Aw… Thank you for your sweet comments about my wee posting that my Sweetheart was home for the weekend! It was really so lovely to find those in my inbox this morning; softened the feeling of loneliness a bit. Thank you.
Onto sweater-reveal goodness! Its a cardigan that originally looked quite drab, unfitted and well… basic. (Somewhat like this one, although this is a different sweater. I forgot to take a “before” shot! Ack!!) I picked it up at one of the local thrift shop’s dollar days, and since it was a lovely silk/cashmere blend, I thought it would be worth refashioning into something a little more… me!!
I used this book, The Yestermorrow Clothes Book as a reference point for starting the refashion. It details how to take apart a sweater, adjust the fit, and put it back together again! I figured out how much I wanted to take the sides in (‘cause the fit was too boxy for me), cut the side seams apart, removed the bottom ribbing band, cut the sleeves off, and shortened the body of the cardigan by about 4”.
Despite the fact that it is a sweater knit, it wasn’t really that hard to sew the pieces! I just used a very narrow zig-zag (almost a straight stitch… but not quite) on all the seams, trimmed them down and then did a larger zig-zag over the edges. The sleeves I shortened by cutting off the original sleeve cap, and cutting a new one (I was bad… I just eyeballed it, although the book does recommend using a pattern!), and then reattaching to the new armhole (which I narrowed at the shoulder seam).
The reconstruction work was a breeze; deciding on trim and buttons was the hard part! hehe! I hunted through my stash of vintage textiles and pulled out two sleeves I had chopped off an old, eyelet and lace dress. I knew the salvaged eyelet would come in handy one day!! I just enclosed the front edges with the eyelet, topstitching everything down. The buttons were just from my stash; and I decided to go with the white and red because I didn’t have enough red buttons of the right size.
So… I have a very cute (in my opinion! lol!) cardigan for only nickels and dimes, as my dad would say! Now that I have made you endure the long, drawn-out details of how I did this, here is the fun, belated, Friday links roundup!!! Oh, and now you can reference the older posts of Friday links just by clicking the “inspiration” image. Hurrah!!
♥ make a no-pattern, no-zipper skirt!
♥ sweet ideas for accessorizing with vintage doilies
♥ beautiful, inspiring fashion and outfit ideas
♥ a great interview with Polaroid artist Jen Gotch [ via ]
♥ Jenny’s meditation on creativity and developing a collection
♥ knit a very cute, stripy hat!
♥ breathtakingly beautiful photographs and illustrations
♥ how to take a pattern from a favorite garment!!!*
♥ I so want to live in this space…
*I am dying to try this! I mean… wouldn’t it be great to finally take some patterns from my vintage collection?! *sigh*
Enjoy all the linking-goodness and inspiration! I shall post the Vintage Monday image a wee bit later today…
Cheers!
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