Monday, April 15, 2013

Weekend Repairs

Last fall I placed three sweaters - all needing revision -  on top my dresser.   The first two, being winter garments, I fixed in short order.  The third, my Sitcom Chic Cardi, languished.    But with spring and perfect Sitcom weather soon approaching, I tackled the revisions this weekend.  Thankfully, they worked out faster and easier than I thought they might.

I took Sit Com from this



to this.




In order to do that, I had to remove all trim, meaning a few hours were spent finding ends to un-weave.  Darn, I am so good at that weaving in of ends!

Once I found the ends  starting point, the revisions didn't take too long.  First I lengthened the body by about two inches.  The sweater is modelled as a cropped garment.  But cropped on my 'woman-of-a-certain-age' frame means boxy.  As wide as it is long.  Or as my Mother would have said - 'easier to jump over than walk around'.  Lengthening was in order.  I finished off with with non-curling rows of 2x2 ribbing.



Once that was finished, I tackled the button band trims and re-shaped the top portion of the sweater.  Thanks to a raveller who asked
"Why doesnt' this sweater have a 'V' neck since that is what it always wants to do?"  I began to think of Sitcom  in a new and  improved 'V' neck style.  I could have re-knit the sweater to accomplish this, but instead simply turned under, as facing, the excess fabric to create the new neckline.  I'm all about the easy.



With the new 'V' neck in place, I then put new button bands on the sweater.  Tired of the curling edges - another annoying feature of Sitcom  - I worked several rows of  2x2 ribbing, followed by one knit row before the cast off.  Take that you curling edges.



And thinking the back neck would be too high if I added an inch of trim, I undid the back-neck cast off, with it's tight stitches, and stitched down a scallop of facing there as well. 

It needs washing to complete the spring makeover.  Then, I intend to get much more, or at least much more comfortable,  wear out of this work horse cardi. 

6 comments:

Sandra said...

nice job on the revisions! I love the facing idea - so much easier.

Sel and Poivre said...

I can barely stand how brilliant and inspiring this is! Wow! What a great set of ideas to turn a "meh" into a "Mahvelous!"

This is the stuff knit blogs can be so great at doing - inspiring and illustrating!

Thanks so much for this Brenda - i must run and pull all my "meh" sweaters out!

Linda said...

Love the way you remade your FO into a lovable FO. Thanks for the lessons.

Yarn and Ivories said...

Clever!! I held my breath when I saw the neck line change, thinking what a daunting task that would be... and understanding completely why it was on the dresser for months. I understand... But it's a brilliant solution, as usual!! Lucky us to learn from your mistakes. Now if I could just remember them at the right time...:)

Needles said...

Brilliant. You inspire me. I have one that is a must for a redo. Can't fudge it, can't wear it. Need to redo it.

Watching you makes me brave. But not today. Maybe next week.

Jan said...

Wow. That looks great!