grey luster girl: Kids Drape Front Cardigan Refashion

I purchased an XL woman's shirt from a thrift store to make into a maternity shirt refashion. Well when I tried it on at home it was not long enough to cover my 34 week belly. I decided instead to refashion it into a drape front cardigan for my daughter. After my last drape front cardigan post, I got a lot of response asking for a tutorial. This is for a kids cardigan but it can easily be modified for an adult drape front if a big enough shirt is used. So here it goes.

Drape Front Cardigan Refashion Tutorial

Find a shirt that is big enough and long enough to drape in the front.

Cut a straight line up the center of the shirt. Cut only the front, not the back. Don't be fooled by this picture- I have a smaller blue cutting board that I placed inside the shirt so that the back wouldn't be cut.

Next I put the shirt on my daughter and pinned the back up to the length I wanted it to be. Cut off the excess of the back from seam to seam.

Cut the front at an angle from the newly cut back to the front. I left about 2 inches in the front before I angled it.

Since this shirt was so big to begin with, I had to take in the back of it to fit my daughter. I put it on her inside out and marked where I wanted to take it in. Then I just sewed straight up.

While my daughter had the cardigan on inside out I also pinned the sleeves so that I could take them in.

At this point you need to get a coordinating strip of knit. Mine was 3 inches wide and it needs to be long enough to go along both sides of the front and the neckline. Fold it in half and pin it to the cardigan, raw edges together. Sew. If you want to hem the bottom cardigan you can. I did but it does loose some of its flowy-ness.