Dressember 2018; Dress 2

Hello Readers. It is time for another dress refashion in honor of Dressember, an organization working internationally to fight human trafficking. It is a horrible and ugly topic, but ignoring it doesn't make it go away. Dressember estimates there are currently 2 million children being sexually exploited around the world. It is heartbreaking to think about. You can go to their site to learn more.

Today's dress was a soft cozy sweater. It was great with tights or leggings. The short sleeves were not very warm though. It is cold, I needed sleeves. It was also a little too open in the front too. If I bent down it opened up a little too much. I have a 3 yr old. I bend over all the time. I really wanted to try and fix that too.

 I had a crazy idea. (Crazy idea are not a new thing for me.) My daughter gave me these socks. I think they were made to go over the knee but on my short legs they were like really strange thigh-highs. Could I make sleeves out of them? Well, I could try.

I started by cutting the sleeves off the sweater dress. I didn't remove the seams I just cut the sleeves off next to them. I thought I would need the seams to stabilize the shoulders. If I cut them off the armhole would stretch out a lot.

I cut the feet off the socks and then cut the top of the socks off and made a curve that matched the curve of the sleeves I had just cut off. It wasn't perfect but I tried to make them the same so they would fit the armholes. I inserted the sock sleeves and stitched them to the dress.

    

The sleeves were easy to sew to the sweater. The knit material was easy to manipulate and adding the sock sleeves was easier than I thought it would be.

I got an idea for the neckline. What if I used the elastic cuff of the sock and put it in the neckline? I hoped it would make it a little less low and it would cinch the neckline together a little. Would that work?

It worked great! It was very soft and stretchy and fit perfectly. I used a zigzag stitch to cover the cut edge. It looked like it was meant to be there.

I really like this little sweater dress with the sock sleeves. I know it was a weird idea, but I am really happy I tried it.

Thanks for reading along, now go make something fun for yourself.