Sunday 7 December 2008

Lisa, don't read this post

You never know who might be out there. Anyway, this is my version of the Ubiquitous Cardigan Refashion . There's ooh at least a zillion out there, but none of them (as far as I know) are for Lisa's daughter, shortly to turn two.


I grabbed this jumper at a clothes swap. It's lovely wool, but was a bit misshapen and had holes in the elbows. No one else wanted it (well, why would they?) and it didn't really even seem charity shop - fit.
But I could see the potential! So I shrank it. And then I cut the sleeves shorter. And then I cut it open up the front. Oh look, did I mention it's DKNY?
Using the sections I cut from the end of the arms, I made two little elbow patches and some pocket shapes.
I have a whole world of ribbons, some left over from my wedding (five years ago), others from whenever I can grab them. I tend to leave other people's weddings with all the ribbons from their gifts too. I have no shame.
So, I went through my ribbons looking for something perfect. I was close with a dark pink, but it was quite narrow, and I couldn't find a good coordinating button, so the lilac came out on top. I think it would be quite self defeating to go out and buy lots of new notions for a refashioning exercise (not that that would stop me), so it was good to just go with cupboard staples.
The jumper felted up so well there was no need to hem anything, so I just sewed the ribbon over the tops of the pockets, and round the edge of the jacket.
I'm not sure what made it go a bit ruffly, but it's a lovely effect, so let's call it serendipity. I made some little flowers out of another felted jumper - a cashmere one of my dad's no less, and sewed on a button, button loop (out of some silver ribbon) and the pockets. I won't put a picture of the whole thing up until it gets there though.