Pattern Review: Clubhouse Raglan Hoodie
After so thoroughly enjoying knitting the Autumn League Pullover from Two of Wands I was very much looking forward to knitting the Clubhouse Raglan Hoodie. I had asked for the kit from Lion Brand for Christmas a couple years ago, back when you could only choose from a few yarn colours in their kits. It did take me over a year to actually get to, but in some ways I was saving it because I was pretty sure I would enjoy making this one too.
Why was I looking forward to this knit?
- A new (to me) yarn, and one that has some wool in it but is apparently fairly washable.
- Lots of stockinette! Enjoyable mindless knitting in between…
- Learning something new! Every time I make one of Alexi’s patterns I learn something new.
- It’s a raglan!
New (to me) Yarn
When I cast on this sweater I had just finished my Cinnabar Sweater, which I made with Lion Brand Feels Like Butta. While it lives up to its name, it does so by being polyester, and synthetic fibers really do a number on my hands/forearms because there’s no stretch. The yarn used in this design (and therefore in the kit from Lion Brand) is Wool-ease. I have of course used Wool-ease Thick & Quick often, but the regular version wasn’t in stores in Canada until fairly recently so I had never seen it before in person. The original Wool-ease is a worsted weight, with the same 80% acrylic / 20% wool fiber content, but either because it’s a different weight, or because it’s actually spun differently, it feels a little different and I think it looks different as a fabric. And I am a big fan of the fabric it creates! Plus as soon as I started knitting with this yarn it was like my hands breathed a sigh of relief.
Stockinette
Stockinette in Wool-ease is just beautiful! I had to go down a needle size (to 4.5 mm from 5 mm) in order to get the gauge in the pattern. Gauge is always crucial when you’re making a garment of course, otherwise you could do all that work for something that doesn’t fit! The other thing to remember with getting gauge is that it affects your fabric characteristics – how flowy or stiff it is for example. And I think going down to the 4.5 mm needle is a big reason I love the resulting fabric so much. Going down to 4.5 mm for the main fabric meant that I also went down to 4 mm for the ribbing.
I love doing lots of stockinette because it’s low stress. You’re a lot less likely to find a mistake since you’re always doing the same stitch, and especially in the body there’s no need to track your rows so you can just keep going! For sleeves I do always track my rows so that I can’t measure them slightly different and then end up with different sleeve lengths.
Learning Something New
When I did the Autumn League Pullover I learned how to do traveling stitches in a new way for the ‘V’ and that you could do a raglan from the top in the round, and work things flat after that to then seam together! And perhaps most importantly, I learned the tubular bind off. I kind of expected the hoodie to be constructed in a similar manner to the Autumn League Pullover, so I was surprised that the whole thing is knit in the round, especially knowing Alexi’s love of the structure provided by seams in garments. There is however a “faux” seam. I didn’t follow all of the exact steps you generally should when you get a pattern, but only in that I didn’t read the whole pattern before I started, so I was just blindly trusting the first part of the instructions for the faux seam but really not understanding how this one change in stitch could possibly be a substitute for a seam. Of course it turns out that you do use mattress stitch, but you’re not joining two separate pieces, therefore the “faux” seam.
It’s a Raglan!
I’ve come to the conclusion that raglans are my favourite sweater construction to make and to wear. The reason I love making them is because of the visible increases. When you can see where your increases are, all lined up, it also acts as a good double check to make sure you didn’t miss one. For wearing, I’m not sure there’s a really big difference between a circular yoke and a raglan, but a lot of my favourite sweaters to wear, like the Autumn League, are raglans. I don’t know this for sure, but it feels like there might be a little more structure with the raglan increases, since from the very beginning it’s defined where the arms are.
The Fiddly Bits
There are lots of great finishing touches in the Clubhouse Raglan Hoodie that make the design special. The first is part of the name of course – a hood. I seem to remember Alexi mentioning on Instagram when she was designing it that it took a few tries to get the hood right, which I can totally see, and I am immensely grateful that she did the work to figure that out because I’m not sure I would have the patience for the trial and error of a hood! And I thought the location of the increases and decreases was very thoughtful, and the end result fits my head really well.
What is a hoodie without a front kangaroo pocket? (Anyone else from an area that called hoodies kangaroo sweatshirts?) And aside from the correctly shaped pocket, there is the nice edging detail on the openings as well, which matches the edging on the hood which holds the drawstring. The pocket is also the only thing that the pattern specifically says to block so, at this point, it is the only thing I have blocked, and you can see below the difference made by a steam block with my iron. I think it would be pretty impossible to seam the pocket to the front of the sweater if you hadn’t blocked it.
When you sew the pocket on, the hardest part is getting it centered. I feel like I really made an effort to get mine centered, but it is still off in the end, probably only by one or two stitches though. What I tried to do was find the centre of the sweater using the stitches in between where the hood was picked up. Then marked the centre at the top of the hem ribbing, and counted stitches for the centre of the pocket and also marked this with a stitch marker. Then I used stitch markers to attach the pocket to the sweater to keep it in place as I started sewing the bottom of the pocket on using the horizontal seaming technique. I then used the mattress stitch to seam the sides, and the horizontal stitch again to seam the top of the pocket.
The Fit
Of course, as a hoodie, this sweater has to have positive ease (meaning the finished measurements of the sweater are larger than your body’s measurements). You can control this based on which size you choose to make, and your gauge will also factor in here. If I hadn’t adjusted my needle size the sweater would have been quite a bit more baggy. The length of the body in the pattern is not terribly long, and with a long torso it’s difficult to say exactly where it would land on most people, but without adjustment it would have been between my belly button and top of my hip. I added a couple inches of length to the body, partially accidentally because of that mindless stockinette… But I’m glad it was added otherwise I probably wouldn’t have enjoyed wearing this sweater as much, and I do enjoy wearing it!
