets for phones and headphones and junk, leaving the main pockets free for my hands.
• The embroidery was sort of wiggly, as it was my first try and I didn't know what the heck I was doing.  I have since learned about stabilizer.  New hoodie's embroidery is *gorgeous.*
• The lighter green hem was always kind of bunchy.  New hoodie has a simpler embroidered hem that's smooth and hugs my hips.

This hoodie is the reason Fire Pixie Fashion exists.  I am wearing the new one now and it's soft and delicious and warm and oh so delightful.   I'm not sure how it is that clothing can make me so happy on so many levels.

Now.. what do I do with the old one?  I'm not one to keep things in the back of my closet for sentimental value, and it's a bit too worn out to sell "used."  Maybe I should gift it?  Advice?

Read More

Flower Faerie Hoodie Improvements & Updates

Just finished up this gorgeous Flower Faerie hoodie to ship off to the East Coast this morning.  This one was custom ordered with longer sleeves and no laces on the sides.  It's always fun to make modifications.  This is the second request I've gotten for no side laces and it makes it a rather different hoodie, I think.  Certainly it fits differently.  I like the clean lines of it quite a lot.

I'm also getting a little faster.  This one is my best seller and I've made quite a few of them at this point.  I think I maybe have shaved at least an hour or maybe two hours off the total creation time (so, down to 5-6 hours from 7-8 hours).  Details take time! 

(Also, the side laces take a lot of time.  Maybe that's why I finished this one so quickly)

I keep making teensy improvements too.  My serger does a lot of different types of seams and I keep changing my mind as to which seam type I like best for which seam.  I think my choices are getting better and better. 

For any sewing geeks who might be reading this, I use a Babylock Imagine serger.  It's got a feed differential, which means it can sew two pieces of fabric together at different "speeds" - i.e. it makes gathers or ruffles automatically.  The other cool thing it does is make "lettuce edges" if I sew just one layer of fabric on a stretch differential.  Like this.. see how the sleeve edge is wiggly?

Anyway, that's one thing I've started doing with the later versions of this hoodie, and I think it adds a lot.  Another thing is the way I assemble the wrist cuff.. the way I was doing it before, I ended up with a little uneven jag at the end of the wrist cuff, often as not, and I reworked it so the edges come out even and hidden this time.  It's those little things that make me so happy.

Read More