This idea came to me in that moment between awake and asleep. Sometimes those turn out to be "not-
really-ideas" but this one was and so...
I took a boring old man's sweater, cut it off just below the bust line, turned the bottom half of the sweater up-side-down, resized it a little and sewed it back on. I did the same for the sleeves.
Ta da!

after:

detail:

I sewed the bottom and sleeves back on with 1/4 inch seams,
wrong sides together for a nice little detail.
TOOT-TOOT-TORIAL:Tweedy looking before

I had to do this on a dummy so I could take the pics. Definitely do this step on your body.
Mark the place under your bust line where you want your seam to be. At the same time, mark the spot for your sleeve cuts so they line up with the bodice cut. It won't look right when you take it off (unless you have biceps the size of your boobs) so
don't try to figure out where the sleeve cut goes after you take the sweater off.

Mark the cuts on a flat surface and cut them off.

Cut off the neckband and slice up the front of the bodice.

Put the sweater on in-side-out. Overlap the front on your body to make a snug, but not stretched, fit under the bust. Pinch and pin the excess on the under side of the sleeves to make them less bulky but not tight. Mark the sleeve pinches on a flat surface. Sew along the marks and cut away the excess.
Turn under the neck edge and front opening and sew it with a narrow zig-zag stitch.

Put the bottom half of the sweater on
up-side-down and pinch and pin the excess at the top to be, again, snug but not stretched.
Mark the pinch on a flat surface, angling out to the bottom corners to take advantage of the width of the cut edge. Sew along the line and trim away the excess.

Here are all the parts:

On my first sweater I sewed the bottom and sleeves to the bodice with the wrong sides together so the seam was on the outside. This sweater, to me, lent itself to having the seams on the inside, so I sewd them right sides together. Stretch the ribbed cuffs as you sew fit the cut edges.

Turn under and hem the bottom and the sleeves with a narrow zig-zag stitch, too.
You can see that the cuff ribbing is now sewn to the place where the sleeve was cut off. Likewise, the ribbing at the bottom of the sweater is now sewn to the spot under the bust where it was cut.


The sleeves look a lot better with an arm in them. Maybe I can post some action shots when one of my daughters gets home
If you decide to make one please post it and send me a personal message so I'm sure not to miss it. I'd love to see where people take the basic idea
Please let me know if any of this is too vague and I'll do my best to clear it up.
Thanks Y'all, for all of the nice encouragement!