Recycling sweaters into new accessories

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New Clothes from Old

Often a jersey or sweater will wear through at the elbows or develop a hole somewhere just through use.

While smaller holes can be darned and elbows can be patched over, modern jerseys etc don't lend themselves to patching as it rather ruins the style. The simple answer is that once it has served its purpose as a jersey, it can become something else.

Hats and scarves are not the only things which can be made from old woollens or other tops, legwarmers, mittens and other items can be developed as well.

But first, check whether the woollen is hand knitted. If it is, it can probably be unravelled back into balls of wool to be re-knitted into a new jersey, if not then go ahead and have some fun.

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Recycling sweaters into new accessories by Katherine Carington Smith is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 UK: Scotland License.
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Child's fancy hood/scarf

Fancy hood from a halterneck top. 

... almost any top or jersey can be turned into a hat of some kind

This was an old halterneck party top which I won't be wearing again, that's for sure, my disco days are well and truly over LOL



Even though it looks as if there is hardly any fabric in this item, it will still make a useful recycling project.

You can see that from the front alone we can get a hood with integral scarf which will fit a little girl of about 5 to 7 years old. The remarkable thing is that even after making this hood (I used the form of the polystyrene head as a model for this one) there is enough fabric left to either make mittens or a little bag, once I decide which accessory to make to complete this set, I'll add it here.

I guess you can tell that the hood is simply the top part of this sequinned top cut and stitched to take the form of the head.

Same piece made up as a hat

Halterneck hat 

... a second style from the same fabric

Same halterneck, same hood but with the tails caught up and attached to the edges to increase the size of the hat.

This will now fit a much older child or a small adult and could be worn with the 'blob' at the front or the back.

The 'blob' is where I have tidied away the ends of the tails. If I wanted to leave the hat in this form, I would trim away most of the excess on these tails and have a much flatter 'blob' which could be neatly squared off and tidily stitched.

Decisions decisions ... what to make from this

Stitching to stretch 

... most fabrics give when pulled, you don't want your stitching to snap

You need to bear in mind that all of the hats need to have a bit of stretch in them which means the type of stitching used must be capable of stretching as well.

On a sewing machine, this is easy - overlocking stitches or zigzag stitches will do nicely - but when sewing by hand you need to learn a couple of stitches.

Buttonhole or blanket stitch.



Instead of your stitches being parallel to the edge of the fabric, they are at rightangles to it. This stitch leaves plenty of excess thread to stretch with the fabric BUT don't pull you stitches tight, leave them nice and flat against the fabric. If you pull tight on each stitch it will tend to bunch the fabric up.

It doesn't matter whether you work from right to left or left to right, that will depend on what is most comfortable for you.

Of course, the thread you use should be as close a colourmatch as possible with the fabric you are stitching. I have used black on this small section to make the stitches stand out in the picture.

There are other stitches you can make by hand which will stretch ... oh my, another lens began ... more about stitches on this lens.

Butterfly hat

The Butterfly hat 

... a few sequins can really jazz up a plain hat

Another child's hat and scarf set from an old jersey.

The front of the hat is the top of the sleeve where it meets the shoulder seam.

This is a very fine machine knit artificial fibre fabric which is not very thick so, after cutting them off the jersey, I doubled up the sleeves, one inside the other, and stitched the whole thing doubled.

By cutting across the body of the jersey I had enough fabric to make the scarf. The tassle on the hat and fringes on the scarf are made from the same fabric, finely cut into strands - in fact, they are formed from the remainder of the sleeves (the wrist end) once the hat had been trimmed to length.

The addition of some butterfly sequins and a narrow band of stretch velvet to finish the front edge of the hat completes the look.

Butterfly hat and scarf set

Finishings 

... baubles, beads and all kinds of dangly bits

There are several ways to finish off a hat like these. One option is to crochet a trim around the edge of the hat ... another diagram will be along soon if you're not sure about crochet, trust me, it's very easy.

If you want to add something like a velvet trim but don't have any stretch fabric, you can make almost any fabric stretchy.

On woven fabrics you have the warp and weft at right angles to each other, this makes the fabric nice and strong and it doesn't have much 'give' in it. If you cut that fabric diagonally into strips, you'll find that suddenly, the strip has stretch.

This is called 'cutting on the bias' and you can also buy 'bias binding' from most good haberdashery stores.

Bias cut material should be worked with carefully. It is easiest if first of all you press or iron it so that you have ironed in folds, ready to apply to the edge of your item and stitch. It takes a little time to do this but it will save a great deal of time and make the finish much neater if you do it before you start to apply the trim.

I will add a module showing bias cutting and preparation later in the week.

Of course, you could use swan's down for a really luxurious trim or chunky buttonhole stitches, closely worked, to give a more ethnic feel to the item.

The choice is yours.

What next ... 

... changing garments into something else

I had this big, chunky cotton knit cardigan/jacket thing but it was kind of heavy to wear and the sleeves are too bulky to go under a coat or jacket.

I decided it could become a long waistcoat, leaving me the sleeves to play with. First step, cut the sleeves off.

Making a bobble hat 

... a step by step guide



Having cut off the sleeves - and these were conveniently squared off sleeves rather than the usual shaped to fit the shoulder, or raglan sleeves which are often seen in jerseys - I turned over a small hem and stitched it.

Again, you need a stitch which has a bit of stretch in it and, this time, I used a simple back stitch.



There is enough give in this stitch that it will stretch with the fabric but you must take care not to pull your stitches too tight.

The next step is to decide the length of the hat. I used the polystyrene head, pulling the hat well on before marking where I wanted to cut, quite simply, with the elastic band.



Now the cut end must be stitched. You need to try and catch up the existing knitting as well as possible so that there are no runs, this can be a little hit and miss at times but I get round it with overkill, I will have several rows of stitches which I am drawing tight as I go in order to bring the size of this opening down to nothing.



Once more around and it will be done.

Next step - make the bobble. For this you will need two circles with central holes, cut out in cardboard. Holding the two cardboard circles together, you wind wool around them, going through the central hole until you have plenty of yarn covering the card.



You can use a jar or a cup or whatever you have handy to draw the circles, the central one was a small cotton reel.



Once you have plenty of yarn covering the card (and you can add much more than I did for a fuller bobble) then you can slide a small pair of scissors in between the two layers of card and snip the edges of the yarn.



Then, before removing your yarn from the card, slide another, longer piece of yarn in between the two layers of card and tie the bundle of cut yarn tightly together. Remove the card, Fluff it up and, hey presto, one bobble ready to be stitched onto the top of the hat.



In case you're wondering where I got that yarn from which so perfectly matches the hat ... well, you remember the bit I cut off the wrist end of the sleeve when deciding how long the hat should be ...



To finish off this hat, I added a row of crochet to the edge, helping to bind in the raw edges which I hemmed earlier.



Oh, yes, all I have to do to complete my waistcoat is tidy up the sleeve opening with a little crochet and I still have the other sleeve left to play with ... actually, I discovered that there is enough left in that sleeve for me to make a pair of mittens for myself.

Guess what the next module will be about.

One Bobble hat finished

Matching mittens

Mitts to match 

... completing the look

Over the weekend I got the sewing machine out and made up the mittens to match my bobble hat and my new long waistcoat, all of which used to be a heavy cardigan.



When cutting out the materials for the mitts, you have to be sure that you leave plenty of extra fabric for the seams. First, you have to allow extra because your hands are three dimensional, secondly, because you have to be able to move your fingers inside the mitt, third, because you need an extra half inch on top of that to allow for the seams themselves.

It may seem odd but if you make sure you have left plenty of additional space around your hand, you won't go wrong.

I couldn't quite make the length to cover my wrists but got around this by cutting and attaching an extra cuff piece cut from the scraps left over.



I decided that, since the Winters here get pretty chilly, I needed to use the woolly part doubled and therefore I needed something to line the gloves with and form the palms out of. I found an old pair of white shellsuit bottoms and cut a total of six layers, 4 for the palms and 2 as lining for the backs of the mitts.



All the layers were stitched at the same time, using a zig-zag stitch on my machine. Zig-zag stitch stretches with the fabric.



You can see the mitt still looks large for my hand but when the hand is inside, the size is perfect.



With a normal sweater you can often use the cuff of the sweater as the wristband of the mitts, cutting the whole mitt from the wrist end of the sleeve.

Experiment and enjoy :-)

My fun witchy hat

My Witchy Hat 

... buttons and badges are a great way to jazz up a hat for a younger person

This is just a bit of fun really but I will be wearing it at Hallowe'en.

This was made using both sleeves from a velvet top. After opening the seams down the sleeves, the two pieces are very simply stitched together, turned up at the open end and the badges, buttons etc added.

Effective and fun, this kind of hat might amuse a teen.

You can clearly see it is considerably larger than the child's hood above. I can roll up my hair and keep it all in the 'peak' of the hat out of the way, very useful when gardening etc.

This lens belongs to ... 

featured lens 0ctavia's Recycling Lenses

Recycling is becoming increasingly essential if we are to live sustainably on this little planet. We can recycle or reuse much of what is currently thrown away and doing so has another benefit, it reduces the amount of waste which has to go to landf...

 

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