It's the short sleeves. They're weird. If I'm going to wear a sweater, I want an actual sweater. Like, one with long sleeves. Plus, the ribbed band at the bottom always turned up, no matter what I did. I do like to layer up in the winter though, so an argyle vest would be perfect!
Luckily, this sweater was ideal for a refashion. If you look at the seams, they aren't cut and serged like some store-bought sweaters. Those are the original selvage edges of the knitted fabric. For you non-knitters, here's the gist. Instead of a machine knitting a big rectangle and then cutting out the pattern pieces and sewing them together, it knits the pieces in their appropriate shapes, as a knitter would, and then they are stitched together with no cutting. This means they're easily disassembled.
So disassemble I did.
Then I unraveled the sleeves and wound the yarn up to be reused.
I grabbed my tiniest needles - size US0/2mm - and picked up and knit stitches all the way around each armhole.
A few rounds of ribbing later, I bound off my stitches and my armholes are nicely finished.
An outside observer might not even be able to tell this vest has been altered.
So much more wearable now! And I plan to do just that now that it's getting chillier.
I'm blown away. It looks better as a vest, and the workmanship is excellent. Carissa, how long did it take you to learn how to knit as well as you do? Also, how did you learn sewing (lessons, from family, videos, etc.)?
ReplyDeleteThanks! I've been knitting for about 10 years now, pretty obsessively too. :)
DeleteMy mom taught me the sewing basics when I was a kid, and I picked it back up in college for a little while. I didn't really get into it until I lost a lot of weight a couple years ago and had to re-fit my entire wardrobe! Mostly I learn from trial-and-error, but the occasional internet site or YouTube video helps if you want to learn a specific technique.
This is one of my favorite refashions from this blog yet :) I don't even understand why people bother with buying new clothes ;)
ReplyDeleteMe neither!
DeleteHi Carissa!
ReplyDeleteUAU I just thought that you were going to sew!
But what you did is even better!
I coudn't do that because I don't know how to knit!
Kisses from Portugal!
Thanks, Helena! I don't know why it never occurred to me before this to tweaked knitted thrift store finds too, and not just sewn garments.
DeletePerfect Vision! Perfect execution of your vision into a Perfect piece!
ReplyDeleteAw, shucks!
DeleteNice work! How did you deal with the bottom band that kept turning up?
ReplyDelete-christina
Oh, I meant the bottom band of the sleeves, as seen in the second picture, so obviously, getting rid of them fixed that. ;)
DeleteThis is awesome!!!!! I crochet but don't knit or I would totally try this<3
ReplyDeleteI bet you could do something similar with crochet too. Can't hurt to try!
DeleteI love what you did. And with some yarn left over, too!
ReplyDeleteThanks! And that yarn has already come in handy on another project!
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