The Refashioned Cardi

Project:Refashioned Cardi

Goals: practice some stitching, put in some buttons

So as mentioned last time I'm still a little nervous about the dress refashioning, so I decided to deal with a sweater I have which I never ever wear. It's a bit weird on me, which you can see from the before and after pictures at the end of the post.

It's nice enough, but I'd like to make it better. I googled "turning sweaters into cardigans" and found this amazingness onThreadbanger, and followed two of their links (one which I adore the asymmetry of and one with a tutorial) so I decided to give it a try. I still haven't been to any craft shoppies so I'm going solely on what I've got in stock. Ethel's got a buttonholing feature, so one of the goals of this was to practice with that.

So I still had quite a bit of this sweater around after the tiger lily incident, and I decided to use it to add contrast to the stripey number which would serve as my base.

The stripey number is a v-neck, which would prove to make the refashioning a bit difficult (and would lead to one of the biggest issues I have with the final product) but I cut out a section slightly to the left side to create the asymmetrical opening.

Then I cut the bottom hem off of the pink sweater to make recollaring the stripey number easier. The collar is my favourite part of the finished product.

Then I used the sleeves from the pink sweater to make the new panels for the buttonholes and buttons. My big mistake here was I decided not to measure them, so they came out uneven. Oops!

I sewed on my uneven panels (which I guess I could argue add even more asymmetry to the final product but I think that's pushing it) and then used the collar from the pink sweater to try to match the collar work I did earlier (not pictured because at this time I misplaced my camera).

Then the Great Buttonhole Disaster happened. I was making some buttonholes and things were going quite smoothly, until I got to the last buttonhole I wanted to make. Ethel decided at this moment to eat a good chunk of my new cardigan.

It took me ages to work out how to get the bit out of her depths, and by that time I had cut a chunk out of the cardigan. I then tried again, and the same thing happened. I was getting really angry at this point, so I took a long break. Then I decided "whatever" and left the gaping hole alone. I think the problem had something to do with the thickness of what I was working with and the bottom thread, but I'm not sure.

After the incident I attached the buttons and am relatively pleased with how it looks. From this picture you can see one of my concerns with this "piece": the huge disparity in the collar. That said, I much prefer it to the weird v-neck thing it had going on earlier, so I don't mind too much.

Now it's time for before and afters! There are three afters, because there are three ways to wear the cardigan: all buttoned up, only the top button buttoned, and unbuttoned. I think I prefer unbuttoned; I like the uneveness of it. It's the closest to grunge I'll probably (read: hopefully) ever get. Although looking at it again I also like just the top button buttoned... it distracts from the fact that the panels are so uneven. Also, I can't believe how much older I look in the "after" shots... Yipes. It could be the lighting (in fact, I hope it is). Anyway, I'm overall pleased with this.