mini-sweater-skirt

this is a refashioning classic: transforming a sweater into a skirt and legwarmers.

i started off with this sweater that i liked, but whose shape looked awful on me and also whose sleeves were too short.

and the metallic threat on the wrists, neck and bottom edge were too itchy.

i didn’t take pictures during the process, so i’ll explain it the best i can. usually you would cut the skirt out from under the armpits, but my sweater wasn’t long enough. so i turned the sweater inside out and continued cutting the side seams up until the neck. then i cut away the shoulders/neck and the sleeves. i had to adjust the semas a bit ot make it fit right around my hips and thighs. at first i thought i’d use the bottom elastic edge as a waist, but it looked weird, so i cut it off, did a lettuce hem all around (sewing a tightish zig-zag while pulling the fabric as it feeds through the machine, making that ruffly edge), and i made a casing to slip the elastic through for a new waist.

i cut straight across the tops of the sleeves. then i took that removed sweater bottom edge, cut it to the right size and sewed it onto the cut edge of the sleeves.

they didn’t stay in place right, so i sewed vertical lines (to hide them) at regular intervals to keep them folded down right. in the picture above you can see how it is when pulling up the edge. there’s the vertical stitching and then underneath you can see where i joined the two pieces.

and there are my legwarmers!

but the skirt was a tad boring and then i notice that there was also a nice stain right in front. ugh. but these obstacles often make you think of solutions which make the whole thing much better. so i cut strips from the fabric left over from the sweater’s shoulders. i tried to draw my design on the sweater, but you couldn’t see it, so i just free-handed sewing a spiral. i sewed the strips on one at a time by zig zagging along both edges.

but of course when you don’t draw things before sewing them down, things like what you see above can happen. there’s a whole part of the spiral which came out ruler-straight, which i only noticed once i took the fabric out from the sewing machine. up close you can’t always see certain details veyr well. i tried to fix it by sewing on two leaves whose stripes run in a different direction from the skirt’s background so they stand out more. well, it’s not perfect, but i like it all the same! after all, with both stripes and the color purple, how could i not love it?! 😉