carefree cardigan Archives - Patterns for Pirates

The Carefree Cardigan is such a great drape cardigan and as it has a nice loose fit you can easily use it to make a vest and because of the shape of the cardigan it will work in woven. Yep I said it you can make this vest in woven!

This is a super quick hack, start by cutting your 2 front pieces and back out of your flannel and you are going to want to choose the longer length of the two length, you aren’t going to need any of the band pieces for this. Depending on your height you may want to remove or add length. I’m a shorty so I remove a couple of inchs from the bottom and also from the front side as the drape is quite long on me.

Sew your shoulder, skip the sleeves and sew the side seams as per the directions. Now instead of adding bands we are going to hem the armholes and all the way around your neck, down the front and across the bottom. I serged all the way around first to finish the edges. The serged edge gives me a perfect 1/4 inch to flip and iron and then I flipped it one more time so my serged edge was hidden and hemmed all the way around as close to the fold as you can. Another tip is to trim your corners, it just makes them a bit less bulky to hem. Do the exact same process to your armcycles and voila you have perfect draped flannel vest! If you don’t have a serger just use a zig zag stitch to finish the edges. Another cute option would be to fringe the front of your cardigan, you would still need to hem around the neck and down the sides but you can easily just pull the threads along the front and or the bottom till you have the amount of fringe that you would like.

I live in Canada so I really like the extra layer that sleeves add so for this second version I cut the back and sleeves out of a knit and then cut the front pieces in a flannel. I used the exact same construction as above with no bands and just hemmed all the way around and I have another cute cardigan but got to use my warm flannel!

Now go sew up all that gorgeous plaid flannel that you have been hoarding! – Angela Newman

Take a look at our jam-packed schedule of cardigan love!

Saturday, January 21: #P4PCardiWeek Announcement

Sunday, January 22: Cocoon Lace Hems & Butterfly Ruffle

Monday, January 23: Ribbon Tie Closure Hack

Tuesday, January 24: Carefree Cardigan Fringe Hack

Wednesday, January 25: Duster-Length Adjustment

Thursday, January 26: Kimono Ruffle Sleeves + Hem

Friday, January 27: Varsity Sweater Style Hack

Saturday, January 28: Carefree Cardigan Flannel + Vest Hack

Monday, January 30: #P4PCardiWeek Winner Announcement

You can follow along on the blog here, or in our Facebook group. Search #P4PCardiWeek to be able to find our posts all over social media. And please feel free to sew-along with us on one or all of the days. The more the merrier!

But wait, there’s more! We wanted to create a friendly pirate-y competition with our P4P Cardi Week!

Between tomorrow and Saturday, January 28, sew up a Patterns for Pirates cardigan using one of our hacks, or by keeping the pattern as-is. Share your photo with us on Instagram or in our Facebook group and use the tag#P4PCardiWeek We will pick our favorite and the winner will win a free P4P pattern of choice AND be featured on this blog. Fun right?

To make it even better we have put all the cardigan patterns in the shop on sale all week (no code needed)!

Now get out there and sew some cardigans, matey!

So you’ve been perusing Pinterest and you see all of those must have, trendy fringe cardigans. Now you’re looking at your library of sewing patterns and wondering which one can you easily hack into one of those gorgeous cardigans for yourself? Well here is a tutorial to show you how to easily transform the Patterns for Pirates Carefree Cardigan into a DIY fringe cardigan! Follow along to find out how easy this look is to achieve. At the end I have added the option to attach a button closure too!

First things first, which fabric should you use? My favorite knit fabrics to use for this purpose are knit fleece, closed weave brushed hacci sweater knit or a light-medium weight poly rayon spandex french terry. That said, you could do this with pretty much any knit. Be careful of really loose weave sweater knits though (the ones you can see through). They may fall apart on you during the fringe creation.

Step 1: Whatever you do, DON’T SKIP THIS. Before you make your fabric selection and begin cutting out your garment pieces, test out how the fabric is going to look once fringed. To do this make a few ½” wide by 6” deep cuts perpendicular to the selvedge edge. Tie a couple of these strips into a knot together just as it will be done on the finished cardigan. Some knits will stay structured; some will come close to falling apart. It is important to test the fabric to determine if your chosen fabric is going to give you a desired look.

Step 2: Cut out all pieces of your Carefree Cardigan for a ‘neckband only’ version, except for the neckband. For the neckband you are going to cut out a band half the cut chart width plus a seam allowance of 1/2″ for hemming.

Step 3: Assemble your cardigan as directed by the Carefree Cardigan pattern tutorial with the exception of the neckband. You are attaching the neckband without folding it in half to form a closed band. You want an open raw edged band.

Step 4: Using your sewing or coverstitch machine, you will then hem the long exposed edge of the neckband and along the bottom hem. Use a 1/2”” hem width here. You want it thin so that it doesn’t become bulky when you create the fringe. Lastly, hem the sleeves as directed by the pattern.

Step 5: Lay your cardigan out on your cutting mat, lining up the unfinished edge along a straight measurement line on your mat. Decide how wide you would like your fringe to be. Take your scissors and cut strips about 6” deep along the entire length of your cardigan front, every ½-1”. I chose to cut ½” strips. Go back and seam rip the hems on the bottom and top strips that you have now cut into fringe strips. You may want to add some reinforcement stiching to the hem stitches at the beginning and end just before it turns into fringe.

Step 6: The last step is to finish the fringe edge. This is done by tying the base of the strips into knots all down the front. Decide how many strips you would like to be knotted together to create some separation. I chose to knot 2 strips together down the entire length of my cardigan.

If you choose not to add a button closure you are now all finished!

OPTIONAL Button Closure

Step 7: Following Judy’s lead in her Carefree Cardigan Button blog tutorial, I chose to add a button to mine to finish off the look. To do this I put on my cardigan and played with different variations of button placement; to decide how I wanted the cardigan to be styled. I settled on adding a 1” shoulder button.

[center button placement]

[shoulder button placement]

Step 8: Once you have decided on placement, mark it. A lot of the time I like to use dry erase crayons to mark placement. The mark is easily visible on any fabric and it stays put until you throw your garment in the wash. Mark the button location both on the overlapping bodice front and the under lapping bodice front.

[dry erase crayon]

Step 9: Use your sewing machine to create a buttonhole on the overlapping bodice front in the top corner. If you are using an oversized button or do not have an automatic buttonhole presser foot for your machine see Judy Hale’s post HERE. Carefully cut open the buttonhole with your seam ripper.

[automatic buttonhole presser foot]

Step 10: Now attach your button with your sewing machine or by hand on the under lapping bodice shoulder where you have placed a marking. Try it on and adjust button placement if necessary.

All done!

Keep your eyes peeled for some other fun tutorials the ladies at Patterns for Pirates have prepared for you this week! Be sure to read all the way through the end of this post to find out about the contest we have running this week!

-Kelly Bailey

P4P Blog Contributor