Refashioned from one Large mens crewneck. I did some Frankenpatterning (thanks Ali!) and copying of a favorite cardigan for fit, cut a new back and two front pieces, harvested the bottom sleeve portion to attach 3/4 length sleeves, sewed 6 matching buttons onto one side and then decided dagnabit I wanted them on the other side and unpicked everything and resewed them, and of course created an entire garden of mustard colored flowers from wool felt.
This was the design I'd settled upon, but after I stitched everything on and tried it on, the massive cluster of flowers on the shoulder was, well, way too massive. It would've been fine if both sides were symmetrical in their massiveness, I think, but the asymmetry running diagonally down the side asked for less density of flowery goodness, so I unpicked about 4 flowers and reshuffled things a bit. I'm pretty pleased with the result. And nobody at work could tell it was handmade.
I thought the snaps would deter me from wearing this unbuttoned, but that's actually how I've mostly been wearing this so far. Something about the shrunken, cropped shape makes me think 50s, although I generally like to shorthand this asymmetrical, quirky, over-the-top embellishment style as "Anthropologie"esque. In one of my other sweater refashions, a commenter said she thought my sweater would be "more Anthropologie, IMO, if you made it more asymmetrical" or something to that effect. I remember thinking Honey, my crafting mission is NOT to just copy their style, that's just a stylistic shorthand, semantics! --- but a year later, I have that commenter to thank for inspiring me to move my flowers down to the bottom left of my cardigan, instead of keeping them at both shoulders where it was difficult to achieve a pleasantly mismatched look.
So. One of two "October" garments sees the light of day in November. The other one ... I'm off to work on right now!
11 comments:
I am sitting here full of cough and cold on a gloomy murky morning and your mustard cardigan has cheered me up! The shape and fit look fab on you and as for the flowers, well, just too lovely. A great refashion, certainly looks very professional. I wanty, wanty want it for myself! Though I am so huge now it would barely fit. x
When I saw your previews of this, I assumed you had taken an actual cardigan and "just" added the flowers- but no! It's a whole new garment! That's really impressive!:)
I cannot tell you how much I LOVE this sweater! The color! The flowers! The fit! C'est magnifique! Lovelovelove
Gorgeous!! I love the cropped cardigan look on you, and while it does have that Anthropologie-chic we associate with beautiful and whimsical garments (which I would totally take as a compliment!), it's so much better because of all the work you put into it. Seriously, someone might steal this from you if you left it for a sec (myself included). -Ali
Wow, this is an "extreme" and very successful refashion. Isn't it funny how some annoying little comment stays with you-- because, deep down, you KNOW they are actually right. Well IMHO, this is pretty near perfect.
I think you've got the number and placement of the flowers just perfect. And even though I normally shy away from wearing anything in the yellow or orange part of the colour wheel, your cardie makes me rethink mustard.
You go, girl! This is exquisite!!!!
It turned out lovely! And it doesn't look like a refashion at all--it seems like the flowers were always meant to be there. Nice work!
I'm in love with the little flowers! The color and cut look lovely on you and I think the asymmetrical flower arrangement takes the loveliness to a whole new level! :)
Lovely cardi. I see from some of your earlier posts that you treat mustard like I do, it's a neutral. :)
I love this sweater! Could you please do a tutorial on how you did the flowers? They are a lovely touch to this garment :)
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