Hospital Shruggie from fleece
 

My niece is a cancer patient, recovering from chemo treatments. Her arms get very cold when she is able to use her computer. She and her Mom designed this shruggie, so she could stay warm and still use her computer. I will post another message in tutorials, showing how it is made. The short side goes in the back, the long side serves as a cover for her.

Hospital Shruggie from fleece - how to make
 

This is so simple and quick and my niece just loves it. I thought others might like this idea as well.

Start with a 2 yard piece of fleece (if your piece is a little shorter, that's ok too). The piece in the picture was only 48" long, but was what we had on hands.

To make the sleeves:
Fold over about 1/3 of the length of the fabric (fold line goes from selvage to selvage) Have pretty side of fabric out.
.
Stitch sleeves (with pretty side on outside) --ours are about 8" deep and the stitch line goes in about 18". We curved it downward as we got towards the center thinking it would be less strain on the fabric that way.

Note: On the first shruggie we made the sleeve narrower at the outer edge, but Christina wanted to be able to cross her arms and slide her hands into the sleeves, so on this one the sleeves allow her to do that.

Neckhole: We simple found the center of the fold at the top of the sleeves by folding the sleeves together. I made a cut along the fold, maybe 4" each way from center, then cut slits across the fold. I simply tried it over my head until the cuts allowed the garment to slide on easily. Start smaller and then increase as needed. It is best to keep the neck hole as small as possible, because it is warmer that way. We did not do any trimming at the neckline, just made the slits.

That is all there is to making this. I think it would be equally nice for anyone who likes to compute in their pj's!! Notice that the short side of the shruggie is in the back so there is no fabric bunched up at her back and it stays on without having to tug at it.

Sorry--I seem to be able to only upload one picture at a time right now.

Very clever idea. I could use one of those for when I'm knitting in my chair.

Hospital Shruggie from fleece - how to make -- more pictures
 

Here are some more pictures that show the steps. I didn't mention in the first post, but we did not cut away any of the underarm fabric.

Again I could get only one to upload, but this shows the neckline cut referred to in the original tutorial.

This picture shows the neckline slits.

It's a great Idea, beautiful too!

That is a really great idea!!!!

What a great idea, a dear friend has just had the first chemo treatment, complained about feeling cold, before the diagnosis was even made, Monday I will buy a piece of fleece and make one of these for her. Thanks so much for the pictures of the sewing process, it will make things easier.

Great idea. Thanks for the tute.

I looked in tutorials and did a search for hospital shruggie from fleece and I got sent back here. Is this the complete tutorial? Great project for keeping warm while sitting up.

Great idea and thank you very much for sharing the directions. Hope your niece does well.

Great idea, your niece and mom will be in my prayers, thank you for sharing.

Thank You for the tutorial I am going to send this to my daughter her sister-in-law is going through this. My daughter made her some head scarves because she is starting to lose her hair she is only 26 years old.
Mary

Sew very clever thanks for sharing!!

I found a couple of links to a tutorial for the Snuggies: http://www.sissonfamily.com/Sewingro...thesnuglet.pdf and http://www.instructables.com/id/Make...ggie/?ALLSTEPS
You can cut it shorter, but the back is open. So I guess you can combine the patterns & come up with your own?

Very clever and hugs and prayers for your neice.

They say necessity is the mother of invention and you came up with a good design. Thank you and may your neice pull through this God willing.

Thank you for sharing these instructions. I'm sure there are a lot of cancer patients and nursing home residents that would love to have these.

Prayers for your niece.

I doubt it would qualify, but making the shruggie from fleece is pretty simple because you do not have to hem anything. We did find from experience that she liked the sleeves to be loose enough she could get her blood pressure taken without a problem, also she liked being able to cross her arms and tuck one arm into the other sleeve.
Feel free to send me a pm me if you have any other questions.

Head scarves have been this week's project--I've made 5 and have three more to do. We copied a purchased one to get the pattern. Christina likes the gathered ones that slip on like a hat (with tails). I thought about posting the pattern for that as well, but haven't done it yet.