Thrift Store Treasures #3

This project was probably the longest one ever. This sweater was bought a long time ago in a thrift store back home. First I liked the colour, it was a sort of aqua. After a few months, I grew out of it and decided it was too girly for me. I figured I should try to dye it. Ofcourse, there's no 'before' pic of it. I knew the result would be different because there's lamb wool in it, and wool is hard to dye. And dying something already coloured will always give a different outcome too. But on this pic, you can see the result of an attempt to dye it dark brown. Interesting, isn't it? I did like this new colour, it had turned a little darker and a little greyish. (I miss my pretty flower wall. And my pretty flower pants. And big windows.) Anyway, I also took in the sides a little bit, to give it a better silhouette. (Can you tell I've been watching Project Runway? I'm addicted now, it's so inspiring!)

So now the colour was fixed and it had a slightly better fit, but I still found it boring. I wanted to do something with it, but I just couldn't figure out what. The colour is still a bit twee so whatever the alteration would be, I didn't want to emphasize that. Finally I decided to turn it into a cardigan. You'd think it wouldn't take me that long to come up with something not so spectacular, but it took me at least another half a year! I used SnugBug's method of using interface to stabilize the new edges. It worked perfectly, no wobbles at all! I bought the buttons here in Sogndal. They cost me three times as much as the sweater had cost me! I chose these black and white polka dot buttons because the whole gave me a retro feeling.

Hm, this background it quite pretty too. As you can see the buttons are a bit too far on the edge, and the space between them is uneven. Stef made me think about this as he suggested that it would make more sense to place buttons in places you need them, instead of evenly distributed. In that case, it would make sense to have more buttons at the top as there is more tension on the fabric. I'll definitely take this into consideration next time! My buttons are actually wider spaced at the top than at the bottom, but it doesn't really bother me. Still I consider this a very succesful refashion as I will wear it more often and feel much better about it when I wear it!

P.S. The maxi skirt refashion turned out fabulous, more on that later! And in case you're wondering, I'll be making things from scratch again really soon. Especially because there's a serger waiting for me at home! YAY!