DIY Friday: Snag Some Brittany S. Pierce Style

Hello there lovelies,

Another character that really came into their own stylistically in the second season of Glee was everyone's favourite vapid blonde, Brittany S. Pierce. I pretty much fell in love with her style the second that the Cheerio's uniform came off and she started appearing in those mismatched ensembles, usually involving mens suspenders, florals, and some kind of animal-related hat. But my favourite style moment was when Rachel paid Brittany to try & make legwarmers cool, which resulted in the McKinley High trend of wearing legwarmers on your arms. In Brittany's defence, she had a perfectly good reason for the leg-cum-armwarmers:

So, without further ado, I'm going to show you how to refashion an old knit sweater/jumper into a pair of Brittany S. Pierce style armwarmers, and a few other Winter goodies at the same time. You're going to need to start off with something like this:

Equipment required for this project: a sewing machine (or an enthusiastic hand sewer), tailors chalk, scissors, and a beanie that you like (for measuring, not for attacking with the scissors).

First we're going to cut off the sleeves of the sweater to turn into your new armwarmers. Now, the main thing to remember is that knit fabric like this frays like crazy. Absolute crazy. So, where ever possible we need to keep the original seams/hems in tact to stop the fabric from fraying before we can sew new seams/hems.

Alrighty, now cut the sleeves off your sweater, keeping the seam attached to the sleeve.

You'll be left with this funny shape on the end of your armwarmers. Now, we sew a new seam/hem to make the end of our armwarmers flat. I sewed mine just after the second gray stripe in the picture. Be careful not to sew the end of your armwarmers shut! You may also want to lengthen the stitch on your sewing machine so that it can sew the knit fabric more easily. Once your new hem is sewn, cut off the funny looking end piece. Congratulations, now you have some Brittany S. Pierce style armwarmers!

Now you're left with a piece looking like this. Next, we're going to make a beanie, using the neck hole of the sweater as the head hole of the beanie. In preparation for the next step, turn your sweater inside out.

Lay your awesome favourite beanie over the sweater so that the opening lines up with the neckhole of the sweater. Now, draw around your beanie with your tailors chalk. Don't worry if you make your beanie too big the first time, you can always make it smaller later.

Note: I cut my beanie a little bit strange, because I wanted to preserve as much as possible of the cool crochet-like detail at the neck of the sweater. Now, I forgot to take a photo of this stage, but sew the new seam of your beanie BEFORE you cut your beanie away from the rest of the fabric. Sewing the hem first makes sure your fabric doesn't fray before you have a chance to sew it. Once you've sewn the hem & cut the beanie shape out, turn your fabric out the right way. Congratulations, you now have a brand new beanie to match your armwarmers!

Now, we're left with this sad, sad, piece of sweaterdom. I decided that I wanted to make an infinity scarf as well, so I sewed a new hem along the top of the black stripe second from the bottom, and then cut the bottom of the sweater away from what was left of the bodice. Easy-peasy, and now your armwarmers & beanie have a matching scarf to go with them.

Here's a final shot of all the cool things you just turned an old sweater into. And you hardly wasted any sweater fabric doing it! Now all that's left is to wear your pieces with a bit of Brittany style. I teamed mine with a slouchy off the shoulder tee, denim leggings, and ankle boots - all staples of non-cheerleading uniform Brittany style.

There you go! Making some Winter accessories is so easy that even Brittany herself could do it (although she may need some assistance with working the scissors). Note that my scarf turned out fairly small, as the sweater I started the project with was a cropped style - I think the scarf would work better with a regular, or oversized sweater! If you guys have any questions, don't be afraid to ask! I hope you enjoyed yourselves with this tutorial as much as I did.

Until next time, xo.

P.S. I used this post from A Beautiful Mess for inspiration & extra tips on how to sew using sweater knit. You should check it out too, because the girls are totally amazing!