All From a Gray Wool Sweater

I brought home a gray 100% lambswool sweater from a recent thrift store expedition and upcycled it into four new creations. It was a little shrunken, which is why I assume it was at the thrift store, but it felted up beautifully soft and solid.

This purse is the first thing I made, following Betz White's directions in Project Upcycle. I crocheted the aqua blue flower and green stem from bamboo yarn, and added a button from my stash.

The turtleneck part of the sweater, which I cut off to make the purse, turned into this adorable baby chapeau. I took these two items to our homeschool co-op to give the students an idea of what we'd be doing in class next semester, and the class filled up fast at sign-ups later that day. I gave the hat to my good friend and fellow teacher Heather for her new baby to wear. She said he's received lots of compliments on it. I wish I'd been able to get a picture of him wearing it, but I'll try to do that and add it here later.

Then I saw the cuffs from the sweater's sleeves lying in what I now call my "upcycling" box. With just little snips for thumb holes and some more crochet with the beautiful blue bamboo, they became toasty fingerless mittens.

It makes a nice set. The girls and I are trying to start a shop on Zibbet, but I keep liking what I'm making too much to sell it! I'll have to work on getting over that!

One last thing emerged from that same gray sweater. There are a couple of boys who wanted to take my sewing class next semester, however their moms are making them stay in their continuing Spanish class. So I thought I'd work up some tutorials for the blog to help them do some upcycling projects at home. Here is the final product for the first one.

On that same thrift trip, I found another 100% lambswool sweater, this one red with a cute gray snowflake on the front. I experimented with cutting and sewing here and there and came up with this book tote. Notice the gray at the bottom - it's that sweater again!

Can you even believe one sweater, accidentally shrunken and given away to a thrift store, could have gone on to produce so much? I'm amazed! It's all thanks to Betz! That Craftsy class really threw my imagination into motion.