1/04/2011

Old Wool Sweaters = New Purse

A dear friend (Gail, you know who you are!) makes the best wool purses...so she encouraged me to give it a try. First, I went to garage sales and thrift stores and looked for sweaters that were made of at least 90% wool.  I didn't pay over $1 for each of them. I also picked up purse handles, but you don't have to have them, you could just use the sweater material. I washed them in hot water, then dried in the dryer. This shrunk them and 'felted' them. They were ready for cutting.
Today, I took these supplies above, along with fun material for the lining and turned it into this (below).
And the inside looks like this below.

I just made it up as I went along, so I decided that a tutorial would not be good since I really didn't know what the outcome would be. The leopard print fabric are side pockets (on each side, inside) to hold my cell phone, keys, etc. The three sweaters that I used cost $2. The handles were 50¢, and the rest, lining scrap fabric and buttons I already had on hand. So the total cost was...$2.50! Plus my time of one hour. And I have enough left over to make another purse! Pretty good, don't you think? You can enlarge each picture by clicking on it, then click again for larger detail. You can then use your 'back' button to return to my blog. Terry
I'm linking up to these parties:
Sassy's Trash to Treasure
Linda's Nifty Thrifty Tuesday 
Kim's Boring to Better Party Wednesday 
Kelli's ReStored It Wednesday 
Gina's Transformation Thursday
Becky's Under $100 Party Thrusday
Wendy's Frugal Friday 
Funky Junk Interiors Sat. Nite Special
Meg's Everything but the Kitchen Sink Friday 
Cindy's Show and Tell Friday
Courtney's Feathered Nest Friday
Debra's Vintage Inspiration Friday
Jane's Frugalicious Friday
Kate's Flaunt It Friday 
Stephanie Lynn's Sunday Showcase Party 

11 comments:

  1. Terry is there anything you cannot do? Great job, and it is something I would carry too. Great for Fall or Winter, hugs tami

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  2. Terry, you made the most darling sweater purse! I love all the detail :D

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  3. Terry, you can do everything! I love the purses!!! Is there anything that you can't do? Please tell me you can't sing or something, LOL. You are super human!

    xoxoxo,
    Ricki Jill

    PS you will be happy to know that I did go out of my comfort zone and made a tray at a class. I am blogging about it next week. It was a great deal because the class was only twenty dollars, and I made three pretty things that would have cost me a bunch of money to buy. I did find out that ceramics is not my thing, but it was still worth it.

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  4. Terry, that is the cutest and you just whipped it up! It would take me days to sew that. You are the crafting queen! Thanks for linking.

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  5. I love it! What a great project...you'll probably be looking in your closet for more sweaters! ♥♥♥

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  6. Lovely purses Terry! I've never tried felting wool sweaters before, but now you've inspired me. Plus they're thrifty, too! Thanks for sharing, and for your nice comment on my blog.
    - susan

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  7. I like your purse; you added some really cute details!
    Thanks for visiting my blog. You asked about the linky party...some of my old parties lost their links when the linky tools owner made some changes. I fixed some of them, but haven't gone back and done all of them. Only current parties are open for adding links. I haven't had a Thrift Store Thursday party in some time. Currently, I host a Knock-Off Party on the 3rd Thursday of the month, and a Money-Saving Tips party on Mondays (although I may be making some changes to MST).

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  8. I love working with felted wool sweaters, your purse is darling!

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  9. So cute, what a great idea. Love the pattern and how it "felts" when shrunken. Thanks for linking up with VIF!
    hugs,
    Debra

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  10. That is super funky! I love it! Great idea and execution!

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It makes me smile to hear from you!

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