Lace-pocket cardigan

Today was a great day!  I had a delicious lunch at a favorite downtown spot with my mom, and we've had quite a few bouts of beautiful sunshine.  Now we have a cozy fire crackling in the fireplace and I'm brainstorming some more sewing projects.

I'm steadily working through my reject clothing pile by making some small improvements to make me want to wear those things again.  Today, I used some of that gorgeous teal lace I picked up yesterday and dressed up a plain grey cardigan I've had for a few years.  Here is what I started with:

I do love long sweaters-and cardigans are a real wardrobe staple for me-but this was a little boring for my taste.  And in case you haven't already been tipped off to the fact that I don't like long sleeves (because I hem the sleeves of just about everything I wear) I also took up the sleeves on this little number.  Apart from the sleeves, all I did was stick some lace to the pockets and call it a day.  Here is how it turned out:

 

I re-used the original cuff by trimming some fabric from the middle of each sleeve and re-attaching the cuff a little higher up.  Super easy way to have a nicely finished (but shorter) sleeve!  Here is a close-up of one of the lace pockets:

I love that the scallop design of the lace almost creates a chevron design on the pockets.  And isn't the color just amazing??  It was a challenge, but I resisted the urge to just keep adding and adding (I thought about putting some more lace on the sleeves, collar, down the front, and just all over the place!)  but I think I made the right choice.  Simple is good!

I hope you all had wonderful Fridays, and thanks for stopping by!

A cuter cardigan

So I think nature knew I needed a break today and gave me one by way of a snow day.  While we didn't get much accumulation, it was enough to give me some much needed practice time, a little inspiration to update a cozy (but seriously lacking) sweater, and a chance to hang with Oliver.  Since Oliver was just desperate to catch up on some reality tv, we did some of that too.  In terms of reality tv, the day was enlightening.  In terms of my sweater endeavor, I started with this: 

And ended with this: 

All I did was hem the sleeves, take in the sides, and add a couple of colorful details.  I used some scraps of folky chevron-printed fabric for the elbow patches, sewed some orange polka-dotted trim on the front, and re-covered the original buttons in a light blue cotton (because orange and blue is one of the world's best color combos.)  Here are the added details: 

I'd call this sweater a success,  and I'm steadily working through my "needs improvement" pile of clothes (which had gotten a little out of hand.)  I'll have a good chance to try out my new sweater over the next few days, since I'm off to Rochester tomorrow and then I'll be back to Cleveland on Friday (and those are such cold cities!)  Since I'll be gone for another few days, I'll catch up with you all after the weekend...thanks for stopping by!