A new shrug for my daughter

When my daughter was in 8th or 9th grade I bought her a little cashmere blend cropped sweater in grey. She loved that sweater. So, when the neck wore out a few years ago, I crocheted over the ripped neckline in a soft angora blend marled gray wool.
My daughter finally admitted that she had worn that sweater to death of the past nearly ten years. She asked me to keep an eye out for a replacement sweater.
I remembered that I had a crew necked merino wool sweater similar to this one http://www.woolovers.us/cashmere-merino/womens/cashmere-ladies-crew-neck.aspx?cse=shoppingusa.

The wool was lovely, but the shape was not very flattering. I decided to turn the unflattering sweater into my daughter's new shrug. It isn't hard to do this transformation.

I didn’t take photos as I worked, so my drawings will have to do.

I cut the sweater on the dotted lines. First I cut the sweater East-West at a point that made sense to me. Then I cut open the front. I located the center front by folding the sweater so the side seams were one on top of the other. With the two sweater fronts together, I shaped the front curve.

I could have left the sweater as it was. But my daughter is smaller than I am so I cut and sewed two darts in the sweater back. by cutting the darts you get a more fitted shape. I figured out the placement by aligning the side seams and then making a cut through both layers of sweater. It’s a nice idiot way to get the dart placement to be symmetrical.

I serged around the raw edges of the sweater.

I have been seeing lots of sweaters with ruffled embellishments. I cut the bottom discarded half of the sweater into one long strip about an inch wide. No, I didn’t measure, I just cut.

I then stitched the strip with a tight tension and a long stitch. That gives you a slight ruffle effect, this is a useful trick if you can't locate your ruffler or don't own one. I stitched down the ruffle, beginning at the center back. I pushed the strip together to create more gathers. I stitched that ruffle to the sweater around all of the raw edges.
I also serged the sleeves a bit skinnier so the sweater would look better on my daughter.

That’s it. It’s not rocket science.

My youngest took one look at the sweater and said that he thought it looked like something his sister would own. . Let's hope that he is correct.

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