I love this cream colour store-bought sweater and I love it for two reasons:
1. It keeps me very warm in cold weather.
2. It's long enough for me to wear as a dress.
3. When I wear it, I reminisce about the times when my family lived in Halifax and my mom would knit my siblings and I each several wool sweaters to keep warm through the crazy cold winters. I absolutely love and cherish the things my mom makes me--even to this day. She's too busy to knit nowadays, unfortunately.
OK, I was wrong. That was three reasons but who's keeping track?
I've had this sweater for about a year and a half and it's starting to show signs of over-wearing--especially in the bum and elbow area. Since I love this sweater so much, it occurred to me one morning while I was putting it on that maybe I shouldn't be wearing it so much. That way, I could preserve it for a little longer.
I thought of a way to preserve the elbows while changing the look into something like an old vintage professor sweater. I decided to add durable leather patches to the elbow. I told my boyfriend what I was going to do to my sweater (not that he really cares about these things but I always like to let him know about everything--that's called communication I believe? *grin*) and his reaction was, "Wait, you mean you're going to make a professor sweater? A sweater that professors wear?" Then it was followed by a chuckle and a snicker.
Disregarding what my boyfriend thinks about my wonderful idea *grin*, I proceeded to handstitch these patches (pictured above) that I bought from our store onto my sleeves. It took me over 3 hours to finish the job. I actually contemplated on quitting halfway because it was so difficult to push the needle through the leather. My fingers were numb from the pushing even though the tags attached to the patches said that the edges were perforated...peforated my ARSE!
So here's the final result! It looks like a sweater made for an intellectual. It's aptly named the professor sweater. I love it.
And to prove that my idea wasn't a crazy one, I am wearing this sweater today and I received TWO compliments on my sweater--TWO, THAT'S TWO compliments...and both times, the two young ladies pointed out how awesome my patches were.
But here's a tip, if you're going to sew patches on your sweater, use a sewing machine!!!
(Genuine Leather Patches: $8.50 + HST - Available at Balsam Custom Tailors; Sewing Patches onto Sleeves: $25 + HST)
Photography by Cindy Wu Photography
