When I read that elsiemarley and you&mie were doing a sew-along for one of patterns in the Japanese sewing book, Happy Homemade: Sew Chic Kids, I was pumped because I had purchased this book months ago on a whim but hadn't worked up the nerve to sew anything in it. When I read that the pattern they chose to sew was the pull-over parka, I was doubly pumped, because that was my favorite!
Why was I too intimidated to try one of these patterns? Because, even though I purchased the English version of the book, the language doesn't matter much since the instructions are pretty much the sewing equivalent of Ikea instructions... all diagrams and arrows and craziness with very little in the way of text directions. In the end the parka really wasn't very hard to put together, but I am super grateful for the hand-holding from the sew-along!
I made Miss Z parka using some quilting weight cotton I bought at Belleboo here in Bangkok... when I bought it, I thought to myself, "Oh, cute alphabet/animal fabric. Score!" But when I got it home, I discovered its quirk: it is not the full alphabet, by any means, but inexplicably only the letters B, E, F, L and G, repeated over and over. Ha! I went back to the store and took a closer look at their fabrics... pretty much anything with words on it had a typo or translation issue of some variety or another. I'll keep that in mind for the future ;-) The fabric is cute anyway, so I am not too worried about the limited letters.
I decided to break up the print a little bit with some hot pink piping on the raglan sleeve seams. I love how it looks and was thinking I should have used more, but it did make things a bit fiddly when binding the hood/neckline seam.
The hoodie/parka came out pretty cute! Can't wait to see it on Zoe...
