My big fat Greek cardigan

This post is for Nina (http://www.ninafenner.blogspot.com/ ) – and of course for anyone else interested in the minutiae of customising clothes.

    About fifteen years ago while on holiday in Greece I bought a cardigan, hand knitted in wool from Greek mountain sheep with wooden – olive wood? – buttons.

I loved its colours – bright purple with emerald green – but not its shape. It stopped in tight ribbing just below stomach and bum, and made me look as if I was about to give birth. Never mind. I could probably alter it.

    If I’d been my sister or my mother I would have unpicked the bottom and reknitted it but knitting is not my forté and I didn’t have the confidence. I could see at best an awful ridge where I’d tried to pick up the stitches or at worst the entire garment unravelling. Over the next few years I tried various other solutions, like stretching the ribbing or knitting an insert for the sides, but nothing worked. I was going to have to be brave.

    All the way round the cardigan above the ribbing I sewed a piece of tape, and above that I sewed another piece. I then cut between the tapes all the way round. Phew. The ribbing was off.

    I then folded up the bottom of the cardigan, using the tape to make a neat(ish) hem, and tried the cardigan on. Wonderful. It fitted much better.

It was still lacking around the neck area however. I like interest in the neck area. It disguises the fact I have no bust. And I still had a long strip of ribbing that I didn’t want to waste. Brainwave. I would use the ribbing to make a collar.

    I did, and it worked. The tape already along one edge of the ribbing disguised the join. I used the whole length of ribbing and it fitted around the neck perfectly so you can see how tight it was around the hips.

I wore the cardigan every day during the cold spells of the last two winters. As well as being wonderfully warm and cheering, it felt just right, like mine now, and every time I put it on I admired my handiwork.

Afraid I'm not going to pose with the cardigan on.
I haven't got the hang of self-portraiture yet and my hair needs washing.

   

Sorry, I’m sounding smug. Perhaps I’d better tell you about the chest I have of sewing that didn’t work. But at least the material can be cannibalised and used to adapt other garments.