DIY: Sweater Recon
Victoria’s Secret is kind of a weird retailer. They don’t bring in a lot of new merchandise and usually have the same items for years on end. This sweater is one example of an item that I know they have sold for at least the past 5 years.
I’ve always admired it and thought it looked really comfortable and cute. However, when it goes on sale it is still
$49 which once shipping and handling is tacked on, makes it about a $60 sweater. I’ve just never been able to justify it.
Doing a DIY of this is so simple I’ve managed to look past it for years. All you need is a sweater a size or two too big, a belt with a leather buckle and a sewing machine.
Step 1: Off to one side of the sweater, cut up to about the chest area, then diagonal to the neck-band, around the neckband and straight down.
Step 2: Hem the seams very carefully with the longest straight stitch that your machine has. Hemming this has to be done in kind of a weird way so that the seams are not noticeable.
Where the white lines are, hem by folding the sweater inside. Where the red lines are, hem by folding the sweater out.
Step 3: Fold the area that you sewed the hems by folding out about 3-4 inches creating a collar. Your hems should be invisible. Tack the collar down with a handful of hand sewn stitches evenly spaced around the edge.
Step 4: The leather belt I used had canvas on it so I used scissors to cut the stitches from the leather removing the canvas part. The same thing can be done to remove a leather strap. You should cut nothing more than the stitches because the leather is meant to remain intact.
Step 5: Fold the sweater over so that the larger flap’s hem sits right at the hip of the opposite side. With a skinny needle and thread and using the same holes that the strap was sewn on with, sew the buckle on to the sweater.
