Drapey Cardigan

I've been meaning to post this for a while... oops.
A few months ago I made myself this sweater. My mom thought it was adorable and asked me to make her one as well. I debated... do I want matching sweaters with my mom? Well, her requests were persistant and Christmas was approaching so I bought some soft fuzzy knit material in a pretty green color...
I have seen these draped cardigans lots of places... and figured... um, I can so do that. I looked for a pattern or tutorial online... but all I could find was this which was actually helpful, but i wanted sleeves. Soooo... here is my tutorial for a draped cardigan. It's really pretty darn simple and requires minimal sewing skills. Yay.
Here we go.

You are going to need:
Approx a yard of knit fabric
A sweater that fits you well for a pattern
Measuring tape
Pins
Coordinating thread
And... a sewing machine

 Start by measuring the sweater that fits you... Measure your sweater between the arms, across  the back. Also measure the sleeve from the shoulder to the arm pit.

 My fabric was 60 inches wide. I folded the width in half (the upper edge in the picture is a fold) and then cut the length at 30 inches. My arm to arm measurement was 14 inches, so I measure 7 inches from the fold (center) of the fabric and cut a slit through both layers that was 8 inches long (which was the measurement of shoulder to pit on my other sweater) This slit is about 4 inches from the top (right edge in picture) of the garment.

 Next I used my other sweater as a pattern to cut our the sleeve shape. (the sleeve on this sweater has a bell sleeve... but my cardigan will not.) I did cut my sleeves to be 3/4 length, because I like that cut on me, measure your arm if you need to, and make sure to leave a seam allowance when you cut out your sleeve piece. (again in this picture the top edge of the fabric is a fold--don't cut that!) (please also note... you will need to cut two sleeves, and make sure they are opposite/mirrors of each other)

 You don't have to if you are working with a knit... but i decided to put a hem on the sleeves. I turned up an inch on the bottom of my sleeve, and... finally busted out the sewing machine and sewed a straight seam across the bottom to create that hem.

 Once the sleeve was hemmed I folded it in half (right sides together) and sew along the side seam. (see the diagonal part along the right side of the pic? Don't sew that yet... okay?)

 Nooooooww... take the top corner of the sleeve (the longest point on that diagonal) and pin that to the top of the slit you made in the other piece of the fabric. Pin all around the sleeve, pinning right sides together all the way around...

 Then sew all the way around the top of the sleeve to attach it to the garment.

 Repeat for the other sleeve... and you are done!
I really like this sweater because you can wear it in different ways... just as a hanging drapey cardigan.

Or pin it across as a wrap sweater.

 Or... my favorite-- pinned up on one shoulder... so chic. :)

So there you go-- super easy, right? My mom was pretty excited about hers. But I don't have any pictures of her modeling it. It really looks much nicer on a person rather than a dress form... but you get the idea. Cozy, comfy, warm, wrapable, drapey cardigan... go make one!