Sewing = Upcycling

On a recent trip to the Salvation Army, I picked up this men's gap sweater.  Purple was the color of the week, so I paid a whopping 95 cents for this sweater (color of the week items are half off).  It was a size medium which is obviously not going to fit anyone in my household, but I loved the colors and the way the sweater felt, and for the price I knew I could find something to make with it.

At first I figured maybe I would use it for some cute pillows, or even to make a cuddly stuffed animal.  The material is so soft!  It almost has an angora feel to it.

Then I decided to make it in to a few things for Marcus instead.  Marcus is the most appreciative child of anything that I make him.  I have a special gift in the making for his birthday too, but more on that at another time.

First thing I made was a v-neck sweater vest for him.  I took another v-neck sweater out of his sweater, and laid it on my rotary mat matching the bottom of the two sweaters so that the finished piece would have the lower band already in place.  I simply cut around it using a rotary cutter allowing an extra 1/2 inch all the way around  This yielded two pieces: a front and a back, because I cut through both layers of the sweater.  I then cut the V in to the front of the sweater.  I cut the neck out of the original sweater, and then hand basted it to the new sweater in two pieces (one for the front piece and one for the back piece).

I then used my sewing machine to sew the shoulder seams and side seams of the sweater.  Once that was finished, I decided that I wanted to cut one of the runs of blue and white striping out of the original sweater and use that to cap the sleeves on the v-neck.  I hand basted these in because I knew it would be easier that trying to sew these small round holes on the machine.

All in all in took me about an hour from start to finish on this project.  I also put some of the scrap pieces together to make a matching scarf for it.

Here is the finished product on the hanger.

And on the Monkey.

As I sat looking at the remaining scraps, it occurred to me that I had these two long sleeves and I should make something from them.  Then it hit me, that they were dead on fit for Marcus's legs.  So, I made a pair of pajama bottoms for Marcus using the sleeves, and two triangles of the material from the sweater, and I used what was left of the lower band of the sweater to form a waist band for the jammies.  I simply sewed the two triangles together at the angle across from their widest side.  I then sewed each of the other two corners together as to form the upper side of the pants.  Next I hand basted the legs to the triangles, and then I machine sewed the waistband to the top of it all.

This project took me about 25 minutes start to finish.

Jammies on the hanger.

Jammies on the kiddo.

Marcus LOVES these jammy bottoms.  If he looks in the drawer and they are clean, they are what he is wearing to bed that night.  Who could blame him though, they feel luxurious!

So to recap, I took a 95 cent Salvation Army sweater, and with another 50 cents of thread plus an hour and a half of my time, turned it in to a stylish sweater vest and matching scarf, and the most comfortable pair of pajama bottoms a little boy could ever wish for, with only a tiny handful of slivers of scrap.