Wookie Too

Well, I'd bought too much red fluff so... !

This is my evolving hoody pattern. James' red fluffy number turned out to be a little more snug than expected. I think this is due to the thickness of the fabric. So for my version I left the hips the same as the woolly hoody but increased the size a bit above hips, reducing the shaping on the side seams and increasing the upper arm width a little. The result was still snug, so I sewed 0.5cm seam allowances on the underarm and side rather than the 1.5cm on the pattern.

You might be relived to hear that I did run out of fabric this time. I had to cut the hood from 4 rather than 2 pieces, but this does not show at all, through the furrr. I also added a pocket on the front. 

It is basically too hot to wear this now, but tonight after a cycle ride in the rain it feels great. 

Notes on stitchin' furrrr: I learned a bit about how to sew fur by taking a class by Kenneth King on patternreview.com. I pinned all the seams at about 2cm intervals, tucking in the fur. This would not feed through the sewing machine due to the thickness of the fabric sending the pins into the innards of the machine. So I then basted the seams and finally sewed on the machine. The fabric has 2-way stretch so the stretch stitch was a good idea, but no mistakes are allowed, as it is unpickable on this fabric. All the hems are done by hand, as is the pocket. So, all in all it is quite labour intensive. The flip side is that the stitching can be as untidy as you like, as nothing shows through the furrrr.