From Lumpy to Lovely

My home is in disarray because Mr Needles and I have decided to re-decorate, as we want to sell up someday soon, and as a neat freak/control freak, I find it a bit hard to cope with everything being all over the place (where did all of these shoes come from?), so I need stuff to take my mind off of it. 

Admit it, it's a bit lumpy.....

 I bought this jumper last year from a thrift store in a Miami suburb. I can't remember the price - maybe about $5 - and even though I wasn't quite sure about it at the time, I thought how bad could it be ...... because it has HUGE SILVER SEQUIN BOWS ON THE SHOULDERS !!!!!! -

Brilliant bows!

 Judging by the label (below) and the feel of the fabric (pure, luxurious acrylic!) it looks like it's from the 80', maybe late 70's:

 But when I tried it on, it's just a big shapeless thing with these big sequin lumps on the shoulder. Not one to be put off, I decided it would be much better as a little cardigan. I've noticed how vintage knitwear from the 50's and 60's is often faced with grosgrain ribbon along the buttonholes and buttonband.

With this in mind, I went off to Ridley Rd market for 3 m of black ribbon (total : £1.98) and then set about making it much less lumpy!

First, I found the centre front and ran some tacking stitches along this line. I also undid a few of the sequins at the neck and secured them with pins, to be re-stitched later:

Close up of un-stitched seqins

Next, I pinned a length of ribbon each side of the centre front tacking, on the wrong side of the jumper:

This was stitched in place, then the jumper was cut along the tacking stitches.Then I folded the ribbon around to the front, and stitched it back down:

I tried it on at this stage; the length is still a bit too long, and unflattering. I pinned ribbon about 4" from the bottom edge, and did the same as the front.

And voila!

Now it's more like a little jacket. As I'm a bit lazy, and I'm not that keen on the buttonholes my machine makes, I decided to just fasten it with a little crystal button at the neck.

I took these photos a little while after finding out that Amy Winhouse had passed away. Such a shame. Shooting stars shine brightest.