A skirt from just one sweater

Check out this 'After' shot!

I've been wearing my original felted wool skirt so much, I decided I needed another. I found this sweater at the local thrift store:

It's your basic merino wool turtleneck, in size XL. Even felted, it was still super long, which is where I got the idea to make a whole skirt from this and nothing else.

First, I cut the sweater across the back and chest, at the armpits. It fit my hips all right, and it would have made a great miniskirt as it was, but I wanted to go as close to knee length as I could. So I cut a piece as wide as the front would allow...

...and then across the base of the turtleneck with my pinking shears, since I wasn't going to have the nice tailored hem I got last time. I did the same with the back, matching the length of what I got from the front.

Sewing those two pieces together wasn't going to give me enough coverage, so I cut open the sleeves and got two more, much narrower, pieces of the same length from each of them.

I made a long strip of those pieces, the pinked edges all on one end, and then I sewed them into a tube. Pinning right side to right side, I fit that wide frill onto the raw edge of the sweater's body and improvised pleats as I'd done with the original skirt. Only this time I had so much fabric I had to put pleats right across the back after making the little kick pleat I like on the right of center in front.

Once I'd sewn the frill in place and rather sloppily topstitched the seam from above (I tried it just below the seam first, but the pleats were too much for my machine) I took a look for moth holes.

Yep, front and center - the last place you want to put any sort of applique. So I improvised this geometric design to draw the eye over to the side. The hole is at the top left edge of it.

It still needs work. I've been eying the sleeve cuff for a possible pocket, and if you thought it looked a little wide in that top shot you weren't wrong - even though felted wool tends not to slip down over leggings, this baby could stand to be taken in a lot at the waist. But when I pressed the pleats under a wet cloth they looked downright professional, and at this length, it's so warm.

Plus, it matches the handspun cuff of my boot socks! Gotta love that.