Shrunken sweater refashion

I have a beige Gap kids sweater that I have worn for the last 12 years. It was a well used, well loved sweater. I wore it when I was living and travelling all over Europe. I went skiing with it. I wore it during Mardi Gras in New Orleans. I have lots of pictures with this sweater on.

I have washed it in the washing machine in cold water a few times (no dryer) and it never shrank. Of course the one time I asked my hubby to do the laundry I forgot to tell him about the sweater. He put it in the dryer and it shrunk both lengthwise and widthwise. I thought, oh well, may be I can refashion it into something for my son. I put it in the 'refashion pile' and forgot about it.
I looked at the sweater today and got an idea. I have always love sweater dresses (no effort, all in one dressing - what's not to like?). I have this black wool/acrylic long sweater skirt that I thrifted a few weeks back in the refashion pile. Hey I heard colour blocking is in vogue again this year! So I took out the tailor chalk and scissors and started the sweater dress refashion project.
1. First I put on the sweater inside out and use the chalk to mark where I want to do the cutting.

2. Next, I cut off the bottom of the skirt to where it hits my knee. This gives me plenty of black knit material to add to the sweater top. I also took out the elastic waistband of the skirt.

3. I cut the sweater where it was marked.

4. Now comes the fun refashioning steps. I added a black knit panel in the middle front of the sweater because it's too tight. I cut and sewed the cowl neck to the sweater top. I attached the sweater top to the skirt. Then I cut off the sleeves and attached a band of the black knit to the sleeves.

Voila! A unique, made to measure (even for the big baby bump!) colour block sweater dress in a few hours! I'm very pleased with this. I finally get a sweater dress to wear while pregnant! I will probably have to make some adjustments to it after giving birth.