Genius ideas: Jalie's Frederic hoodie and my husband with his clothes on

I have made my husband a few hooded or polar fleece jackets in the past, I will mention no pattern names, and I haven't been too happy with them.

To be perfectly honest those attempts looked home-made. No other way to put it. Despite the fact they were actually made at home, this is never the look I am going for. The shapes of those jackets were boxy and the details minimal, they just didn't have style, which when you are making a hoodie is already a major challenge going in.

When something you have made is put on only when the oil has to be changed in the car... well you know what I mean.

So when I saw a preview of the new 2018 spring Jalie line-up I was pretty interested to see a new men and boys pattern for a hooded jacket.

When I got a look at the construction tricks and nifty details (see first post in this series) in this pattern, well folks I knew we had a winner.

So let's start again with looking at the line art:

Now these pictures, although very nice, don't really make evident the really cool features of this pattern. So I am going to share that with you now:

1. The hood is lined with a lighter weight knit. In addition to providing some opportunity for playing around with other fabrics, this means that when the hood is not on the wearer's head it still looks nice and classy open around the neck.

2. Additionally the seam that connects the hood to the body of the jacket is covered with a knit binding. Again this is a finishing touch that shows and is another chance to play around with fabric.

Here's a shot of the inside of the hood:

3. Speaking of which there are a lot of seams for different fabric/colour blocking, on either sides of the pockets, top and bottom of the jacket pieces, and of course the hood lining and binding. I actually used four different kinds of grey and black knit I had lying around in my version.

4. Last but best, the pockets. These are slant pockets (so neat inside and outside and so comfortable for the hands) with a concealed zipper opening. Now I know you are going to think pocket like this sound like a lot of trouble but these pockets are a snap to make - due to some particularly genius Jalie drafting that I can't even begin to describe in my own words. If I would try I would say you sew on on side of the zipper to a front, fold it over so it makes a sort of welt imitation thing and top stitch the remaining zipper tape down. And then you stand back and think to yourself I can't believe how easy that was and how totally slick it looks. Every jacket pattern should have this pocket. I have never seen anything like it before.

Here are shots of the pockets from the outside and showing the concealed zipper:

5. The fit is completely ready-to-wear if RTW in fact fitted better. This is no no-style, sloppy hoodie.

I used sweatshirt fleece in grey and black and assorted remnants of grey to make this. I am pretty pleased with myself for how it turned out.

Now the pictures.

Recently traumatized by wearing turquoise underwear for a photo shoot my husband decided to take his own pictures for this review.

Knowing him well (I do make his underwear after all) I knew right away that this was his maneuver to turn the photo shoot into his favourite thing which is to fool around with a gadget, in this case a remote control shutter he could hold himself.

Since his most recent gadget enthusiasm resulted in the drone being crashed lens side down on a large rock I decided that having him selfie the shots was a good idea. I was also aware after the underwear shoot I sort of owed him a bit more control of our process.

So here is the first shot, showing the jacket pretty well I think:

We thought this picture turned out quite well and gives you some sense of the pockets.

Next my husband thought you would really want to see him standing beside his motorcycle (out of the garage for its first of many seasonal trips down to the grocery store, which is where they most of the time go).

Unfortunately my husband got a lot of the motor cycle in this shot but missed out on his head. Such is the life of remote control technology.

Just ask the drone.