Striped Sweater Refashion

Pinterest really has a lot of awesome stuff, and has provided me with hours upon hours of drooling over food, fashion, home decor, but mostly the DIY tab.  I love it there.  I find so much inspiration of stuff to try (someday).  I try to be realistic and pin projects that I really think I could accomplish. 

I'm particularly fond of refashioning old clothes in to new garments to wear.  So when I stumbled across Merricks Art, I thought I had found my sister from another mister. 

There are a few pieces of my wardrobe I plan on refashioning.  I finally set to work on the first one.  I recieved a hand-me-down cardigan/scarf thingy...I don't really understand them. 

While I felt awkward trying to wear it, the knit was so soft, and I really dug the thick stripes.  It had to be transformed.  I originally thought - skirt - but changed my mind since horizontal stripes should never go around my lower half.  Plus, a knit skirt like that would get stretched out immediately after putting it on - Frump City, no bueno.

I went at this sans pattern, which is a huge challenge for me.  I also wanted this top to be a boatneck.  I had never made anything with a boatneck before, and here I was going at it without a pattern.

I cut the wings off this sweater - I don't know what else to call them.  To prevent the knit from unraveling, I zig-zag stitched the raw edge.

I didn't plan on the zig-zag causing the edges to stretch and ruffle.

I wasn't pleased about this, but I pressed on.  I pinned up the edges, and basted in about 5 inches, so I could gather the sides.

I gathered the basted edges, then sewed the raw edges down, turned it right-side-out, and tried it on.

It felt really flimsy, and I had not gathered enough on the sides - the boatneck was more like 80's off-the-shoulder.  I tried it on my dressform to assess the situation.

Not only was it flimsy, but I really didn't like the black hem stitching that was showing through the grey knit.  I tried it on about 12 more times before deciding it would not do.

I cut off the top grey stripe, and started over with the black stripe on top.  Instead of gathering the shoulders, I pinned some pleats to bring in the fabric, and to reduce the bulk.  To stablize the knit, I sewed bias tape to the right side of the raw edge, then folded it open and that became my seam allowance.

Thinking of the boatneck concept, I wanted to make sure the top would fit over my head, and not look too confining, so I left the back piece with a bit less pleating.  In hindsight, I should have just made the same amount of pleats, because it didn't look right with that extra few inches of fabric going around the back of my neck -- due to the bias tape, it was too rigid to drape or lay flat.

I sewed about 5.5 inches from the outside shoulder to the opening of the neckhole.  I ended up hand-stitching some additional pleats to take in the excess fabric around the back of the neck.

Once I was satisfied with the neck opening, I topstitched both sides, tacking down the bias tape, and giving it a polished look.

I stitched up the sides, and presto!  An awesome new look just in time for summer!

Check me out, trying to be discreet with my fancy new camera remote -- it's hard to take a shot without pointing that thing directly at the camera!