Sweatshirt Refashion Tutorial {a snow day creation}

It's ANOTHER snow day here in MN!! What a winter! Now, I am not complaining about still being in my PJs at 11:00am, but I sure hope that I am not still going to school in the middle of June while my husband is out on the boat!!! To avoid thinking about that I have been sewing away in my craft room this morning and turned out this beauty. 

I did not take a before picture of the sweatshirt (sorry), but you can probably imagine it. I added the navy polka dot fabric and that's it. The sweatshirt is a lucky find from JoAnn Fabrics actually. I just looked online and it looks like they do not carry this type of sweatshirt at the moment, but maybe after this post goes viral they will read this and bring it back?. ;-)  I really love the giant collar, and if I can remember correctly, the price after my 50% off coupon was amazing.

Here is what I did to jazz up my sweatshirt:

1. Cut a piece of fabric for the bottom ruffle. My fabric was a light weight chiffon. To get the measurement, measure around the waist of your sweatshirt and double it. (I think my piece was actually only 69 inches long and was made by piecing two strips together and it turned out just fine.) I made my strip 3.5 inches tall. 

2. Cut a piece of fabric to line the collar piece.  I simply laid my fabric over my sweatshirt collar and cut about 1 inch wider than each edge. 

3. Fold under each edge of both the ruffle and the collar piece and press with a really hot iron. The fabric did not iron the best but it still helped when I was pinning. So fold under about 1/4 inch and press....then fold under another 1/4 inch and press again. This way no raw edges are exposed.  This is the longest part of the process but helped so much when pinning & sewing the pieces to the sweatshirt. 

4. Hem the sides and bottom edges of the ruffle. The top edge will still be pressed, but will get sewn when you sew it to the sweatshirt. 

5. Divide the ruffle piece into equal parts (I think I did 8) and mark with pins. Then divide the sweatshirt bottom into the same number of parts and also mark with pins. Now match up the pins and pin the ruffle to the sweatshirt. The ruffle will be loopy because it is longer than the sweatshirt. 

6. Stretch the sweatshirt as you sew on the ruffle. I had to really pull to get it to match up at each pin. Sew with a straight stitch. Make sure your thread is the same color as your sweatshirt material. 

7. Pin and sew the pressed lining onto the inside of the collar piece. I left mine a tiny bit from the edge. 

All done! Now time to go shovel 9.9 inches of snow with the hubby. Luckily, it started as freezing rain so the snow blower won't work ;-). April Mexico trip can not come fast enough!!!