Oversize sweater to skirt/sweater set

I found this oversize sweater on a clearance rack at Kohls. I looked at the seams to ensure that the sweater was made from one continuous thread (some are not knitted but rather made out of knitted fabric, so the thread interrupts at the side seams) and purposefully purchased the XXL. I was after the soft, boucle yarn.

I grabbed this before picture before going further along on seam ripping the sweater (I had started on one shoulder). Above, me dressed as a semaphore.

After some thinking, I settled for the following strategy:

- Keep the sleeves, as they were already sufficiently fitted. I like the cuff, knitted more tightly (see finished picture to see the effect). I did not even need to shorten them (which I would have done at the shoulders), I changed the style of the sweater from box sleeves to fitted sleeves, lifting the sleeve caps up.

- I liked the V neck so I reproduced that in the finished garment. 

- After detaching the sleeves, I unraveled the body of the sweater and used the yarn to make a smaller, more fitted version of the sweater.

- With the yarn left over (a lot!), I made a matching skirt.

Here is the finished product:

By now, I have a bank of patterns to take from, and they are right in this blog. I just correct for gauge (see this post). 

For the body of the sweater, I used the pattern for the classic V neck sweater. The sleeve caps did not quite match since they were meant for a different style of sleeve holes, so I cheated a little (I have a little extra seam allowance on the sleeve side).

When it comes to the finishing at the neck line, I followed technique #6 in this post to obtain neat edges as I knitted that did not require any finishing. 

I knitted the skirt as a tube in the round, starting at the waist with 1.5 cm of 1/1 ribbing and ending at the hem with the same. 

I achieved the flared effect and flow by switching to larger needles when I got to my hips. At the waist, I casted the number of stitches required to achieve my hips circumference. The skirt is drawn in at the waist with a cord threaded through the ribbed waist band. The skirt is gathered at the waist. For me, that works OK because of my large waist/hip ratio (waist not very small, hips not very wide - I am a ruler in that respect).