A really quick and easy way to give a plain cardigan a new look.

This poor old plain black cardigan was a useful but boring staple of my wardrobe.

It looks a little bit grey here but that is just the light.

I saw a lovely jumper to cardigan refashion from Jo at Three Stories High back in March, a gorgeous mix of plain knit and pattered fabric edging and so I was totally inspired by her to give my old cardie a new lease of life.

I found an old scarf in my rag bag, I used to wear this over my long woollen coat, shawl style back in the 80's (that was a thing then, honest!), it was a bit holey along one edge but the pattern is just lovely.

First I took the old buttons off the cardigan, it is a narrow fit so I never do it up anyway.

Next I cut 2 long strips of the scarf fabric from the non holey side both about 2" (5cm) wide.

I folded and pressed them in half, then half again, to make a fat bias binding.

I pinned it in place over the button and button hole bands on the cardigan.

I used loads of pins as my scarf fabric is pretty floppy.

I stitched mine by hand using a fairly small slip stitch. I chose to hand stitch because my scarf fabric is so floppy and I didn't trust myself not to pull the knit edge out of shape, if you feel confident you could whizz this on the machine in no time.

Hand stitching did mean I stitched all the way round on the outside of the cardigan, then all the way round again on the inside. Twice as much stitching but I felt worth it, I feel sure I would have the front edge twisting if I had tried a short cut. 

I did this whilst watching TV and took about an hour.

I actually did this little refashion way back in the spring but by the time I was ready with photos etc the weather was warm and it seemed a bit unseasonal. There was a sneak peek of this on Instagram back in May: 

It was when I wore it for Me Made May. What I love most about my new look cardie is that it still goes with everything, the multi coloured scarf fabric means it is still a really useful wardrobe basic, just a tiny bit less boring now!

The weather here in the UK is always a bit unpredictable so a cardigan is an essential pretty much all year round. To be fair it's been pretty nice the last few weeks but I have a feeling cardigan weather will be with us again really soon!

Julie

I'll be linking up to all these great link parties, why not go and have a look!