Wool Sweater Love...

It's been many years now that I have been making things from felted wool sweaters...It started out with making children's caps from the waistband of the sweater. Whenever I go to a thrift store I look for wool sweaters. I can usually pick them up for just a few bucks. I take them home, wash them in hot water with a couple of tennis balls to help with the felting process, and they are good to go. After a season or two of making and selling those, and not having the heart to throw away the rest of the sweater, I'd accumulated lots and lots of sweater parts...And I continued to buy more sweaters for more hats so the cycle continued.

But we're making way for baby. We live in a 3 bedroom house with not very much extra storage. Baby Boy is going to be rooming with Mama and Papa for a while, until I can part with my crafting space. Sigh. But in the meantime, I've got to get rid of some stuff. I'm trying to complete projects with lots of the leftover sweater parts. I'm trying to use up all of my fabric for quilts and aprons. My etsy shop is getting full again. What fun.

So I started cutting the rest of the sweaters up and using those pieces for other things... A whole lot of hearts or circles sewn together in a chain makes a really cute scarf.

Tons of squares embellished with circles sewn together makes a darling patchwork quilt.

I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with these quilts...It takes a long time and a lot of sweaters to accumulate enough squares. And then they are so much cuter with the circles but again, that's one more time consuming step. And piecing them together is quite simply a pain in the bottom. But, they are so cute once they're done. I made a couple a few years ago and said I'd never make one again...but I kept cutting squares. And this week I find myself in the finishing stages of not one, but 3 of these little beauties!

And my owls... One of the reasons I love to make these owls is because my sweater parts come in handy for wings, bellies, eyes, ears, noses and hoods... The pattern can be purchased here, in case you have a stash of random fabrics, sweaters, and buttons and you're feeling creative.

I've got a bin full of sweater sleeves in fall colors set aside for pumpkins...how cute are they? Can't wait to make some...

I recently spotted two projects from one of my favorite felt crafters that I think my boys could tackle, so these are slated to take place during our 2011 Family Advent Calendar activities, starting up next week. I'm off to the craft store to pick up some bells and felted pom poms so they can string up a nice long garland for our tree this year, and some foam cones so we can have a collection of sweater trees to decorate.

What about you...do you do anything crafty with your sweaters after they accidentally get washed? (If not, please don't toss them--I'll take 'em!) Do you have some fun handmade gift ideas to share this holiday season?