Knitwear Refashion #3

May I present to you the next installment of my knitwear refashioning series. I made this last week and have managed to squeeze in a couple of wears so far and I have to say, I love it! I love that it took me little more than one lunch time to complete it; I love that I have been able to create a 1940's inspired knitwear silhouette without having to learn how to knit; I love that it has nautical overtones; AND I love that is cost me absolutely nada.

Just like my knitwear refashion #2, this project began life as an unloved second-hand mens Marks and Spencer fine knit wool jumper. The original garment was bizarre (and rare) in that it showed absolutely no signs of wear in any form aside from thinning on one of the elbows, and a totally busted out hole for the seond elbow! What on earth has this dude been doing in his jumper?! I can't imagine....

Anyways, this suited my purposes just fine because I had decided I wanted a 1940's inspired little jumper with short slightly puffed sleeves, so I could harvest the rest of the good quality garment and cut away the ratty parts of the sleeves.

Unlike my knitwear refashion #2 which I cut to include the ribbed hem section, this time I decided to cut the new garment keeping the original neckhole intact. The original garment had the right type of neck for what I was aiming for, plus had a nice shoulder yoke panel that would look cool incorporated into my new garment's design.

Because my pattern pieces were placed high up on the original garment to retain the neck, I had to reattach the ribbing section but cutting it carefully away and overlocking it back on to the hem of the front and back. Similarly, when I cut the sleeves out of the top part of the orginial sleeves, I also harvested the original cuff ribbing which were overlocked to bottom of my new sleeves. The sleeve heads are slightly gathered to get that 1940's shoulder-centric kind of look. Plus, because the cuff ribbing was shorter than the bottom of my newly cut sleeve pieces, I had to stretch the ribbng as I overlocked it onto the sleeves so this naturally emphasised the 'puffiness' of the new sleeves. (Note: I am wearing my stripey long sleeved T-shirt underneath, this jumper does not have mad, contrasting sleeves attached!)

After finding it in a bag of donated knitwear at work, I actually had the original jumper sitting on the shelve close to my work station for a week or so, waiting for inspiration to strike. I knew such a plain garment would need some sort of embellishment, but because the majority of the garment was in such good nick, there didn't seem any point in replacing sections of it or messing with it too much. But without some kind of embellishment planned, I just wasn't inspired to begin refashioning it!

At any rate, I came up with the idea to make a little fake pocket flap (I'd recently made some shorts for work that had fake pocket flaps in self-fabric) made from some scraps of an old mens shirt. The colour of the blue stripe in the shirt is more or less the same as the jumper, and the stripes give it a nautical vibe, which I'm clearly not going to reject!

As is so often the case, I find my sewing mojo to be slightly out of season. Right now we have lovely warm weather here in Blightly, but I seem to be most vibed by creating myself a range of knitwear! Still, these knit tops will be doubt come into their own in the Autumn, or if we get some colder spells before Summer kicks in. I've got some more summery creations coming up next, but I still have one or two knitwear refashions planned before my mojo flips again.