Shrug it off

Turn a Cosby sweater into stylish shrug

By Justina Blakeney
Published: December 17th, 2007 | 3:00am

1. Find a hideous sweater with a funky pattern on it.

2. Put the sweater on your body and pin a safety pin onto the sweater that indicates how long you want the sweater to be.

3. Take off the sweater and lay it down flat. Measuring carefully so that both sides are even, cut the bottom half off of the sweater leaving the desired length.

4. Repeat steps two and three with the sweater sleeves.

5. With your sewing machine, zigzag stitch around all of the sweaters' raw edges.

6. Next we need a bias strip. When something is cut on the bias, it means that it is cut along the diagonal of the fabric grain, this means that is woven fabrics, if you use a strip of fabric cut along the bias, the fabric strip will have more elasticity greater stretch abilities. While you can buy already cut bias strips in sewing shops, for this project we used a vintage scarf and cut out diagonal strips from the scarf.

7. Once you have your bias strip, pin the strip along the bottom of the sweater to cover the zigzag stitch. (If the strip is not long enough, cut more strips out and sew them together before sewing the strip onto the sweater.) Clean-finish sew (so that the seams are on the inside) the strip to the sweater, on the inside and the outside.

8. Repeat with the sleeves.

9. Put on you shrug and measure where you would like your buttons. Put safety pins on the sweater to indicate where you will want the buttons.

10. Take off the shrug and sew on the buttons.

11. With the leftover scarf fabric, sew two loops that will serve as closures for the sweater, and sew them on, opposite the buttons.

12. Cut a rug in your shrug!

Venus Zine’s DIY Editor, Justina Blakeney, her sister Faith Blakeney, and Ellen Schultz are the designers behind Compai, a crafty design studio and eco-clothing label. With a focus on sustainable design and DIY, Compai has authored three books, collaborated with companies like Artemide and Elio Fiorucci, and has been seen on the pages of Vogue Italia, Adorn Magazine, Glamour Italia, The San Fransisco Chronicle, onNBC's The Today Show, and, of course, Venus Zine. Check out what all the fuss is about at compai.com. E-mail feedback to justina [at] venuszine.com.