I made this quite a while ago but I think that it is cute and it's so easy to make--I thought maybe it would inspire some crafting. It's based on a cardigan from Anthropologie from a year (a couple years?) back. I remember it being called the Mountain Cardi, or something. But it looked like a simple recon and I didn't really feel like dishing out the dough anthro felt it was due. So here it is!
I think it looks very sweet, and it frames the bust veeerrry nicely, if I do say so myself.
If anyone is interested in how to make it, just let me know! It only takes, like, twenty minutes to make. Awesome!
Okay, so, I got so excited that people wanted to know how to make this (you know how dogs get really excited that new people are here and they kind of pee a little? yeah) I started making the tute right away instead of in the morning. And in doing so, I made a couple of errors. I will attempt to steer you away from the errors I made, and maybe I'll put up a correct tute later on.
Okay, materials needed!
A shirt, scissors, and ribbon (and sewing machine or deft fingers). A thicker sort of ribbon would be best, I think. Now, the shirt. If you have a super baggy shirt, you will need to downsize it a bit. I'll find a tutorial for downsizing shirts and edit this post later. The best sort of shirt to use would be one (longsleeved or short sleeved, your preference) that fits you but is not glued to your waist. A boxy kind of shirt would be perfect. Make sure, also, that the shirt is relatively light-weight. I used very light weight jersey knit. A very thin sweaterknit should work too.
Mistake number two was that I cut the shirt wrong. Here's the original and my goofed up one.
I cut waaay too much out of the second one. The shirt was too small to begin with (that was mistake number one), and this just made things worse. So... don't do that! You should cut your shirt like this:
BUT NOTICE! I used the wrong kind of shirt for the shrug here too (much too tight!), I just used it to show the correct cut. To cut your shirt, start up the middle and gently curving go all the way around the collar. Okay, going back to my original tute photos.
Step two: turn the raw edge under and pin, about 3/4 of an inch in all the way around.
Step 3: sew along the edge of the folded edge, so there's room for the ribbon. I recommend using just a regular machine with a good ole straight stitch. There's really not much need for stretch, as it's just going to get bunched up anyway. If you're going to serge it, then you will stitch where I've got my fingers pinched (by folding it over the other way):
It might not ruffle as nicely if you serge it, but I haven't tried it so I can't be sure. After it's all sewn, you'll have something like this:
Don't get stressed if the knit got a little distorted here and there. No one will be any wiser after it's all bunched up.
Next, bust out the ribbon!
To get it through the shirt, I taped it to a knitting needle and fed it through. That made it pretty easy. But if that won't work for you you can still use a big needle.
Once it's through, cut it off however long you want. If you want the size of the bow I have on my shrug, just cut it off an inch extra on each side. Tie some knots in the ends to keep them from wiggling back in.
After that, put the shirt on and pull it up tight to your desired height. Tada! Ruched shrug! Easy peasy. Except for me, I guess. Here's mine, if you want to see what yours should not look like when you're done
D:!
If you're feeling brave (and are a night owl!) feel free to try it now, but I'm pretty sure Ill be attempting this in the morning when I'm fresh as a daisy. I'll take new pics then, too.
Sorry for the pic overload, I tried to size down any ones that weren't vital.
If you do attempt this, I would love love love to see yours! Feel free to post it here.
