Ponchos for fall

Last week I had an hour to myself, as well as a hankering to use up a 2-yard cut of wool jersey I found at the thrift store last year (for $3.50!).  So I made this.

The jersey was the perfect warm, mid-weight, stable fabric for the button-up, drape-neck, fall poncho of my dreams.  I draped it over myself, pinned it, re-pinned and re-draped, and came up with my preferred proportions.  Basically my fabric was a 70" wide pentagon that was 33" long in the middle and 26" long at the sides.  I hemmed the top with interfacing, folded my fabric in half with the 26" sides aligned, and then sewed up all but 12" of the top.  

After I made it, I decided it needed something, and decided that that something was buttons.  I sewed the buttons through both layers of fabric rather than making buttonholes.  I used two different kinds of buttons because I was working from stash and didn't have enough of any of the ones I liked.  I toyed with alternating them, but in the end I just decided to group them together.  I really like how it looks, and since the buttons are just sewn on, I can replace them later if I want to without worrying about matching sizes.

I hemmed the top edge of the fabric so that the neck opening would be neat, before overlapping the top edges (where the buttons go) and sewing them together.  I left the bottom is left raw - this jersey won't ravel and I dig the sharp-edged look.  

Immediately after I finished it, the temperature dropped, and I've been wearing it pretty much non-stop ever since.  And as soon as she saw my poncho, my sweet little Z asked if I could make her one. As it happened, I had just enough fabric left over to make that happen.  She's been wearing it proudly ever since.

 I think she looks ridiculously cute in it, though I have to remind her to take it off before eating or (shudder) going to the bathroom.

So there you have it, Mommy-and-me wool ponchos. Keep scrolling for directions to make your own.  And as always, thanks for reading and see you next time! 

MAKE YOUR OWN PONCHO

Want to make your own poncho? Here's how I did it. I'm not the best technical illustrator, so hopefully these instructions are clear.

Thanks for reading! If you try this out, please leave a comment and let me know how it went!