Have you ever accidentally put a loved wool or cashmere sweater through the washer and dryer? Other than gifting it to your child because it’s so small, this shrunken garment might be destined for the compost bin unless you can find a way to upcycle it. For this very reason, I have designed a beautiful way to upcycle a sweater into a scarf. Here’s the tutorial
Sweater to use
For this scarf, you will need a felted sweater. Don’t try using a sweater that is not made of natural animal fibres because the sides will unravel once you start cutting. Wool and cashmere will felt once machine washed and dried, turning them into pieces that do not unravel.
1) Cut seam allowances
Flip your sweater inside out and cut the seam allowances of the side seams, the arm seams and shoulder seams.
2) Sew arms together
Using the pictures as reference, sew the sleeves together with a 3/8″ seam allowance. Iron the seam allowances open making sure your iron is set at the lowest temperature.
3) Cut top of sleeves
Trace a straight line where the sleeve head is at it’s largest and cut the excess fabric.
4) Cut excess sleeve fabric in 2
Fold each piece of the excess fabric in half and cut. You will use these pieces to fill in the armhole gap on the front and back body.
5) Sew sleeve head to armhole
Place pieces of excess sleeve head fabric next to armhole. With a fabric chalk, trace a curve similar to the armhole around the sleeve head piece and cut.
Then sew the sleeve head piece to the armhole. If the piece is too small, you can gently pull on the sleeve head to extend it.
6) Shape front and back body
Use your ruler to trace a line between the top corner of the shoulder line and the beginning of the hem rib. Cut excess fabric. Use ruler to trace a horizontal line from shoulder line to shoulder line and cut excess fabric.
You then have two rectangular pieces
7) Shape sleeve
Place sleeves next to the body piece. align the rib edge corner to the shoulder corner and using a ruler, cut the excess fabric on the opposite corner.Repeat the same procedure using the other body piece.
8) Sew body and sleeve pieces
Sew the body and sleeve pieces together. Depending on the original design of the sweater, you might have the front piece with an opening where the neckline was. That’s now part of the scarf design.
Sew a 1/4″ topstitch on each side of the seam to make sure that the seam allowances stay in place. Iron well using steam to flatten the scarf
The final look
I’m delighted with how this design turned out. I have used practically the entire sweater for this scarf. Only a handful of material is scrapped and this can go into my compost guild free.
The front neckline that created a gap in the scarf now becomes a design feature where you can slide other side into and secure it in place.
Not a sewist? Not a problem, You can contact me and I will gladly upcycle your loved wool or cashmere sweater into a beautiful scarf. Click the link below to get in touch.