49-Cent Friday Refashion: Lumberjack Swants (Sweater Pants)

By now I’m sure a lot of you have heard about “Swants”.

Not familiar? Maybe this will help…

And of course there’s the Swants Dance:

When I saw this crazy video, and grasped the concept of Swants for the first time, I couldn’t wait to make myself a pair.

And I had the perfect thing in mind to create them from:

Do I look like a lumberjack?

Notice the huge stack of banana boxes behind me? They’re what’s left of all my wool sweaters (although a lot of them are now sweater pieces).
After scouring through my sweater stash, I found this awesome lumberjack-looking sweater coat and thought it would make a fetching pair of Swants.

Now I know that I’m being a bit untraditional in that my “sweater” is more of a jacket or blazer, but I loved the print and decided it would just have to do.

It’s made of 90% wool, which makes it very warm, and 10% nylon, which gives it just enough stretch to make a very comfortable pair of pants.

For any of you who’ve seen the original Swant tutorial created by Stephen West of Westknits, you’ll know that I’m going to have to make mine a bit differently since my “sweater” (if you will), isn’t a pullover.

But that’s okay with me.

The first thing I did was try on my soon-to-be-Swants…

Smexy

After seeing how far the sleeves came up on my legs, I chopped them off (the sleeves, not my legs).

Chop chop!

I then separated the back panel from the front panels…

Disassembling complete!

I grabbed a pair of skinny jeans (that I refashioned back in August) to use as a guide, and cut out my pieces accordingly…

As you can see, I laid the sleeve on top of the bottom portion of pant leg, to help me see how much to cut out for the top-portion of the pants.

I wanted to make sure and use the front panels of the sweater for the back portion of the pants, so that I could incorporate the pockets. After all, I hate pants with no pockets!

Cutting out all the pieces.

2 pieces for the front…

… and 2 pieces for the back

Once all of my pieces were cut out, I pinned the front pieces together (matching right sides), and also pinned the back pieces together (matching right sides):

Pinned and ready to sew.

First I stitched the front pieces together and then the back pieces together…

Whirrrr

Then I pinned the front and back together at the inseam…

Pinned!

After stitching the inseam together quickly with my machine, I then pinned and stitched the outer seams of both pant legs…

Stitch those shorts!

After trying on my new lumberjack shorts to make sure they fit, I grabbed the sleeves (new pant legs), and slipped them into the legs of the shorts, matching right-sides together and pinned them in place where I would be sewing them.
Then I ran each leg through my sewing machine…

Remember, right-sides together.

Once the sleeves were sewn on and transformed into the pant legs, the Swants were almost finished!

I wanted them to have a really comfy waistband, so I looked through my sweater stash once more, and found this…

100% Merino Wool.

As you can see, this 100% Merino Wool sweater has shrunken quite small! I knew that the bottom half would be the perfect waistband for my new Swants.

Chop!

After the choppage was complete, I pinned that new waistband onto my Swants like so…

Once it was pinned in place properly, I seam-ripped the tag off of there, and ran that puppy through my machine…

Whirrr.

…and voilá!

Super comfy waistband

I love this waistband. It’s nice and snug (without being too tight), so I can bend and squat without gappage or worry.

Another favorite thing is the pockets.
Have I mentioned that I HATE pants without pockets? It drives me bonkers.
The pocket placement isn’t perfect, but I guess it works.

Pockets!

These are definitely warm and comfy! Considering how much I hate being cold, I know I’ll get a lot of wear out of them for sure!

So what do you think of sweater pants? Would you make or wear them?

Just a reminder to head on over to the Diary of a MadMama Facebook page and enter the giveaway I’m hosting right now. There are 3 handmade items up for grabs (made just for you by yours truly). You can enter daily through February 9th, when I will announce the winner.

You can get more information on the items up for grabs in the giveaway by reading the Blogiversary and Giveaway post.

Have a lovely weekend!

~Jen