This boy is growing like a weed. I frankly can't keep up sewing clothes for him to grow out of in literally a matter of weeks. His wardrobe is currently looking seriously light, he barely has enough clothes to last him out a week during the warmer weather, but his winter wardrobe is virtually non-existent now. And he's a tween, and wants to be hidden away under a big warm hoodie a lot.



So as this was a new to me pattern company, I checked his measurements against the size chart instead of blindly making him an age 10. I'm glad I did, because his measurements put him in age 14 😱

Now, with the best will in the world, my 10 year old boy is not an age 14 anything... but I went with it. I compared the finished length measurement to his tractor hoodie I made earlier this year (that at the time was a bit big, but fits him well now) and it was 1/2cm shorter, so yeah, perhaps he is age 14 in this pattern!



Because his sister gets the majority of clothes made in this house, he was feeling left out. He asked for this to be made, so when Caroline from Olumis sent me a message with pics of this new stock one evening, I thought he'd poo-poo it as too babyish. But to my surprise he loved it when I showed him the next morning.



The polar bears in grey and blue are a really soft, thick, warm brushed back cotton lycra, perfect for an autumn/winter sweatshirt. The ribbing is also lovely and thick and stretchy. I've had mixed results with ribbing from various places, but honestly, this is the best I've found so far.



Don't get me wrong, I do love sewing, and I love that we all wear clothes that are different to shop bought, but it's not cheap. I ordered 1/2m of each colour polar bears, 1/2m of plain grey jersey and 1/2m of grey ribbing. I can *just* make a hoodie for him from this amount of fabric, totalling £24.90 including postage. I have enough ribbing left over to make another hoodie or two, but only very small scraps of the other fabrics. So if you discount my time/thread, this hoodie I guess is similar in price to a branded one on the high street? The bonus being, he's extremely unlikely to meet someone else wearing the same thing!



We searched high and low for several days for a hoodie pattern that he agreed with. Initially he wanted a sweatshirt with round neck, no hood. But we couldn't find one that he agreed to. I found several international patterns with nice colour-blocking lines, but he refused them all. Then searching through instagram, he saw a sweatshirt with a scuba hood by heart.anda.half that he wanted, exactly the same.



Through a bit of research of hashtags I figured out the pattern, then struck up a conversation with heart.anda.half to get her insight into the patterns and others that might work for him. The sewing community is brilliant, I connected with a lady in America, talking about patterns designed in Sweden.

Anyway, I digress.

I bought the True North Hoodie by Max and Meena patterns, printed off age 14, with the scuba hood, not the cowl hood. And then set about cutting out the fabric. He chose to have front pockets which made the sewing process a bit longer. In all, it took me a little over 3 hours, but this included 5 separate attempts to get the front triangle to line up. With much unpicked, I did manage it in the end.



It's a really snuggly hoodie and he's worn it nearly everyday, preferring to put it on in the mornings instead of a dressing gown, and when it's chilly outside.

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