Thrift-Store Sweater Tote Bag
Go to your local thrift store/Salvation Army and find an ALL-WOOL sweater. I found this one for $2.00. It’s a Land’s End Sweater, 100% Shetland Yarn, Men’s size 3X.
Before you buy the sweater, turn it inside out, and make sure the seams don’t have cut, serged edges. If the edges have been serged, PICK ANOTHER SWEATER. Neauveau, Recycling Yarn has several clear pictures of unserged seams, so you’ll know what to look for.
Turn the sweater inside out and remove any tags. Then, carefully remove the stitching holding the seams together.
(More on this later)
Here’s a picture of the sweater taken apart.
You’ll find some sweaters have been machine sewn together with thread, and they’re easy to take apart. Others have been hand sewn together with matching yarn and they’re harder to take apart, because the matching yarn makes it harder to tell which strand is the one used for sewing together. This sweater had been hand sewn together with matching yarn, so I looked at the seams areas with red sections, found the grey thread holding them together, snipped it, and unraveled the seams from there.
Also, this sweater had a neckband that was knitted on. The sweaters with sewn on neckbands are easier to take apart. It took me over an hour of looking/searching, under a strong light, to find the tail end at the end of the bind off, and unravel the neck ribbing.
Whew!
Now I’ve crocheted the sleeves of the sweater to each side of the sweater front. I matched up the wrist ribbing of the sleeves with the waist ribbing of the sweater body. I’ll do the same thing with the back. What will end up being the bag is upside-down in the above picture. The ribbing will be the top edge of the bag.
After that, I’m going to snip one of the white stitches that runs along the top of what is now a wide loop of knitted fabric, and remove the shoulder area above the body part of the sweater. Here’s a picture of the unraveling in progress.
The resulting loose stitches will be put on a couple of circular needles (as holders) while I knit a rectangle for what will be the bottom of the bag. I’m using some Lopi Lite, in black, for the bag bottom. I had 3 skeins left over from another project. I’m hoping that will be enough for the bag bottom.
More to come!
