Cashmere Sweater Upcycle

As part of my never ending quest for more sustainable fashion, I have a really hard time getting rid of things sometimes. You can always donate an item of clothing, but even cursory research quickly reveals that a lot of donated items wind up in landfills anyway, or wrecking the local clothing industry in some other country. Quite a few of my clothes are secondhand, including the subject of today’s post. My mom used to work for an insanely wealthy woman and sometimes she would get rid of some very expensive clothes that had barely been worn. Her preference was just to throw them away but my mom never met a secondhand item she didn’t want to regift. So, she got permission to rehome her employer’s old clothes, several of which she gave to me, since I was the same size. One of these was a pale blue, cashmere, pullover sweater with lace detailing. I’d never owned anything in cashmere before and the sweater was extremely pretty but…

I am incredibly picky about my clothes so I was never really satisfied with it. It just wasn’t my style. I never wear pullover sweaters because I always get overheated and want to take them off part way through the day, preferably without destroying my hair and makeup. Pale blue tends to make me look sallow. The lace details actually looked kind of tacky to me. And the cut of the sweater just wasn’t flattering on my body type. But I kept it. For years! Finally, I decided enough was enough. Either I found a way to make this sweater into something I would actually wear or I needed to find it a new home with someone who would actually appreciate it.

I toyed with the idea of making it into a cardigan, but there were just too many details that would need to be changed and I wasn’t sure I would be satisfied with the results anyway. I have this collection of books called Everyday Fashion, each one has ten years of clothing ads from old Sears and Roebuck catalogues.

They are an amazing resource to get a feel for what American women were buying and wearing in the 20th century. The one from the 30s is one of my favourites. I love the style of fashion illustrations from this period. I love the interesting mix of ideas influencing the key fashion concepts. There was this one ad depicting knit outerwear, including this absolutely adorable scarf. I immediately wanted to make one. I was pretty sure if I combined the two sleeves of my sweater, I would have enough fabric to make something pretty similar to the picture. I would even have enough left over for something else. Maybe a matching beret?

I started by unpicking all the lace. I just really hated the way it looked. It took forever, and when I was done you could still see the holes from the stitching. But I was hopeful that since cashmere is a form of wool, a quick wash would help erase those holes. Which led me to my next step. Dye. As mentioned, powder blue is just not my colour and doesn’t really go with anything else in my wardrobe and especially not any of my outerwear. I ordered some Rit dye (not the most sustainable option per se but I was working with what I could get my hands on. I may do more research in the future on better dye alternatives.) I chose teal, thinking that it would be an easier colour to achieve with a base colour of light blue than something like raspberry (another contender) and teal is one of my colours and would mesh pretty easily into my existing wardrobe. After some debate, I decided to dye the lace too. I actually didn’t think this would work. I assumed the lace was at least partially either nylon or polyester and that it would probably not take a protein dye suitable for cashmere. To my surprise, it worked great and the lace took the dye beautifully. Go figure. I wasn’t sure I was even going to use the lace, at this point, but I figured I might as well dye it so I would have it ready to go if I did decide to incorporate it. The cashmere itself took the dye in an interesting way. I think I just needed a bigger container to soak it in but as it was, the dye gave it an almost monochromatic tie dye look. Unexpectedly, I decided I liked it and didn’t redye it.

At this point, I cut the sleeves away from the body of the sweater and removed the cuffs. I couldn’t really unpick the underarm seam, so instead I carefully cut it and removed the tiny seam allowance. I trimmed off the rounded sleeve cap leaving me with two almost perfectly rectangular pieces, which was exactly what I wanted. I stitched them together to form one long rectangular piece and then settled in to contemplate my biggest challenge. The 1930s scarf I was inspired by, holds its shape, sort of stiffly defying gravity at the ends while still being soft enough to wrap comfortably around the neck. Now this could be a result of artistic licence but I like to imagine that’s really what the scarf looked like. But how to achieve this? The knitted cashmere I was working with was soft and drapey and would certainly not stand up like the illustration. I could always interface it, at least at the ends but I have never cared for fusible interfacing and I was very sceptical of how well it could fuse to a sweater knit anyway. I checked out my local fabric store to see what my options might be and finally settled on a cotton organdy. I estimated where I wanted the scarf to start flaring out and cut a piece of organdy to fit each end, trying to avoid the stiff organdy spilling over into the seam allowance so as not to add unnecessary bulk. I carefully pad stitched the organdy to the cashmere knit, trying my best to avoid any visible stitches on the right side of the fabric, while still making the pad stitching close enough to ensure the two fabrics moved as one. When both ends of my rectangle were pad stitched to the organdy, I folded it in half lengthwise, right sides together, and stitched the open side and one end of the rectangle using a very narrow seam allowance. I did the whole thing by hand because something is wrong with my bobbin tension on my machine and I haven’t got around to fixing it yet. I turned the piece right side out and whip stitched the open end. I fiddled with it in the mirror to decide where exactly I wanted the slit to go. After carefully slitting the fabric, I bound the edge using strips of leftover cashmere like bias tape. I trimmed away the weird brown net the lace was set in and used the remaining lace flowers as decoration for my scarf.

I attempted to use the remaining fabric to make a beret, but the less said about that the better. I expect I will take another crack at berets at some point. But, for now, especially since it is pretty dang cold in London, I decided to make an ear warmer/headband. This was extremely simple, involving another rectangle of cashmere, this one lined with a bit of sateen. I tied a simple half hitch in the centre and then whip stitched the ends together to form a headband. I actually think it turned out really cute and I love that it keeps my ears warm without pressing against my forehead or preventing me from wearing earbuds. All in all, I would say it was a pretty successful venture. I’ve already worn both items more than I ever wore the sweater.