a day in the life

Cape-tivated

Our last sweater DIY of the week.  We've opted to make some of our own because it can be challenging to find new garment shapes for children, especially in the smallest sizes, and even more difficult if you're not particularly interested in pink or some variation there of (Nothing against pink!  We wear it... sometimes!).  We've used a new sweater here (reasonable at 50% off) but this is a great way to breathe some new life into that sweater buried in the back of the closet that you haven't been able to let go of just yet...but you know deep down you'll never wear again!  

for the Littles:

  • Gap Womens Circular Fair Isle Sweater, (We started with an XS, our normal size is a 2T.  Best on a sweater with some wool content and with a circular yoke pattern fair isle.  Wash in hot water and dry 2-3 times to shrink up the garment and bit and achieve a slight felting affect.  Cut sleeves off approx 1 1/4" below bottom of fair isle pattern, fold back a hem immediately below the pattern and glue down at the cut edge with Beacon Fabri-Tac glue.  For the body of the garment cut a straight line across the garment approx 1/2" above the rib trim hem, note to keep your line straight and perpendicular to the center of the garment.  Fold back approx 1" of the bottom of the garment to form a hem as you did for the sleeve and again glue down at the cut edge.  When the glue has dried cut a straight line up the front of the garment from the bottom straight thru to the neck line.  This step is not necessary, but, if you would like a taller collar retrieve the rib trim you cut from the bottom of the garment.  Cut the excess garment body material off of the rib trim so only the rib is remaining.  Cut the rib in the center equidistant from each side seam, you will now have one long 'ribbon' of rib trim.  Starting at the center front edge, glue the cut edge of the rib trim to the inside seam that joins the neck rib trim to the body of the garmentallowing for a double rib trim at the neckline.  Trim the excess rib trim once you have glued the trim all the way around to the other center front edge.  To complete the garment glue a 1/2" or 5/8" ribbon right along the inside edge of each center front panel to keep the garment from unraveling.  Once the glue has dried trim off any excess along the center front edges of the garment to clean it up.  Sweater fabrications are very forgiving so once the sweater is washed this is a rather quick process.)
  • American Apparel Long Sleeve Tee (runs very small)
  • similar Finger in the Nose Cream Heather Pants
  • Adidas Stan Smith Sneakers

for the Girls:

for the rest of Us:

 

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