Turtleneck-Be-Gone Tutorial

Today Tessa and I went to storytime at the downtown Nashville library. It was the best part of our day. I can't believe I haven't taken her there before. It was so stinkin' cute with a puppet show and little voices singing "What a Wonderful World" and lots of toddlers toddling around. Nekos met us there since he works right downtown. Tessa curled right up in his lap and got this enchanted look in her eyes. She didn't understand, though, why it wasn't okay for her to eat another kid's graham crackers or cuddle another kid's bunny rabbit.

What does this have to do with a turtleneck? I wore the turtleneck below to storytime. I hate this turtleneck. I am the Prim Reaper in this turtleneck. I don't know why I ever bought it but I pulled it out of my closet today to give it one more chance. That said, I will never wear a turtleneck again. I feel like such a ... stuffy mom. But it came originally from Anthropologie and there were things I liked about it; the turtleneck is comfortable -- made of silky-soft jersey. And it's the perfect length. And it has these cool, puffy sleeves.

Before: The Stuffy Turtleneck with Hidden Potential

During that same ill-fated shopping Anthropologie trip a couple of years ago, I also bought this shirt, which has always been too short for me and which I've worn maybe twice. I'm tall and hip-y, so I have to have longer shirts. 

Before: The Too-Short Top with Cute Detailing

So I took the Stuffy Turtleneck and the Too-Short Top (which had been waiting on my craft table for a couple of months) and combined them into one shirt I really like. If you happen to have an ugly turtleneck stuffed in the back of your closet, you could use this same concept if you also have a heavy piece of lace.

Here's what I did.

1) Cut out the lace part from the second shirt and center it onto the front of the turtleneck.

 

 2) Pin it into place. Try it on and make sure it's actually, really centered. At this point I cut the collar off the turtleneck right above the neck seam, so that there was a raw edge but not one that would unravel. I also trimmed around the piece of lace to remove the remaining black fabric, deciding raw edges were fine for me.

3)  Sew the lace on. I chose a contrasting thread color -- mustard yellow.

 

4) And you're done.  The whole thing took about 15 minutes from start to finish and I'm positive this shirt will be getting a lot more use, starting now.

Is it possible to wear a turtleneck and look cool? Am I missing something?

p.s. Mid-way through my recon of this top, I realized it's not very dissimilar from a cool tutorial that Blair Munday over at A Case of the Mundays already did. (You should check hers out if you have a second.)

The point is that there are lots of cool ways to take two shirts that make you feel like a dork and make one that makes you feel terrific.