Refashion Friday Inspiration: Contrast Shoulder Panel Sweatshirt

Here's a few variations of a style of sweatshirt refashion/remake that I came up with a few months ago. In the way that most my sweatshirt make-overs tend to go, it takes a large men's sweatshirt and transforms it into a more feminine garment with a closer fit.  The sleeves are re-cut to have a slightly gathered sleeve head. The sleeves finish just above the elbow to make it a trans-season garment for when you need something warmer than a T-shirt, but not as warm as a full-length sleeved sweatshirt. This reworked garment can also work well with a long-sleeved T-shirt worn underneath. 

The garment pictured at the top of this post used the materials in the picture above: a lovely soft secondhand sweatshirt, some stripey jersey for the contrast shoulder panels, red satin bias binding and some gold buttons. I cut the front and back pieces to include the hem ribbing so that didn't require reapplying. The sleeve cuff ribbing came from a piece of hem ribbing I harvested from another stained sweatshirt. I cut the harvested ribbing in half and then folded it in half again before attaching to the sleeve hem to make it narrower than a typical sweatshirt cuff. The neck binding is made from the original sweatshirt's neck ribbing. Once the contrast shoulder panels had been formed, I stitched together one of the shoulder seams, then attached the neck ribbing along the raw neckline and finally stitched the second shoulder seam to complete the neck hole. Next the sleeves get set in, then the sleeve seams and side seams of the body get stitched closed in one long single seam. 

The red version pictured above has slightly shorter sleeves and silver ribbon folded in half instead of the satin bias binding to form the piping. I was aiming for a nautical look (if you can believe it) but I only had silver ribbon to hand rather than gold which I would have preferred, so I kind of feel the resultant look is more Wonder Woman than nautical!

The final version I made uses some zebra print double knit and neon pink bias binding to create the contrast and has 3/4 sleeves for a warmer alternative. The shoulder panels are made by cutting away the  sweatshirt fabric in the shape I wanted and using those cut-away sections as a template from which to cut the contrast fabric (remembering to add seam allowances). I pressed the bias binding open, folded it in half and re-pressed it with an iron to make flat piping. I basted the bias strips to the curved edge of the contrast shoulder pieces before attaching both to the front sweatshirt piece.

If you find a window in your weekend to do some sewing, may the gods of successful stitching be with you!