DIY: Knitted jumper to cardigan

Now that spring is here and the temperature is sometimes gorgeously warm and sometimes there are still some chilly winds, I find my favourite wardrobe piece is the cardigan. It's such a great layering piece, easy to put on or take off when needed.

The before and after.

However, it is just me or are great cardigans harder to find than great jumpers? Especially when trying to find them in charity shops.

For a while I have been thinking about how to turn jumpers into cardigan. I had a go with a jersey sweatshirt and it turned out great just cutting in the middle. However, that was a dense woven jersey that doesn't fray. But cut into a knitted jumper and it will start unravelling faster than you can think "Shouldn't have done that".

So I consulted my best bud Google. And it came up with something called steeking. That involves some skills with a crochet hook, so let's face it, I wasn't going to do that. Time for some good ol' trial and error. (If somebody knows of a proper method of doing this, please get in touch!)

I found a gorgeous salmon pink jumper in a charity shop opposite my dentist last time I was there. But weird, weird shape. Like it was knitted for somebody with a looong torso, broad shoulders and tiny little arms. Perfect for this experiment! Read on.

Supplies:

• Jumper
• Binding (not pictured)
• Scissors
• Felt tip pen (not pictured)
• Pins
• Sewing machine (not pictured)
• Needle and thread (not pictured)

Right, I seem to have lost my process photos (and which others I wonder?!), so all you get is a description. Luckily this is supersimple.

1. Mark out the middle. This bit won't show on the final item, so I just used a felt tip marker.
2. Zig zag a couple lines on both sides of the middle. The aim is that this will prevent unravelling. Cut between the zig zags.
3. Sew on binding on each side. This can be bought ready made or be made. I made mine from left overs from this project.

While this is supereasy take care to not stretch the jumper when sewing. I did ok with one side, but the other definitely stretched, Ah well, still wearable. 

Also, buttons. Personally, I don't ever button my cardigans unless they are very fitted, so didn't bother to think of a way to add buttons. However, if you want to, I guess you could make the binding wider and sew button holes through the binding. It's a guess, let me know if you try it.

I feel like Ferdinand the Bull in this photo.

My dream life: living in pastels, wearing pretty shoes, smelling the flowers and reading books.

Timelapse

I am a very lucky girl. Josh is not only the best boyfriend ever, he is also the best blog photographer.

He probably takes half the photos on the blog and always has creative ideas. In fact, a lot of the time we argue because we have clashing ideas. The phrases "You are the worst model ever, you don't take any directions" and "But I'm not the model, I'm the creator" get used a lot.

Having said that, his ideas are awesome. The other day he decided to have a go at doing a time lapse while I cut out some pieces of fabric. Have a look below, isn't it awesome?



What it will be you'll see in a few days. First I have to finish it. :)

Sewing shopping - Liberty pin cushion

Non-Londoners, here's a travel tip for you. If you are going to London, byline Oxford Street, Harrods, whatever is in the tourist books. Head instead to Liberty. This is like my Tiffany's. I want everything in there. But usually settle for something from the herbadashery (when I can spell this without having to Google it I'll be a happy girl).

I've had my eyes on this little crown pin cushion for a while but felt I had to see it before choosing colour. So when I was in London a couple of week ago to say hi and bye to a friend moving abroad the opportunity came. And I fell in love with the green crown.

If you are not a sewer you will think me cheap for saying this, but for a pin cushion it's pricy. A pin cushion is something you can whip up in 10 min for the cost of probably 10 p. So I figured a tiny review is in order.

Appearance...it's a bit shit quality for Liberty, when I took it out of the box I could see some glue strands. But these were easy to cut away without the whole thing falling apart. Construction is good. It has a weight of some kind in the bottom which means that it stays where I put it. And it's very firmly stuffed, which is good as otherwise it would be swallowing all my needles.

So overall I'm happy with the purchase. And in a couple days you'll see it in action.

DIY: Anniversary dress with little leather flowers

Hi guys,

I've been a horrible blogger. Given promises and breaking them.  No excuses this time. The blog and I have been going through an identity crisis. But more on that topic some other time.

Now, leather.

Leather is huge this spring. If you, like me, are not all that into looking like you just stepped out of an S&M dungeon or Batman’s cave, there are still ways to wear this trend. For example, the leather can be the detailing rather than the main event.

That’s the idea I’ve gone with for this DIY. I have this dress that I wanted to wear to a work thing a couple months back. Luckily I had the sense to try it on beforehand, because when I did I noticed it was stained. Well-known fact about me is that I’m clumsy. Well-known fact about white, off-white, cream, nude, beige is that it attracts clumsiness like it’s not even funny. Put these two evils together and every time I wear something light coloured I spill my morning tea all over it. This happens with such regularity that you could bet on it and you’d be a rich man/woman within short.

Luckily, there are many DIY solutions. Tie dye. Or dye the whole thing. Embroidery over it. Camouflage with beads or sequins. Cover with pretty fabric. Hide with applications. This DIY is brought to you by the latter. 

So let's get to it. Supplies:

• Dress with stains (keeping it classy, I know)
• Faux leather
• Paper and pen/pencil
• Scissors (I used a MUCH smaller pair than pictured)
• Needle and thread
• (ignore the pearls, thought about using them as centre of my flowers, but xx hours in I changed my mind)

Firstly, make a template. Draw a flower on a piece of paper and cut it out. Simple five petal will probably be easiest.

Pin the template to the faux leather and cut around it. Repeat about 150 times. No joke. This seriously does take forever. So put a movie or some podcasts on. Or just make the flowers 10x larger and cut only a few.

Pin to dress in any pattern that takes your fancy then sew the little faux leather flowers onto the dress, in a pattern or just randomly. If you thought the cutting was annoying, you're in for a treat.

I did about 80% of my dress in something like 7 h, realised I had messed up my stitches so the flowers started coming off and went back and redid all that work. Luckily I had some radio documentaries and buckets of tea (quelle surprise) at my side.

Josh and I had an anniversary recently and after all that work this really was the only dress I could even consider wearing to our anniversary celebrations.