Sweater Swag Fail

I'll warn you now - this is not pretty, and I'm not happy about it. I'm sure I'll re-visit this project at some point, but here's where it was left. This one was inspired by Pintrest, the site I'm extremely obsessed with and totally okay with that fact; it gives me a lot of good ideas. Recently, I had pinned an outfit that I liked and it had a boatneck sweater that was gorgeous. So when I saw this sweater, much like the one that I pinned, I had to snatch it up for $3.99.

Voila! It wasn't perfection yet, but I swore I could get it there. (Spoiler: I was wrong. Very, very wrong.) And yes, I realized that I did the "hand on the hip" thing again that I swore I wouldn't do. So... here you go.

So yes - no hand on hip happens, it's just not my favorite way to "pose". The plan: a) cut off turtleneck in boatneck-esque fashion b) sew up the hem c) be done for the next 4 days of Christmas vacation and wear my sweet new comfy sweater for the drive between the parents houses.

So task a commenced:

Done. So far so good. So then I pinned it all around and sewed the seam to complete task b. This is where things got shady. First of all, the sweater was puffy and didn't want to fit under the footer very well, so I may or may not have freestyled a lot over the manufacturer's seams where it certainly wouldn't go under the footer when it was down. One would think this was the issue but alas, it was not (although it could have been. Who knows - I'm new at this.) So I finished the hem and put the sweater back on. And it rolled like no tomorrow, making a HUGE gap in between the sweater and my skin. So I decided to do a second hem to make it a bit more stable. It didn't help.

When I walked out like this, my husbands first reaction was "it doesn't look bad. What's wrong with it?" And then I put my arms down and the whole thing fell down to my elbows. Problem found. So, I turned the whole thing inside out and pinched the top seams together. Knowing that this certainly would have been too thick for my sewing machine to handle, I hand sewed the seams together so it wasn't falling off my shoulder. To my absolute horror, this is what I saw when I put it right side out and put it on:

It looks like a shoulder pad in there, but it most certainly is not. That is the result of my hand sewing at 11pm. I don't even know how this happened. The worst part wasn't even this nub (my husband called it a shoulder nipple) - it was the fact that I tried to cut off the excess fabric creating the nub, and ended up with a huge hole in the shoulder. This is where I threw in the towel for the night and decided that I would attempt to fix it after the holidays. For now - no cute and comfy travel sweater.

The only success I had in this project is what I did with the turtleneck. I didn't to waste a pefectly good circle of pretty purple fabric. So I cut the neck in half, and sewed up the hem to make two cylinders. The idea here? Well, have you been in shoe stores and saw the legwarmers that they are now trying to play off as "boot toppers"? Although I know they are legwarmers, and the world knows they are legwarmers, something about calling them "boot toppers" makes them a bit more 2012 appropriate that they are all. the. rage. So I slapped these babies on my calves and made my own legwarmers boot toppers.

 

 

All I have to say? Glad something worked out.

 

So I'll get back to this sweater at some point, when I can figure out how to fix these shoulders. I really do love this sweater, and I still like my idea... I just have to work on my process and application of my ideas.

 

 

What did I learn? Stop sewing at 11pm; not start at 11pm. Also, always work on my work table. This project I did primarily on the floor because the usual spot in my craft room that I use for my work table was taken up by these beauties:

 

Okay, at least it makes me happier to look at them and know I'm spending a fun, family-filled weekend with Christmas festivities. Smile restored.

 

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!