Hello again, friends! How are you all holding up? Personally, I’m already starting feel pretty cooped up, but am pushing through it with a combination of gardening, refashioning, and reading a few books I’d been meaning to get around to.
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I’ve gotta say, I’m VERY thankful I have a well-stocked refashion stash at the moment (This is probably the ONLY time I’d advise everybody to hold up on thrifting for a bit), which included this pale blue sweater:
As noted in the caption above, this isn’t an ugly sweater, but it’s not that great either, is it? Pale blue looks awwwwful on my skin tone, and this sweater needs to be a lil shorter to be on-trend.
However, I love that mock turtleneck, and it’s super comfy– definitely worthy of a refashion!
First, I needed to address that blue hue!
I grabbed a bottle of tan dye.
If you’re at home with kids, this part of the refashion is a great kid-friendly activity, and a less-messy alternative to tie dye!
I mixed a small amount of dye in a big metal bowl with hot water.
Tan dye is weird, y’all. For some reason, it always ends up being a little green, as you can see above.
I have no idea why.
Still, green was better than that boring blue that made my skin look like that of a corpse, so I shrugged my shoulders and carried on!
I let it sit for about an hour.
From the pic above, you can see I didn’t go crrrrrrrazy with dye saturation on this one (probably only added an ounce or two to the bath). I really only wanted a subtle effect for this refashion.
Still, the same rules for uneven dye techniques applied. DON’T TOUCH IT while it’s soaking! Don’t stir it! Don’t shake it! Just let it sit there and believe it’ll all turn out okay. #metaphor
After its bath was done, I rinsed my sweater in my washing machine (no, it won’t dye your machine), and then put it in the dryer.
So now my sweater was much improved, but I still needed to deal with that length!
“Wait!”, some of you are yelling into your phones or monitors, “What is she doing? You can’t just cut off a sweater, or it’ll fray!”
“What tomfoolery is this?!?“, you are most certainly not exclaiming.
Don’t worry. This isn’t my first rodeo, and I’ve got it all figured out!
First, I made a simple hem by pinning the bottom under once, then stitching it down with a straight stitch.
Now to address that raw edge!
I set my machine to a wide zigzag stitch.
I ran my sweater under the needle again, placing the zigs and zags on opposite sides of that raw edge!
Now fraying won’t be an issue!
I gave my new hem a quick press, and was done!
Ain’t it cute???
I styled my sweater with my fave Jack Rodgers sandals, denim shorts (It’s in the 70’s here), and thrifted leaf necklace. 🙂
My newly-refashioned sweater reminds me of some I’ve seen at Lululemon lately too, which is definitely an added bonus, since my sweater only cost $1!
I wore my new sweater while experimenting with different poses/angles to pass the time.
Fortunately, Mr. Refashionista looked outside, saw what I was doing, became immediately concerned, and invited me back inside to play board games instead. 😉
Sidebar: The game we’re playing is Arkham Horror: Final Hour and it’s really fun!
What do you think? Is this something you think you’ll try at home with a sweater you haven’t worn in a while? 🙂
Cheers!
