From Sweater to Bag

Good evening fellow bloggers.  It's Thursday and I'm just getting around to blogging.  The day was busy and went by so fast but I have a fun project to tell you about and I forgot to take the before picture.  A friend came to me and asked to make a bag out of a boiled wool sweater that she had picked up at a local Salvation Army store.  She loved the handwork on the front of the sweater.  She is not a knitter and loves the felted bags one can knit, so she thought that buying this sweater and  making it into a bag would be the next best thing.  She also picked up two canvas belts with the double rings on the end of the belt.  She asked me if I could use them as the handles on the bag.  I really liked the idea and I told her that I would figure out something for her.  So this is what I did and how it came out:

It took a little bit of time to come up with this bag.  I first deconstructed the sweater, took off the sleeves, the back of the sweater and the front.  I overlapped the two fronts and stitched down the front.  I wasn't worried about unraveling issues because boiled wool will not fray.  The front of the bag was 16" wide when finished.  So I had a piece that was 17" wide with 1/2" for seam allowances.  The length of the bag was 19" long.  I had the front piece pieced together and I had used the back of the sweater for the back of the bag. I had taken the sleeves and had cut as many 5 1/2" wide pieces as I could.  I than pieced  them together to make one long strip that was 5 1/2" wide.  I used this piece as the side of the bag and stitched the front and the back to this long strip.  I evened out this strip with the top of the bag.  I didn't discard the decorative welt that was along the edges of the sweater and sleeves, so I added it to the top of bag for a finished edge.  I also added the sweater pocket to the front of the bag for added storage, maybe a cell phone, keys,etc.....
When I was finished sewing the bag together I took the canvas belts and sewed them to the front and back of the bag.  I left the D rings on the belt on because she thought she could attach keys to the front of the bag instead of searching deep inside the bag.  The belts were slightly different in color but they added to the look of the bag with all the different colors on the front.  The finished bag measurements were:  19" long, 16" wide and the sides were 4 1/2" wide.

My friend was really pleased with this bag and loves using it.  I see it on her shoulder every day at work.  I was pleased with the end results and nothing like keeping a friend  happy.  What do you think?  Until next time Dianne......
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