TwilightTree: Reconstructed Sweater

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Reconstructed Sweater

I've been wanting to do this for a long time: make a new sweater out of patchwork bits of several old ones.

Recognize the fabric? Those are the same shirts I used to make my upcycled headbands. The sweater was done almost entirely on my serger, though I added the spiral by hand. It (the spiral) has just one line of stitching down the middle, so I expect the edges will fray and get ragged with time. I'm a fan of that.

In basic theory, this is a pretty simple project. Breaking your machine halfway through the first seam will complicate things, but the piecing itself is manageable even for a "no math, please" kind of brain like mine. Just think of it in three tiers: the grey stripe, the wide patchwork stripe, and the thin patchwork stripe. Sew the tiers together and sew them all to the top of the shirt (which you left intact because you knew it would be the hardest part to sew yourself), and you're golden.

I hoped to give you some links to actual sweater reconstruction tutorials (I don't have any pictures of my process), but I can't seem to find any for this kind of reconstruction. If anyone has a post on this subject that they'd like me to link up to, drop me a comment and I'll add your link to the post.