Saturday, January 27, 2007

"Dead Pets" Hoodie


This is definitely one of my favorite projects of recent memory.

The inspiration came from this craftster post. Craftster is fantastic, by the way. You'll get overloaded with ideas, techniques and inspirations and love it.

The finished hoodie started life as one Dead Pets concert t-shirt (friend's garage sale, $5), one acid green t-shirt (Value Village, $.80), one black t-shirt (drawer, $0), one green stripy sweater (Value Village, $3.50), one yard of woven trim (Joann, about $1.50) and one 24-inch zipper (Joann, $2.50).

When I saw the green sweater, I knew it would make great sleeves, but it had short-sleeves. Until you cut your own, it's easy to underestimate how much fabric sleeves take -- pretty much the entire width of a front panel! Fortunately, the length of the sweater was enough that I could make one sleeve from the front and one from the back, using the bottom hem at my wrists.

While I was planning this project, I found this great woven black and green trim at Joann, and decided I had to find a way to work it in. It wound up trimming the front hood edge.



I finished the hoodie one week ago, and I think I've worn it three times already. It's a great way to make t-shirts more wearable -- I have bunches that I like, but I never just wear a t-shirt alone.

2 comments:

  1. This is BRILLIANT? Did you make / use a pattern? I coudl really use some of these, and have t-shiorts I can't bear to toss coming out of my....

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks! Yes and no on the pattern. The original inspiration was a bit more freehand than my left-brained-ness tends to enjoy, so I did draw up a couple of the pieces (the hood and pockets) on freezer paper. Plus I'll use those again. The original tee short-sleeves became the beginning of the new sleeves, so "kinda" on the pattern there. In a lot of ways, the thing sort of makes itself.

    ReplyDelete

Web Statistics