EASY Fleece shrug (like a shawl, but with arms)

Ok, it's getting cold here in North Ga. The temp was 51 at 9:30pm. I'm not going to running the heater until I can't put it off any longer. We need to put on more clothes to keep warm. So what does that have to do with a shrug and what the heck is a "shrug" anyway?

A shrug is sort of like the sleeves of a shirt/sweater, without the body of it. It goes from one wrist, over the shoulders and down to the other wrist. It's meant to add some warmth to arms and shoulders without overheating the rest of you. Unlike a shawl, it won't slip off with movement. The "sleeves" stop that from happening.

While I'm up and moving, I HATE long sleeves. Normally, I go out in the snow without a jacket, sweater or coat. I overheat very easily and really prefer to be cooler than hotter. Unfortunately, as soon as the sun sets, especially when I sit at the computer or read, my body temp seems to drop and I get COLD. To the point of miserable, cold! My right hand will be icy in no time, my feet freeze (ok, perhaps I should put some shoes/slippers on once in a while. lol) and my arms are goosebumped.

I've knitted slippers for the feet and a fingerless glove for the hand. Tonight, I realized that even with shoes on, my arms were just cold but that the rest of me was fine.

I happened to look over at a pile of material that I've been going through making various napkins, feminine protection, wipes, hankies, etc and saw a piece of scrap fleece. I bought this remnant for about $2.00 at Walmart. It's a piece that's 21" long and 60" wide. All of a sudden I got a really bright idea.

I picked up that scrap, put it over my shoulders with the 60" side going from wrist to wrist. I used a pin to mark where the "sleeve" needed to stop so that I could get in and out of it. I did that for both arms. I then turned the material so that the wrong sides were together (the sides that want to "roll" inward is the "wrong side") and pinned near where I had marked the material for the "sleeve" to stop. I held the two "sleeves" together to make sure they were even. I then zig-zagged from the wrist end to where the pin was, making sure to backstitch both at the start and end of the stitching so that the stitching wouldn't come out. I stitched about 3/8" from the edge and sewed a seam 12" long - before I ended the stitching. I just used the same thread I had been using to sew some light-colored material. (This is a black background with bright dots on it.) I trimmed the threads and turned it right-side out and slipped it on. It's working GREAT! my arms aren't cold anymore. My torso isn't hot and I have freedom of movement. The wrist ends are rather baggy, not fitted at all. When it gets really cold, I may make the wrist end tighter, but I don't think I'm going to need to.

So the mental picture is a piece of material that is a rectangle and then it's sewn up on each side so that there is a sleeve, then an open, unsewn piece of material and then a second sleeve as one continuous piece of material and that's a shrug.

I'm very heavy, so the wider piece of material is needed to cover me. If you're thinner, you could probably get away with a piece of material that was only 16"-18" long and 60" wide. If you're a smaller person and the 60" makes the sleeves too long, trim the sleeves down a bit to fit.

It's taken me longer to type this up than it did to make the shrug. I don't think it took me 15 mins from the time I thought about doing it until I was wearing it. My kind of project!!