Plaid Wool Scarf from a Skirt

If you've been paying attention to fall fashion at all you've probably noticed there's a lot of plaid involved. I'm a huge fan of plaid and decided to embrace the trend with a cozy plaid wool scarf.

I often pick up 100% wool skirts in beautiful colors and patterns when I'm thrifting. You can generally find them for between $2 and $5 - a great price for several large pieces of quality wool fabric. I use the wool to make blankets, hooked rugs, and a whole lot of other things. I remembered I had a fringed plaid skirt and thought I could make it into a scarf pretty easily. Here is the end result which requires only basic sewing skills. I hope this inspires you to make your own plaid statement piece this season using the project steps below.

 

Project Steps:

Step 1: When working with wool skirts, I like to wash and dry them hot - a felting technique. This will shrink and soften the material making it denser and warmer. As a bonus, the fabric will be washable and dryer safe after felting with no dry cleaning required. After felting my skirt I cut it into large, usable pieces. First I cut off the waistband and then I cut along the seams until I had 3 large sections. 

Step 2: If you need the extra fabric and are ambitious, you can carefully cut open the darts and then press them flat. I didn't need the full width so I skipped this step but I did keep the entire hem. Before getting started with the project, I pressed each piece of wool flat. It took a little extra time to press out the skirt hem but with high heat and a spray bottle I got it to disappear.

Step 3: Once the pieces were ironed I started cleaning up the cuts and making them straight. I like to use a self-healing mat and rotary cutter to get long cuts as straight as possible. I lined up the ruler along one of the plaid lines and trimmed what was the side seam removing as little fabric as possible. Next, I cut along the dart seams to make the top of the skirt lay flat and then cut just below the darts. Each of the sections was trimmed in this manner leaving me with 3 pieces of similar width.

Step 4: I laid the 3 pieces out lengthwise to see how the plaid lined up and how straight the cuts were. I knew I wanted the scarf to wrap around my neck twice so I lined the pieces up next to a scarf the length I wanted.

Step 5: At this point I could have measured the width of the black and white pattern and cut the pieces down further (factoring in seam allowance) to ensure the pattern was exact when I sewed the 3 pieces together. I didn't want to lose the length though and could see when I laid it out the differences wouldn't be very noticeable. Plaid is great for hiding seams this step really isn't necessary. I put the right sides of the fringed and the middle pieces together, pinned and sewed them.

 

Step 6: After the first 2 pieces were sewn together, I pinned the third piece to the larger section, right sides together, and sewed along the seam.

Step 7: I now had one long piece of fabric that was starting to look like a scarf. 

The edges were a bit scraggly because of slight variations in the fabric so again I used the self-healing mat and rotary cutter to clean them up. 

Step 8: I then laid each seam open and pressed it flat. This step is absolutely necessary to create a finished-looking product. 

Step 9: With the seams pressed flat I folded the scarf in half, right sides together, and pinned and sewed the side and bottom. I did not sew the fringed side at this point, we'll get to that later.

Step 10: After sewing the bottom and side, I cut diagonally across the corners a few millimeters from the seam to reduce the bulk in the corners of the finished scarf.

Step 11: Using the open, fringed side I turned the scarf right side out.

Once right side out, I used a pin to pull out the corners. 

Step 12: The entire scarf needed to be pressed flat at this point, especially along the seam. To get it as flat as possible I rolled the two sides of the fabric along the seam between my fingers and when the seam was fully exposed I pressed it. 

I continued this process until the entire scarf was pressed flat.

Step 13: The fringed side of the scarf was next pinned and sewn on along the fringe to close it up and finish it off. 

Step 14: This is the point where I could have been done and just worn it. But, because I wanted an infinity scarf I had a few more steps.

I wrapped the scarf around my neck and arranged it until it looked the way I wanted. Then I pinned the places where I wanted to add buttons and also pinned the pieces of the fringe that lined up to where the buttons would be. These would be sewn into loops for the buttons.

Step 15: Now I needed to find buttons. Luckily, I keep several jars filled with buttons I've collected, many come from clothing I've deconstructed to make into other things. Because I've saved so many buttons over the years, I almost never need to buy them for my projects

I settled on these fun yellow buttons to give the scarf a pop of color.

Step 16: I found the pieces of fringe I pinned and sewed each it into a loop. Using the button as a guide, I sewed the loop until the button could pass through it with some resistance. If you aren't lucky enough to find a fringed skirt, you could add ribbon or yarn loops to the bottom seam or used sew on snaps to secure the infinity scarf. 

Step 17: Finally, I sewed the buttons onto the scarf where I had marked them.

Step 18: The result is a warm, washable, 100% wool scarf for 2 bucks!