Recycled Wool Sweater Becomes Tote Bag

Last year my friend Dixie (happy birthday, Dixie!) introduced me to Betz White and the concept of felting wool sweaters for repurposing. I even picked up some sweaters at the thrift store for that purpose.

Then I recently saw Wendy’s sweater tote, subsequently found one at Canadian Living, and decided a tote would be my first felting project.

I found a men’s large 100% wool sweater on the dollar rack the thrift store. I liked the tone-on-tone stripe.

After two trips through the washing machine on hot with high agitation, and machine drying, it shrank down to this (use the couch cushions for size comparison).

I cut it apart:

The above linked instructions just used the shoulders as the handles, but I wanted longer straps to be able to carry it over my shoulder. So, I cut two basically equal pieces from the sleeves.

I pinned and sewed across the bottom (wrong side out). The instructions show turning it so that the sweater side seams are down the front and back; I didn’t do that since I was changing it up a little. I did sew a gusset, as shown on the Canadian Living diagrams.

After turning it right side out, I pinned the pieces of sleeves to the shoulder sections (which I had cut apart at the seam) and sewed straight across. There were two of these, forming two straps.

Felted wool will not ravel, but for a finished look, I turned all the raw edges under and sewed around.

Here’s the finished bag!

This was fun (other than the sewing machine giving me fits; I think it may be on its way out), and the end result looks pretty good, but I learned a few things.

1.The two wool straps are too thick and bulky to comfortably carry on my shoulder. Next time, I’m going to modify it to a single-strapped bag.

2. A lining would make the bag more functional, and neater looking on the inside.

3. Hand-sewing certain sections would make for less frustration while topstitching on the machine, and a nicer looking finished product.

I plan to try this again and will show you any improvements I’ve made.

Edit: Go here to see how I remade this bag.