Cashmere Long Johns

The sweater socks I made for DH a few weeks ago turned out so well, I’m excited to be doing another sweater craft project, that of turning a sweater into a pair of long johns!

I got the idea from Kris’ blog ‘Resweater’, which I’ve followed for years. I love seeing all the different things she makes from wool sweaters! Back in 2010 I bookmarked this post about how she made running pants out of a merino sweater. But it wasn’t until DH recently ran our snowblower for several hours despite the -2 F windchill. . .

that I decided I would make him a pair of long johns. . . out of a cashmere sweater. Why not? Cashmere sweaters are readily available at our local thrift stores and are even warmer though less bulky than wool.

I got DH to try on three different cashmere sweaters at Sal’s, but not in the usual way. No, I had him turn each sweater upside down so its hem became a waistband of sorts and then he tried to put his legs down into the sweater’s sleeves, er, the potential long johns’ legs. We thought this bright green one “fit” the best of the three.

I immediately offered to dye it a more masculine color, but DH said he doesn’t care about the color since he and I – and now all of you, lol – are the only ones that will ever know he’s wearing long johns, let alone Bright Green ones!

I took the time to record all the sweater’s measurements. These will be helpful if I should ever want to buy a sweater to make a second pair.

Kris’ tutorial starts with making a paper pattern from an existing pair of shorts, which looks pretty simple to do, but DH doesn’t have any close-fitting shorts, so I looked around the web for other tutorials on how to a sweater to long johns. I found two that I think are especially good. Except this one is meant just for making kids’ long johns. I think it would probably work for me too, if I could find big enough sweater, but it definitely wouldn’t work for someone as tall as DH, so. . . I’m going to follow Nikol Lohr’s detailed directions at Makezine.com for making “Any Size Long Johns From Sweaters” instead.

Nikol also writes a blog all her own, The Thrifty Knitter. Sounds like my kind of place – I’ll have to check it out later!

Hey, I just realized that having all the measurements of the finished long johns could come in handy too! I’ll take notes as I go along.

O.K. – let’s see if I can do this without accidentally trimming any of the fringe on our dining room rug. lol. The first cut goes from armpit to armpit.

Then I cut from the side of the neck down to the center of the chest, on both sides.

Those two pieces are going to become the long johns’ legs. First I experimented sewing with a medium width and length zig-zag stitch on the sweater’s neck scrap

then I turned the sleeves inside out and extended the sleeves’ seams down to what had been the center of the sweater’s chest. The seam will now goes down the outside of the long johns’ legs.

DH tried the legs on inside out. They fit him surprisingly well!

The tutorial uses a sweater’s ribbing for the long johns’ waistband. Since my sweater has a plain hem, I had to make a few things up on my own. I cut 3 1/2″ off the bottom of the sweater. That piece will eventually become the waistband.

My sweater was quite a bit bigger around than DH so next I measured around his hips and then trimmed and sewed the body of the sweater to fit snuggly.

This next step wasn’t very clear to me when I read it in the tutorial, but made sense once I’d actually made the cuts. I laid the long john legs on top of the body piece so the top of their inseams touch each other at the center bottom of the body. We’re about to turn the body’s “tube” into a panty-shape.

Then I cut off the bottom of body right at the top edge of the legs. See what I mean? Now it makes perfect sense, doesn’t it.

I just reread the tutorial. I think I may have missed the direction to “Trim the front side angles only so they’re about an inch shorter than the back angles.” Oh, well.

I definitely turned the body piece inside out and upside down, pinned it to the tops of the legs, which I had turned inside right, and then sewed them altogether. Hey, hey! This looks like a real pair of pants!

There’s going to be a dart that runs down the center front of the body so it tapers in as it goes up to DH’s waist. This dart’s going to measure 2″ on the fold at the top of the body and decrease down to nothing at the bottom. The numbered edge of the yardstick represents my sewing line.

I sewed and then trimmed leaving a 1/2″ seam allowance.

Hoping that I hadn’t just made a mistake by trimming away that dart fabric, I had DH do another try on. We thought the front dart was just right. . .

but wanted to add a little center back dart. That’s not in the tutorial, but it will help the fit, so why not? Sorry to confuse you, but this time my sewing line runs along the plain side of the yardstick.

I trimmed away this miniscule amount, again leaving a 1/2″ seam allowance.

Just the waistband left to do! I wrapped the 3 1/2″ wide strip around DH’s waist and pulled it quite tight, then marked how much I could cut away. Sewed the new side seam.

Put the upside-down and inside-out waist band right-sides together with the top edge of the pants. Matched and pinned the side seams. Then matched and pinned the center front and center back. Stretching the waistband slightly as I went, I sewed all the way around.

Ta-dah!! DH’s new cashmere long johns!! I love how the lines of the sweater’s faint vertical lines now go this way and that, such fashionable styling. lol.

These fit DH closely enough that I didn’t put any elastic or a drawstring in the waist, but if they should stretch out over time I can always add one or the other.

Please Note: Nikol’s long johns do not require felting the sweater before cutting and sewing it. To keep the cut edges of the sweater from unraveling I used a medium zig-zag stitch for all the seams and then once the long johns were finished I pushed the seam allowances to one side as I top-stitched every seam for extra strength.

I thought it would be fun to compare the cost of ‘real’ cashmere long johns to the cost of DH’s.

The closest I found were these merino wool ones for about $50.00 with a discount. Pish! And they’re not even available in Green, only boring black and denim blue. lol.

My completed diagrams are ready for cashmere sweater shopping, slashing and sewing!

I need to start looking for another sweater immediately because DH has already asked if it’s o.k. if he sleeps in these. I wonder what color his next pair will be!!