ruffle sweater refashion tutorial

After I posted about this sweater refashion I got several requests for a tutorial. I have a bit of a fear of tutorials. I am not great at explaining things. I also make things up as I go (a trait I inherited from my mother) and therefore do things different each time which that doesn't lend well to teaching others. But I aim to please so here is my attempt at a tutorial!

All of my refashions seem to be monochromatic. I wanted to do change it up a little this time but I am not sure if I really like this combination (dark brown and a sort of mustard-gold) and i might be getting a little sick of ruffles.

the sweater before-- from my closet.

one yard of chiffon. cut into strips on the bias. to find the bias fold the selvage to meet the cut side. cut along the fold line (solid black arrow) then following the new cut edge cut strips (the dotted arrows). 4 inches wide for this project.

sew your strips together. as you sew, make sure the raw edge of the seams are all on the same side of the strip.

once you have all your strips sew together, fold the strip in half lengthwise (right side in) and sew along the edge with a small seam allowance making a fabric tube.

turn your fabric tube right side out. iron with the seam in the center back.

making the ruffle-- using a basting (long) stitch, 5 on my machine, and the tension set to 9 stitch down the center of your fabric tube.

prepare the sweater-- cut the center front.

using lightweight fusible interfacing, make a interfacing, sweater, interfacing sandwich and fuse.

interfaced edges.

since the interfacing was white and the sweater dark brown i took to extra strips of chiffon about an inch wide. pin and sew over the interfacing.

pin on ruffle. some important details: my fabric tube was 190". after gathering it was 64". to cover the neck and front of the cardy i needed 57".

fold edge of ruffle under and then over the botton edge of the sweater.

sew on ruffle-- staying as close to the gathering stitch as possible.

hand sew on a hook and eye.

done!

cost: sweater $0, chiffon $2.50.
time: maybe two hours (this project is much faster if you choose a sweater that already fits you. unlike my last one!).