There is a box, in the corner of my sewing room.
It is a box whose contents have not seen the light of day for many a month.
Many crafters will be familiar with this box, in all of its forms:
There’s the ever-growing amorphous lump that lies underneath your desk…
The monster underneath your bed… The stuff you vacuum-packed in a fit of organization
and stuffed into your garage in the hopes that you’d never have to deal with it again…
This, my friends, is the UNFINISHED SEWING PILE!
The item that I pulled out of the box today… well, I actually did a bit of digging through
the box because I wanted to find a particular item that was right at the bottom – is this!
A plain, beige cardigan. It’s not a particularly interesting – or flattering – item, and
it’s also missing a button down the bottom. But, I really like the colour and I think
that it could definitely be turned into something cuter.
SO the first thing I wanted to do was to change the length. As you may have noticed by now,
I really like cropped stuff. So first, to crop the cardigan, I sliced off
the bottom with my rotary cutter.
Then, on this bit that I sliced off, you’ll notice how the knits are a bit different – it’s
all ribbed along the bottom here, and I want to keep that ribbing for my new cardigan.
So, with this sliced off bit unfolded, I cut the ribbing off.
And now I’m going to attach this to the bottom of my cardigan as a quick way to deal
with the raw edges.
So, I place the ribbing onto the cardigan, right sides together, with this original BOTTOM
of the cardigan pointing UP. And then, I pin it on, making sure to match
up the side seams on both the pieces.
And then, once it’s all pinned on, I sew the new bottom of the cardigan on like this.
To sew the two pieces together, I’m using my overlocker – also called a serger – mainly
because I’m working with a knitted fabric and I don’t want the knit to unravel!
Zigzag stitches on a regular machine would work okay, but it would be wise to use a very
short zig zag stitch over each raw edge first to prevent any unraveling of the knitted material.
Also – to finish off my serger seams, I usually just use a zig zag stitch over the
ends and this stops them from unraveling. However there are other methods to finish
off serger seams, and I want to know – what method do you guys use when overlocking?
Anyway – now cropped, the cardigan looks like this! Which is much more to my style.
Now it’s time for some granncy chic embroidery! I recently learned a really quick and easy
way to embroider roses thanks to this blog, Kmac-DIY – an embroidery goddess whose technique
I am reproducing here with her permission! And just by the way, her blog is also full
of other really cool embroidery techniques and DIYs for beginners, and I highly recommend
checking it out!
So, to embroider these roses, the first thing that I did was pick out my colours – 3 reds
and a green for leaves!
Then, using this washable fabric marker, I drew 3 small circles on each side arranged
around the neckline. It’s hard to see the lines with the camera – but they’re there!
The three circles that I drew onto the cardigan look like this!
Then, I put my embroidery hoop onto one side of the cardigan, with the 3 circles in the
middle of hoop – or, about as close to the middle as I could get them!
Now, I’m going to draw 5 lines radiating out from the middle of the circle like this.
Next, with my embroidery thread and needle, I brought it up through the back like this,
and back down at the centre of the circle, creating a straight line.
And then I repeated this for the other 4 lines!
Next, I brought my needle up HERE, in between two of these radiating lines.
The next step is really easy. I’m going to simply bring my needle over the top of
the adjacent stitch, and then under the next stitch, in an anti-clockwise way.
Then I'm going to repeat this. I’m going to go over this stitch, and under this stitch.
Then over this stitch, under this stitch...
Basically, I’m going to keep repeating this, in an anticlockwise manner, with the threads moving outwards from the centre, until I’ve gone
around enough times to create a rose!
To finish it off, I simply brought the thread to the back again, and then tied a knot – or,
a couple of knots, because the knitted material is quite gapey and I don't want the knot to
go back through to the front, and then I cut off the excess thread.
Then I repeated this for the other two circles I drew onto the cardigan, in my two different colours!
Next, to embroider the leaves, I drew on a leaf shape with my fabric marker, and then
I used a satin stitch to fill the shapes in, from the edge to the halfway mark. Now I explained
how to do a satin stitch in this video here, but basically I brought my needle up at the
edge of the shape, then back down at the other side, and then I brought it up again next
to that straight line stitch I just made, then I continued this, up one side of the
leaf and down the other, until the entire leaf shape was filled in like this.
Then, I repeated this whole design onto the other side of the cardigan’s neckline, and
I’m done!
This cardigan has been totally transformed – from a simple, unflattering beige cardigan
to a cute, vintage-inspired, cropped and embroidered number!
It’s very what I like to call "Granny Chic", a style I am very fond of, and I think that
it goes really well with high waisted skirts and shorts and dresses, buttoned up like this,
or left open like this!
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this video, that you maybe learned something, and like always
if you try out this or any of my other tutorials then tag it with #diyannika on instagram so
I can see your creations!
And I will see you all for my next video. Thanks for watching! Bye!
Thank you to all my supporters on Patreon who help to make this video possible. To become
my Patreon supporter, go to patreon.com/annikavictoria .