Upcycled Cashmere CYA Mini-Skirt

I love it when seemingly unrelated problems get together and solve themselves. It saves me a lot of work. In this case the problems were as follows:

1. I had 3 holey cashmere sweaters in a box that I couldn’t bear to throw out.
2. Tights are not pants.

Don’t get me wrong: I own multiple pairs of tights. They are unbeatable for cycling and cross-country skiing, also climbing and running (in the winter). And I am certainly not above bolting into a coffee shop afterward to grab a hot beverage; I think everyone gets it, in that case. But I don’t think everyone needs to look at my “address,” as my friend Kimmy used to say, for much longer than that. Sure, sometimes I can just tie my puffy around my waist. But sometimes my friends want to meet up for après-ski outdoors by a fire pit or something bougie like that, and in that event, it is not practical to sacrifice covering your top half for CYA (covering your address).

They make adorable down mini-skirts for just this purpose, and I was seriously contemplating buying one until I saw how much they cost and thought about how infrequently I would actually wear a down mini-skirt. Next, I thought about knitting one, but that seemed like a lot of work, and it is a myth that you save any money by knitting things. It was then the light dawned….

As a Child-of-a-Child-of-the-Depression, I hate throwing things out. I will do it because I am also a lazy efficient person, and so if it will take more of my time and money to fix/recycle/repurpose something than that something is worth (as long as it’s not a hazard), then goodbye. But I do make a serious effort, particularly when the thing is beautiful and a lot of work went into making it. And so it was at the “if only I had some knitted fabric that I could repurpose as a CYA mini-skirt” moment that I remembered the holey cashmere sweaters. Cashmere is just so pretty, and a whole bunch of goats and people went to a lot of work to make those sweaters. And though it turns out there are cashmere recycling programs around now, I didn’t know about them at the moment it occurred to me that if I cut off the holey arms/armpits from the sweaters, I might be able to get functional mini-skirts out of them.

Turned out to be swimmingly easy, so here we go:

Upcycled Cashmere CYA Mini-Skirt Recipe

Note: It will be less easy if (a) your sweaters are not all v-necks, which mine were and (b) you can’t get said v-neck up over your hips with a little (or a lot, in my case) of stretching. But there’s a workaround:

1. Cut arms off your sweaters on the inside (body side) of the armhole seams. Use the arms for…arm warmers! Or coffee-cup cozies. I just hate it when my après-ski cappuccino gets cold. #bougiedove
2. Now is the time to see if you can shimmy into the sweater with your tights on, through the neck hole of the INSIDE OUT sweater. You might hear a stitch or two pop. No one will die. If it’s a crewneck, I suggest cutting out from each side of the neck hole at the shoulder seams until you can shimmy into it; do as little cutting and as much seam-ripping as you can, and remember to overlock the point where you stopped on each side when you start sewing.
3. Pull the side seams of the sweater up your hips until you can pin shut the armholes in the center by at least 1/4″ seam allowance . Smooth the sweater on your hips, letting the excess material flap out and down. Then pin the fold line around your hips in a rough yoke. (If your sweaters have holes in the underarms like mine did, I found that they naturally fell into the seam allowances, but trim out the frayed fabric and pin accordingly if not.)
4. Shimmy out of the sweater. You should see an oval of pins running around the yoke of the sweater. Sew along this line all the way around using a zig-zag or tricot stitch, smoothing out any wrinkles in the sweater fabric underneath as you go and making sure to overlock when you jump between the two darts in the front made by the front folds of the armhole.
5. Trim seam allowance to a narrow 1/4″, flip right-side out, and try on! It won’t be the most flattering mini-skirt in the whole world, but I found mine surprisingly not terrible.
6. Roll up and stick in your pack or your car, and you’re all set to CYA for your next après-sport engagement!