Originally it looked like this:
I see that the original photo was taken way back in October last year so it's taken me awhile to get around to it! I was inspired by a clever cardigan refashion by Tiny Happy who told me it wasn't that hard and actually it wasn't! This is what I did:
- Cut off the sleeves and tried it on Hazel and pinned where I thought the shoulder seam/side seams would be.
- Unpicked the neck facing or whatever it was called. I managed to get the overlocker seam to unravel by pulling random threads (is there a trick to knowing which one to pull? I only ever find it by accident or when it's unravelling clothing I want to wear in which case it's very easy). This meant that, except in a couple places where I nicked it, the edges didn't unravel. I undid the facing along the back and on the front just past about where I thought Hazel's shoulder seam would be.
- Found a shirt pattern for a V-necked button-front shirt and matched the pattern pieces for the arm area and arm to the pinned positions as best I could. I do wish, however, that I'd had a good cardigan pattern to work from that was designed for knits as this one ended up being too big and the cardigan needs taking in.
- Cut the pieces out and resewed with an overlocker. After I tried it on Hazel I discovered it was fine along the neckline despite being too big around, so I went ahead and attached the neck facing and added the ruffle and buttons. I sewed the ruffle on with a twin needle to give it a bit of stretch along with the knit neckline.
Mat thinks the buttons are a bit OTT but the originals were so... late '90s know what I mean? The only problem I ran into was that the original facings overlapped more than I'd assumed they would so I had to shift the buttons over to the edge quite a bit so the right ruffle there wasn't covered over!
The flower was made from a tutorial at Pink Paper Peppermints that I found via a lovely little dress on My Sewing Circle. It's on a bit of felt attached to a pin. This is the one I prefer; but I had made a smaller one from the stripy fabric that Hazel likes best so she can have that one on it (too matchy for me!) and I'll have the photograph and the memories...