Creating Sweater Guard Clips

If there is one thing that I love to wear no matter what the season, it’s a cardigan. I have cardigans in all different colours, patterns, and sleeve lengths, it’s probably on the borderline of being an obsession.

Cardigans were a wardrobe staple in the 1950’s and they usually were adorned with what was called a sweater guard clip. They would have a clip or a pin on each side joined by a chain, these pins or clips ranged from simple in style to ornate. These clips were not only beautiful, but functional. When the sweater was worn over the shoulders, as was fashionable at the time, the clips would help keep the sweater in place.

Since I have plenty of cardigans, but actually no sweater guard clips, I’m going to attempt to create a couple different kinds.

Here’s what I used:

• Two pairs of pliers
• Cement adhesive
• Crystals
• Gloves – this is optional, but I always wear gloves when working with glue because I always get it on my hands
• Paper towel
• Jump rings
• Chain
• Clips
• Pearl appliques
• Cotton swabs
• The neckelace is something I will be reusing to create a sweater guard for a friend

Just to start off with something very simple I took the length of chain and a measuring tape and using the pliers cut off a 8 inch (20.32 cm) section. (I did find this made the chain too long for my taste, going forward I used 6 inch (15.24 cm) sections.)

Then taking both pairs of pilers I opened the jump ring in order to insert the chain and the clip. Once the chain and clip were inserted I used the pilers to close the ring again. Then repeated this for the other side.

For this first that was all I did to make just basic sweater clip.

For the next one I wanted to use the pearls. I started by following the steps above then clipped the clips to a piece of paper towel. In case I get sloppy with the glue during the process I didn’t want the clips to become glued shut. I proceeded to add dots of glue and then placed a pearl on top. I found that using cotton swabs with the end cut off worked really well to help apply the glue.

Once the glue has set the sweater clips are ready to use.

For the next set of clips, I followed the same starter steps as above and this time used the crystals. I found it easiest to remove a bunch from the packaging and organize them by size and colour.

For the glueing process I used the cotton swabs and glued one crystal on at a time. My objective was just to arrange the crystals to cover as much of the negative space as possible. I then repeated the pattern for the other clip.

This is the finished result.

For the last set of sweater clips I was reusing a necklace. Using the pilers I disconnected the piece of chain that I wanted to use. Then started to remove some of the stones.

I did use the stones and glued them to the clips, but I thought that the result was too bulky. I used crystals instead.

Here’s all the clips together. In this picture you can see the previous version of the clip made from the necklace.

Are you as crazy about cardigans as I am? And do you have any sweater clips?

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