Upcycled & Hacked Aster Cardigan

My 15 year old son recently went through his drawers and contributed to my upcycle stash with a nice thermal knit long sleeved crew neck tee. And although it's been really warm lately, we've had 2 days of 50 degrees thrown in. I wanted to make a quick Aster Cardigan for layering and I wanted to keep it neutral to go with lots of things, but not be white.This oatmeal color is nice.

The hack was to lengthen the sleeves, change the shape of the bottom hem to reuse the cool shirt-tail hem the tee had, and change the closure. I interfaced some woven floral cotton to make a strong tab, and  and sewed it to one side and added a snap to the other side. Easy for Elena to do and adds some needed femininity to a boyish tee.

One cool thing about this quick project is that I finally tried my walking foot and it's AWESOME! I'm going to leave it on there a while and experiment a little.

Also new here, are these wide-leg knit capri pants made during Kids Clothes Week and shown on Instagram, but not here. They are also upcycled  from an old tee. The tee had the large rose print on most of the front but the sleeves and back were the lighter leafy print. It makes for some interesting pants. I used the Ananda Pants pattern again in a 2T and shortened them. Super comfy and the short length gives an Asian feel to the outfit. (The tunic was previously posted here.)

I get such a thrill from making clothes for Elena out of nothing. I may or may not have initially paid for that thermal tee. I can't remember at this point if I bought it or if it was a gift to Andrew, but it will live on with Elena. The rose tee had been my mom's so there was no cost there. The only real costs here were my time (the most valuable), some thread, and a snap. (Though the tunic is made from fabric from Girl Charlee and a bit of a thrifted lace tee. And a scrap of that tunic fabric makes up the pant's yoga waistband.)

I just love that I can get away with this recycling for now for her. It's so easy to upcycle items when the new item is a small size. That is much harder for the 4 adult sized people that make up the rest of the family. I'll keep doing it as long as I can just because.