Elevation Hoodie - New Horizon Designs

Man do I love this cooler weather. A perfect excuse to take stock of the hoodie patterns that I have on hand and start making each and every one of them. I decided for my first new hoodie, I really wanted to challenge myself. The Elevation hoodie from New Horizon Designs provided me with several challenges and first time learning experiences along the way which resulted in an amazing piece that I have yet to take off. Read on to see what challenges I ran into!

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The Pattern

The Elevation Hoodie From New Horizon Designs is great when you want to pair several fabrics together. A unique color blocked design that stands out and looks fantastic. One other great thing about color blocking is that you don’t need as much fabric as when you do a solid color for the entire hoodie.

The pattern comes with a hood and cowl option as well as an optional inset kangaroo pocket.

My hoodie has the single hood option with thumb hole cuffs and the inset kangaroo pocket.

I found the pattern instructions to be very helpful and well written. Each step in the process was clear and images provided some additional help for visual learners like myself.

Fabric Choices & Mock up

This is one of the rare times that I purchase fabric well in advance knowing exactly what I will be making. While I would like to make this a more regular habit, in this case, I bought all three of these french terry fabrics several months ago in another Blended Thread Fabrics pre order. Both the yellow linen look and grey linen looks match perfectly with the cute honeybee on grey linen!

While I knew I wanted to use the Elevation Hoodie pattern, I now had the hard decision for what fabrics to use for each sections. Below are a few of the original mock ups I had done, but ran into an unexpected issue that I did not realize until I began cutting!

I initially intended to do the 2nd option with the grey hood. However, after cutting out the main body pieces, When it came time to cut out the hood though, I realized I did not have nearly enough grey fabric to make one, let alone two sides of the hood! I ended up making a combination of the two mock ups with the hood being yellow, and the body being the yellow bands.

Sewing and Challenges

While I wouldn’t call this an advanced pattern, I did find that I ran into some challenges more so due to learning new techniques. When I say challenges, I only mean that I took a lot more time and care to understand the process, and maybe used my seam ripper once or twice. That’s not to say these challenges are hard, but just new to me!

Color blocking... with a point

I have done color blocking before, but most ever time has been done in a perfectly straight line. While technically you can still say you use straight lines for this color blocked effect, I did find it a bit of a challenge to get the "Point" to stand out like I wanted. Essentially you sew one side straight through, then the other side, but the way the pieces fall together made it a bit tricky at least for myself.
You can see that the top point is a bit more pointy after a few times! You really can only see it if you are up close and it still does not look bad, just something I will need to practice more!

Inset Pocket

This was an interesting challenge! I had done kangaroo pockets before, but never inset. I also have never made pocket openings such as this before and found I had to undo my stitches a few times to get it as perfectly square as possible.
I definitely recommend taking your time here, and reading each step thoroughly before diving in. It would have been very easy to mess this up by skipping a step!

In case you are curious, this type of pocket opening is called a "welt" pocket!

Cuffs with Thumb Holes

Another first! The funny thing is, making thumb hole cuffs terrified me for the longest time which made me avoid them like the plague for some time. Since I was challenging myself everywhere else in this pattern, why not tackle one of my favorite parts of a hoodie! The key I found for these cuffs is to use a sewing machine (in case of mistakes, as well as being more precise) and taking your time. This was another area that I referenced the directions several times before actually making them. Turns out it is not that hard to make them! you just need to mark out where the holes will be with a disappearing pen to make your precision sewing that much easier.

I honestly don't know why I waited so long. The process was so much easier than I thought!

Once everything was color blocked, the construction of the hoodie itself took no time at all. I took the advice provided in the pattern and basted my sleeves to the bodice before serging it to make sure everything was lined up. I still had a little bit of movement, but not enough to really be able to notice.

Overall Review

This pattern is a great one to challenge yourself. While I would not consider this an advanced pattern, I don’t think I could have easily jumped in to this pattern as a beginner either. If you are an intermediate sewist, or even a confident beginner looking for a challenge, I highly recommend the Elevation Hoodie. When you finish the hoodie you are going to LOVE the result.

When I make this hoodie again (which I will!), there isn’t anything I really need to change. Now that I’ve made one, I am more familiar with the technique for this particular color blocking which will hopefully make more of a point in my next hoodie!