Sweater Skirt DIY

Recently, I've become quite the sweater aficionado.  I spend a lot of time convinced that I'm never going to be warm again, and it hasn't even really gotten cold yet.  This doesn't bode well for the rest of winter.  I've also come to realize why animals spend the fall months packing on as much body fat as possible: it's fantastic portable insulation.  Anyway, now that I've shed 40 pounds of it, I've taken to wearing sweaters to keep warm.  I'm kind of in love with sweater dresses, and I've been wanting to refashion a giant Salvo find into one, but I haven't found one that I like yet.  Instead, I settled for this adorable brown argyle one and turned it into a sweater skirt.

This is what the sweater looked like originally.  It was a men's XL that I got for $1.  I love 5 for $5s at Salvo.  They're pretty much my favorite.

I used another skirt that fit me tightly as a template for cutting out the front and back.  Centering it was easy because I lined up its back seam with the middle row of argyle and just trimmed along the edges.  I would recommend taking even more out of it because the first time I wore it, it fit fine in the morning, but by the end of the day, the fabric had stretched out and I had to keep pulling it up.  I fixed it by taking the side seams in again, but I don't have any pictures of that.

Then I put the two pieces of fabric right sides together and sewed side seams.  I started at the bottom and worked toward the top so that the sweater's original hems lined up.  I folded the top parts over and sewed them into a waistband.  That was it.  These modeling pictures seem to indicate that I wear an excessive amount of plaid flannel.  I can't help it; I'm cold all the time!

I liked it so much that I wore it to work the next day with some fleece-lined tights and another sweater.  This is me pushing Penny away so that the picture wouldn't feature her trying to sniff my crotch.

This is what it actually looked like.  I kind of love it.