How to Sew a Hoodie

This hoodie tutorial goes with a Patternmaking Guide of mine. So in case you’re keen on learning how to draft the patterns, you can discover the Aide here. Other than hoodies, this aide also explains sweater and shirt patterns. As the Aides don’t have sewing directions, I figured it is great to distribute sew-alongs here on my blog instead.

Materials

Hoodies are usually made of sweatshirt downy or French terry, yet you could pick also twofold shirt, like Ponte Roma, or scuba. Two-way stretch sews are superior to four-way.

The straightforward hoodie you see here is made of rather heavy weight sweatshirt downy from Lafab Tessuti and for the zipper hoodie I picked a more lightweight French terry from Minerva Crafts. I washed the two fabrics before use.

The sweatshirt wool:

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Sweatshirt wool

Here you can see different materials that go in a hoodie.

Hoodie materials

The stitch band and sleeve sleeves are ready-made. In the event that you can’t discover those anywhere, get tubular rib sew fabric and make them yourself. There’s also the likelihood to utilize the same fabric you’re making the hoodie with, yet that usually needs more stretch, so especially the sleeve sleeves will be precarious, as you’ll see later.

You can make buttonholes instead of utilizing grommets on the off chance that you wish.

Pick the grommet size so that it’s not very small for the rope to pass through. The ones I utilized have a 6mm (1/4in.) diameter and I’d say that’s the base. You’ll also require small bits of heavyweight fusible interfacing to back up the fabric behind the grommets. In case you don’t have heavyweight interfacing, intertwine several bits of lighter weight interfacing one on top of the other.

In the event that you’d prefer to cover the neck area and zipper seams with something, you can either utilize a twill tape or make a facing. The latter choice is the easiest among the two.

For fancier drawstrings you could get string closes, too. I was unable to discover those anywhere.

Staytape will also be utilized. And for the zipper hoodie, you’ll clearly require an open end zipper.

The Basic Hoodie

Starting from the easier hoodie. No zippers or pockets to stress over yet.

I’m utilizing mainly a serger to sew the hoodies as the fabric has stretch. Other alternative is crisscross join or another sort of stretch fasten on sewing machine.

Preparing the Hood

Initial step, the hood. This variant has just one layer of fabric as the material is too heavyweight to make it twofold. So there is a 4cm (1 5/8in.) sew allowance at the hood opening to create a casing for the string.

I prescribe to start from the grommets. That way, in the event that you mess it up, you don’t have to unpick any seams. Go ahead and place the eyelets higher up the hood edge in the event that you like.

Wire the interfacing on some unacceptable side. Contingent upon which material you’re utilizing, be careful not to consume the fabric. For example wool may soften in high temperatures.

At the point when you’re finished with the grommets, you can procede with sewing the hood. 1. First the two pieces together and then, at that point, 2. the line casing. You can baste the casing prior to sewing to make it easier. I collapsed my 4cm (1 5/8in.)hem allowance twice to get a 2cm (3/4in.) casing. Naturally you can’t line this piece with a serger, so utilize the crisscross join instead.

The grommets should wind up in the center of the casing width.

The Hoodie Bodice

To attach the hood, you really wanted to sew the shoulder seams of the bodice. I suggest stay-taping the seam: join a piece of stay tape on some unacceptable side of the back shoulder line prior to sewing the shoulder seams.

Then, at that point, pin the hood to the neck area, matching the indents and overlapping the right and the left side at the c-front. In case you’re utilizing the serger, it’s a smart thought to initially line the hood in place with the sewing machine, and of course with the serger.

Hoodie hood attached

With the side seams actually open, attach the sleeves (1). Then, at that point, sew the bodice side seams and sleeve seams in one go (2).

Sleeve Sleeves and Trim Band

Presently the hoodie is almost finished. It’s just missing the sleeve sleeves and fix band. Overlap them in half leaving the seam allowance inside.

Then, at that point, partition each of them into 4 even parts, placing 4 pins as guidemarks. Do the same division for the hoodie hemline and sleeve stitches. This will assist you with appropriating the volume equitably.

Pin the fix band and sleeve sleeves in place, matching the guidemarks. Notice how a lot larger the sleeve hemline is compared to the sleeve!

You can probably sew the hemband straightforwardly with the serger, however attach the sleeve sleeves with the sewing machine first, extending the sleeves as you go.

Last little details

  1. Pin one side of the twill tape as near the original seam as you can and fasten near the edge.
  2. Overlap the twill tape on top of the seam and baste.
  3. Join the remaining edge. You may think that it is easier to utilize the zipper foot.

Basic Hoodie, the Outcome

Here’s how the hoodie looks like eventually. Personally I incline toward enormous hoods, yet noticing the RTW hoodies, the hoods are usually smaller. However, this can easily be changed.

Zipper Hoodie

The second hoodie in the Patternmaking Guide has extra seams with the goal that you can do shading hindering or utilize various materials. In this case I utilized the same fabric, French terry.

There’s also a pocket, a facing, and a zipper obviously. The hood has two layers, and I also wanted to have a go at utilizing the hoodie fabric for the sleeve sleeves and trim band.Presently I will simply show you the parts that are unique in relation to the past example. Btw, for a zipper hoodie, you can make the neck opening smaller, as it presently don’t should be adequately large to pass through the head! In any case, in this case, you’ll also have to alter the hood pattern.

Preparing the Hoodie Parts

As all the pieces have been isolated in two, you first need to sew them back together. Here you can also see the sleeve sleeves. I made them as small as conceivable. You can test by extending the fabric strip close to the sleeve pattern and perceive how long it should be.

The hood has two layers this time. Just the top layer needs grommets. Notice, that this time there’s just a small seam allowance at the hood opening.

Start by 1. sewing the two layers separately and then, at that point, 2. attach them to each other along the hood opening, right sides together. Press flat.

Finally, 3. create the line casing by sewing at 2cm (3/4in.) from the edge.

The Pocket

In this example, the pocket is made of two layers so that there will not be any seam allowance showing within. However, this creates a ton of mass, so it’s probably better to do just one layer.

Regardless of whether you pick a couple of layers, initial 1. staytape the pocket opening and the two seams with the goal that they will not extend. Then, at that point, 2. either sew the two layers together or finish the hemline of the pocket opening.

  1. Place the two pocket sides on the hoodie front, matching the indents. 4. Sew in place. For one-layered pocket, overlap the edges under prior to sewing.

You can also join the two remaining edges to keep them in place.

The Zipper

This time you wanted to attach the sleeves before the hood. That way you will close the side seams of the hoodie and attach the sew band.

At this point, you can even attach the sleeve sleeves. As you can see here, they remain very large and the sleeve hemline almost seems like gathered. You could take a stab at narrowing the sleeve hemline prior to attaching the sleeve sleeves in the event that you have inconvenience extending the sleeve sleeves. Regardless, I lean toward rib sew.

 

In the event that your fabric extends longwise, it’s a smart thought to interface the c-front prior to attaching the zipper (1). The facing, too.

  1. Start by sewing one side of the zipper. Notice that the zipper starts where the trim band will be collapsed.
  2. Then, at that point, pin the opposite side so all the seams and the pockets match when the zipper is shut. You could baste it prior to sewing.

The Hood and the Facing

Presently you can finally attach the hood. Here you can see where the hood should start: directly close to the zipper. However, don’t catch the zipper seam allowance into the hood seam in the event that you have a facing.

The facing will cover both the neck area seam and the zipper seams.

Start by 1. attaching it to the trim band of the hoodie as in the image. Then, at that point, crease the entire thing up and pin along the c-front and the neck area seam (2-3).

Sew and flip to some unacceptable side.

Presently you can complete the trim band by attaching the inward edge. Leave all seam allowances inside the fix band. Baste it first and then, at that point, fasten.

Top fasten around the neck area – and if your sewing machine can handle the mass – also around the zipper. Finally, attach the facing at the shoulder seams, and a couple of different places, too, if necessary.

Addition the string.

Zipper Hoodie Ready

Here is the final look. As I would see it, this fabric was altogether too lightweight. It was also four-way stretch, so very precarious! Between the two examples, I certainly favored the sweatshirt wool.