My red cardigan, finished in 2005 was a disappointment, because the chenille I used began to worm. That means that it ooched itself out in long, twisty loops. Several people gave me hints for working with chenille more successfully–thank you!
When the chenille worms came out, the cardigan got shorter. It was too wide in the front for some reason. I didn’t really like the buttons–complain, complain, complain!
After last winter, it looked so bad, I decided to do a remodel job on it. Here was the plan.
- Make a couple of darts in the front
- Knit a peplum with pleats in it
- Sew the front opening shut. (I always pulled it over my head anyway.)
- Replace old buttons
- Pull the chenille worms to the back and tack them down with sewing thread.
And I’ve already started. To place the darts, I put the cardigan on inside-out. Then I pinched the excess fabric in and pinned it. Using a contrasting yarn, I did a running stitch along the pin-line, so I could see the lines easily.
Then I machine sewed a line of stitching about 1/4″ inside the marked lines, and another line of stitching just inside that. I cut away the excess fabric, then used a mattress stitch to sew the darts.
Now I’m working on the peplum. The pleats are going to look so good! Here it is, when I was picking up stitches to knit the peplum down. The dart is visible as a dark line.
