I have had many interesting sweaters to turn into special memory pillows recently. My client sent several sweaters to me, including one knit by her mother. It is a classic Kaffe Fassett design – bold and colorful.
As a knitter, I can appreciate the handwork that went into it!
It was also hard to cut into it! My client requested two pillows. I made two, 14″ pillows and had to piece the backs.
Forgive the selfie, but I also made a cowl for my client. I couldn’t bear to let the beautiful ribbing go to waste and thought it would make a nice neck warmer. I lined it with a thin polar fleece.
She sent a zip up sweater that had quite a few moth holes in it. I asked her if she would like me to applique some hearts and she liked that idea. I felted the sleeves to create a dense fabric and simply appliqued hearts over the holes.
The same client returned to me with another Kaffee Fassett sweater.
My client asked me to make a headband out of the ribbing. This was a bit challenging and I’m not 100% satisfied with the result. The dark side is the sweater bottom and was pulled in more. I tried sewing a piece of ribbing to the yellow side, folding it over and stitching it down. Despite using stretchy stitches, the final product did not stretch much. For my second attempt, I simply serged along the top edge. That helped it remain stretchy, but it the two sides still had different levels of stretch. They expanded to the same distance, but had different expansion. You can see the second attempt on my head.
I tried a third option, which was to felt the fabric and sew it to some ribbing.
The fabric was so pretty, I decided to try a few extra things for my client. So I serged the scraps and put them in the wash on hot with some towels. I had to go through two cycles. I created this simple, zip bag.
I really enjoy creating new things from old things.
