Do you have skeletons in your closet and you’re worried people will find them?! Maybe you’re like me and not that interesting in that sense? Don’t worry if you aren’t, after this tutorial, you’ll have at least one skeleton in your closet! Haha
This tutorial is really kind of easy enough but I’ll still walk you through step by step! You’ll only need basic sewing skills, and you could do this all by hand, but it’s much faster on the sewing machine.
This project will take about an hour or two- depends on how long you take/need for cutting, pinning and sewing, but I completed it in under two hours. Materials needed will be: black sweatshirt, white fleece, orange fleece, thread, and any sewing notions typically needed. For the fleece you really need a piece of white that will be wide enough, and long enough for your size of sweatshirt. I found my materials (fleece) at JoAnns in the remnants! I bought the plain black pullover sweatshirt at JoAnns also. You can find these materials at any craft store that sells fabric. This post is not sponsored by or endorsed by JoAnns, it’s just where I shop typically!
Below are some inspiration photos that I mocked my image off of- can’t be a, “I can make that Monday” without an inspiration!
My first step was to shape my sweatshirt so it fit me a little better. I could have left it but it was a bit baggy in the waist. I simply turned it inside out and sewed a curve where I typically do and didn’t sew over the waistband or the cuff. I did leave room so it could still be a little baggy! If you want to resize your sweatshirt too you can always try it on inside out and pin it in place and carefully take it off and sew! I’ve resized so many tops in my life I tend to skip this step now haha 😅
Next step is to cut out your ribs! I started with a piece of fleece that was big enough for my sweatshirt and folded it in half so my fold would be the middle of my ribs. I figured it’d be more impressive if my ribs were one piece. Then I shaped it into a half lung shape 🫁 and began cutting the paisley shape for the ribs starting at the bottom and working my way up!
Once they were all cut out I shaped the outside of the rib as well! Once I opened it up I cleaned up any jagged edges. This whole part felt like making a snowflake as a kid! Maybe I could make a snowflake sweater for the holidays?!
Next up is my jack o lantern! I followed the same process as before. I folded a piece of orange fleece, shaped a semi circle and cut out a triangle for eyes and then I opened it up to cut out the mouth since I wanted teeth in different spots.
Once my jack o lantern was ready I played around with where to place it and decided it’d be my, “heart.” I also trimmed the surrounding ribs so they wouldn’t poke through oddly with the mouth and eyes. You could also have a little yellow behind those if you’re wanting your pumpkin to glow!
I pinned everything like crazy because I didn’t want anything to move and I wanted to use my sewing machine to make it go by fast! I lined the edge of my presser foot with the edge of the white fabric/ribs and sewed around the entire outside first. Then I repeated that process for every hole. I did end up sewing some of the pumpkin by hand because I was worried about it moving around/ being too thick. Doing that by hand probably took me about 20 minutes, so it wasn’t too bad!
And voila! Now I can say there is a skeleton in my closet! Haha but for reals I think this turned out great! I’m also kind of inspired to make myself an ugly Christmas sweater in this same fashion. Maybe I should start designing it now. Maybe I should make a pullover like this for EVERY holiday?! I mean, I always knew deep down I’d reach this level of crazy craft lady so might as well embrace it while im young to enjoy for the long term. 😂
Be sure to share your creations with me! I love seeing other people’s versions of these crafts! You can find me on most of the socials- Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and Pinterest! Also if you loved this post, feel free to buy me a coffee! It helps keep the site ad free! (I’m working on removing the ones WordPress puts in by default! 😊)
XOXO -Robin
