Week Eleven- Recycled Sweater Flowers

Recycled sweaters are one of favorite materials to use.  They come in an endless variety of colors and patterns and are easy to come by.  (Especially if you love garage sales and thrift stores like I do).

The flowers were made using recycled sweaters, wool scraps, buttons, wire and wooden beads.

Monster Making

Yesterday, I got together with a group of Mom's and their 9 and 10 year old daughters to make Monsters from recycled sweaters. They were given very simple instructions and then given full reign of the materials available to make their monsters. They had sweaters, afghans, buttons, funky clothing scraps and embroidery thread. They were all stuffed with my big bag of scraps from projects I had worked on the last couple of months.

Some Mom's made their own, others helped their daughter with her project, but each daughter walked away with a Monster. All of the monsters were unique and showed the personality of the creator.

I will be teaching a recycled arts class at the Columbia Art Center in Hood River during  the Trash to Treasures exhibit this month.  Join us on January 28th from 9am-noon to make a monster and wallet, all from recycled materials.

Mittens

One of may favorite projects to make is mittens from recycled sweaters and afghans. Since all of the sweaters are different, it is hard to make two pairs the same.

They are all lined with super soft minty fleece. I love watching people try them on to see their expression when they realize how cozy they are.

Some mittens are made using wool sweaters, but some are made with thinner cotton sweaters. Both kinds are surprisingly warm.

I love finding old afghans that look like they were lovingly made by my grandmother, but washed wrong and shrunk. These are always the mittens that are talked about the most. I love seeing who is drawn to the crocheted chevron or granny square afghan mittens.

I no longer look at sweater the same way. Whenever I see a beautiful sweater, I wonder what it will look like made into a pair of mittens.

Recycled Sweater Rug

This recycled sweater rug is my latest project. I have been wanting to make something with recycled sweaters again. They make great mittens, but those are so seasonal that I wanted to try a new project. I really enjoyed making this rug and so much was learned. I will have to experiment using different types of sweaters that are in different stages of felting. When I sewed the two pieces together, then tended to pucker up. Possibly using a longer stitch and not pulling the fabric will help solve this problem. I added a piece of a non slip pad to the back (like what you would use under a rug or in your dish cabinet), so that it would not slip on a smooth surface. The piece of non-slip pad I used was not wide enough, so I had to piece together two pieces. Not the best solution, but it works for my first attempt. I think my next rug will be larger using long strips of sweater to make a striped pattern. The possibilities are endless!

What to do with all those Scraps

This winter, after making so many mittens from recycled sweaters for the numerous craft sales I went to, I ended up bags of scraps. I hate throwing those away in the garbage because they do not decompose... or at least not for hundreds of years. I always try and think about what I can make with those scraps. This scrappy wreath was what I came up with. I was able to use a variety of colors and had fun tying all those strips of scraps onto the foam base. My kids even joined in the fun. I think if I trimmed it a little more, it would look even better. Less sad and droopy. I am thinking of making more in different color schemes for different seasons. Making this wreath also allowed my to stop and think about all of the other projects I was working so frantically to finish this winter. Each scrap tells a story!

First Day of Blogging

Well, this is my first attempt at blogging. I thought this would be a good avenue for documenting my creative thoughts. I have been trying to break into the craft business by making items from recycled/upcycled materials, but I am having a hard time focusing. Maybe this will help!

I have an Etsy shop www.alvablue.etsy.com that shows the crafts I have been making recently. Last night my husband also opened a shop at www.littleredshed.etsy.com We will see how these shops do! What a great place to see handmade goods. I could spend hours searching through shops seeing all of the wonderful and creative ideas people have. It inspires me to create too.

One of my latest projects are mittens made from recycled sweaters. I love a huge stash of old sweaters that I cut up and have tried making all sorts of projects. The mittens are by far my favorite. I can mismatch the sweaters and combine fun colors and patterns. I have also been lucky to have a friend who makes SwaddleKeepers (www.swaddlekeeper.com) and has large amounts of scrap fabric. She has been happy to give me her scraps so they can be used and not end up in a landfill... (She said she did a research project in college and found out the 40% of what ends up in landfills is textiles, cloth, clothes, fabric, etc.!!!) With her scrap fabric, I line the mittens with super soft miky button fleece. This makes the mittens extra soft and warm.