Sweatshirt Mod

Last year my husband picked up this sweatshirt on a super sale for like $2.  The problem was that it was a wee bit too small in the neck, so I couldn't really get it over my head.  After letting it sit at the bottom of my drawer for a year, I pulled it out to see if I could make it work.

 After exploring a variety of ideas (lining, iron-on stabilizer, just cutting it), I decided that zig-zagging from the hood opening, down 2 or so inches, and back up to the other side of the hood opening would work best.  So I grabbed some scrap sweatshirt material and experimented with my zig-zag until I got it just right.  The zig-zagging on the far left of this picture is the one I ended up using.

Here are the settings on my Janome 423s--I actually ended up using the buttonhole setting--without the buttonhole foot, of course.

 I drew my nice straight line on the sweatshirt with disappearing ink and was ready to go!

I stitched it so that the purple line was not touched by the thread--I didn't want any chance of accidentally overlapping my stitches or cutting them when I opened up the neckhole.

 Working on the bottom here...it was the hardest part.  I moved my stitch width out to the widest setting, dropped the feed dogs, zig-zagged several times, put the needle up, moved my fabric over, zig-zagged some more without moving the fabric, brought the feed dogs back up, re-adjusted my stitch length, and went up the other side.

 All stitched up!

 I decided that my seam ripper would be the easiest way to cut the fabric...

I cut it, cleaned it up a bit with my scissors...

And tried it on!  Sorry about it not being a full picture, I didn't fix my hair today, so this will have to do. :)

All done! A sweatshirt that is now wearable. :)

~Regina