Tag Archives: upcycled sweater

Ski Sweater Part 1

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Today I decided to refashion a ski sweater that I’ve loved for many years.

give me a moment before I cut this to pieces

For the last year it’s danced between my refashion pile and my closet. Every time that I place it in my refashion pile I regret it and put it back in the closet. The thing is, I never actually wear it anymore. Today is the day that I admit that I’m never going to wear this sweater again. I still love the print (or mix of prints) but it’s tragically outdated and I know that once I get past the first cut I’ll be glad I did this.

Step 1: no more sleeves

This refashion is an easy and probably pretty obvious one – leg warmers.

A couple of zig-zags later and I’m sporting a new pair of leg warmers.

gotta luv a good leg warmer

Stay tuned for Part 2 of this ski sweater refashion. It’s a surprise twist for sure.

 

Black Cable Knit Crop Top

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"Blah" sweater just minutes before being decollared.

I have had this little black sweater in my closet for years. I keep it there because I need little black sweaters that I can throw on over a dress or a tank top and jeans. The thing is that I never pick this sweater. There isn’t really anything wrong with it, it’s just kind of blah. So after years of folding and refolding the same sweater over and over I decided it’s time to move it to the refashion drawing board. My refashion drawing board is really my dress form. When I have no idea what I want to do with something I put it on my dress form and stare at it for awhile. If I still have no good ideas then I leave it there and I look at it from time to time throughout the day and generally by the end of the day I’ve come up with something.

This refashion went in stages though. First I pinned the collar under and the ribbing up under the chestal area to try to get an idea of how my idea to turn this into a crew neck cropped sweater would look.

crop it in the front

 

leave it long in the back

First step is to take off the collar. I started with a seam ripper but gave that up after two minutes. I’m not very patient with seam ripping. I generally only like to do it when I’m watching a television show, otherwise I just don’t have the patience.  So I took my sweater over to the sewing machine and did a tight zig-zag stitch just inside the line where I wanted to cut the collar off, then I cut the collar off. I was a little afraid to cut the bottom of the sweater before I was sure I had the line right so I sewed a looser zig-zag stitch right along the edge of the ribbing so that the zig-zag caught both the edge of the ribbing and the edge of the sweater just under the chestal region.

juncture where new ribbing seam tapers out to the back of the sweater

 

 

Once I tried the sweater on and was sure I like the line of the crop I turned the sweater inside out and carefully cut away the excess portion of the sweater so that the bottom of the sweater could lay flat. Done! Or so I thought. After putting the sweater away I decided that I didn’t like the button or the little v-shaped opening at the top of the sweater so away they went. Done! Not so fast! It’s still a pretty blah-looking sweater. I dug through my drawer of weird and wonderful closures and found these beautiful ivory-colored crocheted frog closures. Perfect!

two frogs ...

 

 

three frogs ...

 

 

five frogs - Done! No really. It's done.

I sewed snaps to the sweater and onto the back of each toggle so that I could remove them before washing.  And BONUS – if I come across some other toggles that would work with this sweater I can interchange them.

 

Zero Waste – Sweater Made Into Capelet

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I don’t know if “capelet” is really the right word for this refashion, but since that was my original intention when I started out on this little adventure I’m sticking with it. What it turned out to be is a shawl, scarf, poncho, skirt and oh yeah, a capelet too.

Almost a before picture.

Ever since seeing Made By Lex’s capelet made over from an old sweater I’ve been obsessed with making capelets. I’ve only made two so far, but I’ll continue to make more. It’s such a simple style but both of my refashioned capelets are surprisingly very different.

This refashion evolved as it went along and ended up being something totally different than I had originally intended. I started out thinking that it would be a little off the shoulder capelet, more like an oversized collar that I could pop on over a cami on a summer day that turned chilly. So I started by cutting off the bottom of the sweater and tried it on. I felt like it was too short so I cut up the rest of the sweater to extend the length and ended up with a super-capelet. It’s a capelet, it’s a shawl, it’s an infinity scarf, it’s a skirt!

cutting

gathering

label that will be part of another refashion - ZERO waste!

I love that the redesign allowed me to make this a zero waste refashion. I didn’t use the label in this refashion but I promise I’ll use it in another one.

with a flower pin

I’ve worn this as pictured above and also as an infinity scarf, as an off-the-shoulder capelet/poncho and as a skirt over leggings. I love that this sweater was completely unwearable – it was soft and a pretty color but it was shapeless, stretched out and wrinkled even after ironing – and after refashioning it into this capelet-scarf-skirt it’s almost a wardrobe staple for me.