Hack It: Leather & Lace Crew Neck Sweatshirt

I don't know about you, but I find it really hard to pass up a great deal. So when I spotted a crew neck sweatshirt on super sale while browsing OldNavy.com with a 30% off coupon next to me that made it a whopping $2.80... YES. The issue? The only size left was an extra large.

I waffle between a medium or large at Old Navy usually, but for under three bucks I was willing to take the risk and hope I could tailor it. It arrived a few days later, in all it's frumpy, boxy, deliciously comfy glory:

First step: Knocking it down to size. I tried it on, and eyeballed how much would need to be shaved off the sides. I popped it onto my dress form (God bless the dress form) and pinned what I thought would work.

After a try-on and narrowing the sleeve a little bit more, I ran the sewing machine down my line. Then again for good measure, about 1/8" away from my first line. I don't have a serger, so two stitch lines offers a little more security. Since sweatshirt material doesn't really ravel, I was good to go.

Lace time! There are a couple ways you could go about this: Since the lace is fairly see through, I chose to just drape a big hunk over the area of the shirt I wanted to add it to, pin it in place, then carefully (oh. so. carefully) trim along the already-there seam line of the sweatshirt with some sharp scissors. You could also use something like parchment paper (we're looking for a sheer quality here), sketch out the area, then cut it out and trace it onto the lace lying flat.

Then, well, stitch 'er on. Machine (my choice) or by hand would work just as well if getting the area into your machine is too tricky. I decided to do that little triangular piece that's always on the front of sweatshirts too for good measure. 

So now we've gone from here to here:

And, tada!

Selfies are not my forté, but I tried (dude, it's hard to take a picture of your own back!!):

You could do this with any crew neck sweatshirt in any color (if there isn't already one in your closet, there's a link to the Old Navy options up at the top of this post), and lace is sold at any fabric store. If you like the idea of the faux leather lace, I picked mine up at JoAnn Fabrics a few months back (they don't seem to offer it on their website). Online, google "lace by the yard" and you'll get roughly a billion results for your web-shopping pleasure. 

Happy hacking kids!