80’s sweater dress re-visited

I wanted a warm sweater dress, but it seemed the only ones I could find were either hundreds of dollars, or so flimsy and skintight I’d look like a sausage.  So when I found an authentic 1980’s shoulder padded classic long sleeve black sweater knit dress at a free swap, I snapped it up.  It was a size XL, so I removed the shoulder pads, removed the sleeves, cut down the sleeve width, cut down the dress width, and cut down the shoulder width.  I also thinned the full bib of white beads across the front to form more of a free-form v-pattern in front, and left the original v-bead pattern in the back (it’s reversible).  Fabric is mostly silk, with a little angora, so it’s extremely lightweight but WARM!  I love that I found exactly what I wanted (with a little help from my own design work and my sister and her serger) for absolutely free.