Refashioned Sweater into Cardigan

I finished a couple more projects over this weekend, including a refashioned sweater into a delightful cardigan! I am still new to blogging, so I am not sure how to put this tutorial into a seperate page (so those that are not interested don’t have to read a super long post!), but I will figure it out soon enough. The project took approximately 2.5 hours to make, and was really fun to do. If you’re interested in a tutorial, see below. If not, here are some before and after pics:

Before, butter- yellow, yet boring cabled sweater…

Snazzy new cardigan!

(Read on for tutorial….)

Materials Needed:

• One sweater that fits you well (crew neck or V-neck)
• 1/2 yard complimentary fabric (cotton works best, look in the quilting section for inspiration!)
• 1/2 yard light-weight interfacing
• complimentary thread
• 4 or 5 matching buttons, depending on size

Total time: 2.5 hours
Total cost: About $3.50 (for fabric; sweater, buttons, interfacing, thread were in stash!)

Step 1:

Prewash and iron all fabric, including sweater. Measure the neck circumfrence of sweater.

Measure the length of the body of the sweater so you know how long to make the button bands.

Step 2: Cut your pattern pieces. I used  a peter pan collar template for my collar, but you can use any kind of collar you desire. For the peter pan collar, cut 4 pieces of fabric and 2 pieces of interfacing:

In addition cut 4 pieces of fabric that are 2.5″ in width and the length of your sweater (mine was 18″, so I added an additional 1/2″ for seam allowances). Cut two matching pieces of interfacing.

(Totally unrelated – my kitten was begging to come in and help me sew <I never let the kittens into the craft room – disaster!>, so I let her in and she instantly fell asleep as she watched me press pattern pieces)

Step 3: Iron interfacing to pieces of matching fabric. You should have 2 interfaced collar pieces and 2 interfaced button bands.

Step 4: Match un-interfaced pieces with their interfaced counterparts, right sides together. Pin and stitch with a 1/4″ seam allowance.

Step 5: Trim edges on button bands, and notch edges of collar pieces, so that they will lie flat when turned right-side out.

Step 6: Turn pattern pieces right-side out, top stitch if desired (I recommend this).  Press pieces to set stitches. Set aside.

Step 7: Cut a 2.5″ strip out of your sweater, making sure it is centered.

Step 8: Pin button band pieces along center seams that you just created, right sides together.  Do the same for the other side. Stitch, staying close to edge and press seams towards body of the sweater.

Step 8: Pin collar pieces to inside of collar seam, matching front of collar so that it sits near the button band. Pin, and stitch in place. Press seam down towards the sweater, flipping collar to other side of the sweater so that the right side shows.

Step 9: Mark out placement of button holes and buttons on button band. If you have an automatic buttonhole maker on your machine, use that. Add buttons to other button band so that they match up with holes. Press button bands and collar. You may want to use a few anchoring stitches to hold collar in place. That’s it!

You could now add matching sleeve cuffs, pockets, or whatever else you want to do.

Close-up of button band.

Let me know if you have any questions or if I can clarify anything. Happy sewing.