Six Steps To A Felted Wool Purse

I read a post about a year ago where the author turned a wool sweater into a purse.  The blog was called Sweet Grace and I have been dying to give it a try ever since.

I would have tried it right away but 100% wool sweaters are hard to come by here.   Bakersfield is located in Southern California and is on the edge of a desert. 

Step 1 – Find a Sweater-  I finally found one for $2.75 at my favorite Goodwill.  Luckily I loved the color since it was the lovely olive green sweater or no sweater at all.

Step 2 - Now that I had the prefect sweater I washed it twice in hot water and then dried it on hot.

 

 

This was the first time I had felted wool so I was surprised at how much shrunk up.

Once the wool has been washed and dried it binds together and it cuts just like fleece.  I was surprised at how easily it cut and there was indeed no unraveling and no need to finish the edges.

Step 3 – Cut off the sleeves and the seam between the sleeve and the body of the sweater.

Step –4- Cut out the collar of the sweater in a deep V, making the opening the same depth as the armholes.   These openings will be the straps of the bag and since the sweater is now smaller you may need to cut the armholes making them larger.

 

I cut one side of the collar and folded the sweater and used the first armhole as a pattern to cut the second one.

Step 5 – Turn the sweater inside out and refold the sweater so that the sides become the front and back and sew together the bottom of the sweater.  

I had a hard time figuring out how to fold the sweater into a purse shape so I have numbered the seams on this photo of the finished bag.

1. The original side seams, now the front.

2.  The original front and back are now the sides of the bag.

3.  The original armholes.

4.  The original collar.

Step 6 – I wanted to add a little embellishment so I used some of the left over sleeve material and cut out some leaves.  I used the machine to sew a few veins on the leaves before I glued them on to the purse and then I added a few old buttons.

 

And here is the finished bag.  I had never worked on this type of project and I had a total blast working on it.

 

I want to thank Sweet Grace for inspiring me to give this a try.

Thanks for reading,
Traci



Thanks for reading,

I will be linking up to these wonderful parties.