Craftiness

Christmas is truly over: the tree got picked up from the curb this morning. And since all of my handcrafted gifts have been distributed, and the "pay it forward" prizes have been mailed, it's time for the reveal.

A while back, I came across Alterknits, a book of offbeat knitting projects, which included instructions for a tote bag made out of an old sweater. I loved the idea. Some years ago, I had the idea to make throw pillows out of old sweaters. And one of my favorite baby presents was a blanket made of felted squares of old sweaters. So I started haunting eBay and Goodwill for appealing cheap wool sweaters, and got to work.

I ended up making six tote bags - all different. One had a lining and an outside pocket, two had webbing handles, some had button/loop closures.

And it turned out that the cut-off sleeves and collars were useful too: I turned them into little bags, for an iPod or cellphone or whatever. Of the two purple ones here, the smaller one was made from the turtleneck of a sweater and the larger one was the forearm part of a sleeve (turned inside out).

The whole project was a lot of fun - even if I did have to run the washing machine over and over again with HOT water. And the cellar ended up full of lint. But I was enormously pleased with myself, and feedback from the recipients has been good: my sister-in-law is worried that she's going to wear hers out from overuse.

If you're at all interested or inspired, the directions for these totebags are here.