Uzbek Napramach Bag

I had a lot of fun making this bag! I had a whole pile of brightly dyed recycled yarns and I wanted to find a project that would allow me to show them off to their best advantage. I adapted this from a design by Vicki Square, published in the very inspiring book Folk Bags. She called it "Napramach" which is an Uzbek word for a type of bag used to store household supplies. I shortened her design a bit to make it work better as a purse, lined it with a deep purple silky fabric, and added a very neat woven strap.

The lining is stiffened with interfacing to give structure to the bag. This makes for a really lovely combination of textures: The tightly-knit wool/silk yarns on the outside, the stiff interior, and the silky lining.

Handles and straps are one of the weakest points of knitting. Frequently knitted handles stretch way out, are too skinny for comfort or else have a less-than-ideal texture. In my quest to overcome these weaknesses, I've been exploring the technique of card-weaving on an inkle loom. My amazing husband just built me a gorgeous inkle loom for this purpose, and this bag handle was my first card-woven strap.

Card weaving allows for beautifully intricate patterns and produces a very sturdy product in the end.

One other note about this bag: It's made entirely from recycled yarns, and four of the colors (blue, green, yellow and pink - the four in the strap) are a wool/silk blend that I dyed with Easter egg dyes! The red and purple are wool yarns dyed with black cherry and grape Kool Aid respectively. All of them are really great semi-solids that worked beautifully into the colorwork patterns of this bag.

Suggested Retail: $40

A Chameleon and Egg

Lizards come from eggs too! This Chameleon is the newest reversible toy in my collection, and is made out of more hand-dyed recycled yarns.

He has the amazing ability of camouflaging himself to the ball of yarn he was knit from!

Even the egg can camouflage itself! (On very select backgrounds anyway).

Suggested Retail: $16.00. Come see it in person at the Bloomington Handmade Market this weekend!

Needle Books

In addition to all the things I've been knitting from recycled yarns, I also have been sewing some neat projects from felted sweaters. Most of the sweaters that Ive collected have turned into oven mitts, but I made some sewing needle books from a few of the leftover pieces. I love both the way the books and the photos of them turned out, so I'm going to give you lots of looks at these cool little sewing accessories.

Needle books are a good companion to a pincushion because they don't let the needles sink in and get lost the way they would if you kept your needles in your pincushion. But they're not only great for keeping your regular straight needles - they can accommodate skinny beading needles, curved upholstery needles - even safety pins!

The needle books come in a variety of sizes and keep the coolest features of the sweater they came from (texture, embroidery, pattern, etc.). They all close securely with a snap.

I'll have these six needle books for sale at the Bloomington Handmade Market this weekend, but I have a lot more felted sweaters to work with so the varieties are limitless!

Suggested Retail: $10.00

Tropical Fish Egg Toy

Here's a new reversible egg toy! This tropical fish showcases a couple of my hand-dyed recycled yarns, and was a lot of fun to design.

Since fish eggs are transparent, I thought about knitting the egg with fishing line. Deciding that would be difficult and likely to be wonky-shaped, I ended up using a white cotton (recycled) yarn which gives a nice transparent effect. It also keeps the nice soft kid-friendliness of this toy intact.

Swish!

Fish kisses!

Suggested retail: $16.00

Knitting Needle Organizers

Until a few months ago, I kept most of my knitting tools in a plastic shoe box. This was a little awkward, because the long needles didn't fit inside, and the whole box had a habit of tipping over and spilling everywhere. This summer, I inherited a tool bag and knitting needle roll from my husband's grandmother. The roll was not nearly big enough for all my needles, but gave me the answer to my organizational quandary. Thus, I designed the large needle organizer roll pictured above to suit my needs.

From left to right: An orgainizer roll made from a basmati rice sack, one made from my favorite pair of embroidered blue jeans, and my own roll (not for sale).

All of these knitting needle organizers are made from upcycled fabrics. The label of the linen striped hippie shirt that went into two of the rolls made me smile.

Because these are rather a specialty item and take quite a bit of time to create, I only made two of them to sell. But I do love both of these rolls! The first is made from a basmati rice burlap sack, and lined with linen fabric from a pair of men's pants and the red striped hippie shirt.

This organizer roll closes with a loop from the bag's handle, around a button from a cast-off leather coat.

A close-up of the embroidery on the organizer made from my favorite blue jeans. This roll is slightly longer and heavier-duty than the burlap and linen organizer, and is lined with a pair of my husband's pants. It closes in a similar fashion to the roll above, with a loop made from jeans belt loops and a vintage button.

Both rolls have a lot of pockets, sewn in sizes from 1/2 in. to 4 in. This allows you to tuck away everything from the smallest knitting needles to more awkwardly shaped tools, like small circular needles, stitch holders , or leather thimbles. Basically, anything which is small enough to get lost in a tool bag has a home in this organizer roll. Plus, they both have a small burlap patch into which you can safely place your tapestry needles. I love this feature on mine!

Each knitting needle organizer comes with a free felted stitch marker.

Suggested Retail: $35.00

Felted Pincushions

In the same style as the felted bouncy balls, I knit this bright tomato pincushion from some of my recycled hand-dyed yarns. It's an unique twist on that indispensable accessory of seamstresses: the tomato pincushion.

I also made a slightly larger version from a couple of felted sweaters. This one has more dimension than the smaller tomato, and is tied with the same hand-dyed recycled yarn that I used to knit the top pincushion. Both pincushions are secured with a vintage button also rescued from a thrift store sweater. I love both styles and love to imagine them in the hands of a fellow crafter, holding the tools to make something handmade and beautiful.

Suggested Retail: $8 for the small knit pincushion, $10 for the large pincushion.

Leather Thimbles

When I go on a prolonged knitting spree, usually around Christmas time, sometimes I'll wear my fingers raw. I have an old leather thimble that I use on these occasions, and every time I pull it out I'm so thankful to the person who invented them. Leather thimbles are flexible enough to move supplely with your finger, but stiff enough to keep the pokes of knitting and sewing needles from irritating your fingers.

It wasn't until a few days ago that I realized I had the supplies to make some pretty cool upcycled leather thimbles right in my sewing room. These leather thimbles are made from old leather jackets (and the elbow patches of a cast-off sweater), with the ribbing from felted sweaters for elastic. They're extremely comfortable and flexible. Come check out my booth at the Bloomington Handmade Market on Saturday and you can try them out for yourself!

Suggested Retail: $5.00

Felt Beads: Stitch Markers and Earrings

Here's a really cool item for my fellow knitters: felted bead stitch markers! And for you fun-loving non-knitters, you can also get them as earrings!

These bright marbled balls are solid felt, made from the hand-dyed recycled yarn I've reclaimed from sweaters. To turn them into felt balls I had to tease the spun yarn apart, card it back into a wool roving, and then hand-roll and felt them with soapy water in the sink. I love the contrast of the soft wool beads with the smooth wooden beads.

My husband Collin built me a beautiful stand to display the stitch markers and earrings on. He didn't have a power saw available, so he made all of those mitered cuts by hand. God has given me a very good husband.

The earrings have silver-plated brass hooks. They make for a really fun fashion statement!

Suggested Retail: A set of four stitch markers (suitable for knitting needle sizes 0-7) for $5.00, or a pair of earrings for $5.00. If you'd like stitch markers in a larger size, I can change out the rings for an extra dollar.

Felted Angora Rabbits

My garden is being overrun with rabbits!

Many years ago, I knit a toy rabbit for one of my younger siblings. It was really cute, but a lot of work to knit on fine gauge needles. Then I saw a version of this stuffed bunny in a book, based on that same pattern, but sewn from a felted angora sweater. Perfect! I found a white angora/wool sweater which had already been shrunk at Goodwill, took it apart, dyed some of it with tea and some with pink lemonade, and created this herd of rabbits.

Each rabbit is stitched with love, and stuffed with lusciously soft mohair roving.

This white rabbit is the only one with a detailed face. I thought I'd see what colored eyes and a nose looked like. I liked them, but not any more than the plain version. That, and the fact that I broke my felting needle on this rabbit made my decision to leave the other bunnies unadorned an easy one.

You really have to feel these bunnies to appreciate how soft they are.

Suggested Retail: $8.00 each.

Re-purposed, upcycled yarn!

A few weeks ago I was came close to despairing at the cost of nice yarn. Like any knitter, I love knitting with quality, animal-fiber yarns but our slim budget doesn't really allow for buying specialty yarns. Then I remembered how, back in January, I had some beautiful results with reused, hand-dyed yarn from a thrift store sweater. Finally, I decided to try to stock my yarn cupboard this fall with more gorgeous upcycled yarn.

First I needed to find the right sweater to unravel. I found this 100% lambswool sweater at the Salvation Army for $2.99. It was perfect for what I needed - unfelted, large and with simple seaming. After picking apart the seams carefully, I unraveled each piece and wound them into long skeins.

The yarn skeins looked a lot like ramen noodles - way crinkley!

Next, I soaked the wool skeins in the sink for half an hour while I mixed up the dyes. For this batch, I just used Kool-Aid (and knock-off store brand powdered drink mixes). They make bright, beautiful color-fast dyes. Kind of scary when you think that kids are drinking that stuff!

Then I poured the dye over the wool skeins in stripes, pressing the dye in by hand to make sure it penetrated all layers. My hands ended up as brightly colored as the yarn!

With one of the skeins I tried an experiment that I saw somewhere else online. I poured blue dye into one half of a casserole dish, and green in the other half. Then I placed the skein in the dish, folded up, and let it soak up the dye without moving it around. This worked fairly well, but it did leave some areas un-dyed. Fortunately the small amounts of white worked well with the sea-colors of the finished yarn. I'm hoping to make some sea-monster items out of this yarn!

After the yarn was thoroughly dyed, I took it out to the back yard to cook in the warmth, sun-tea style. Heat helps the yarn absorb the dye and make it colorfast.

After a couple hours in the sun I brought the yarn indoors, rinsed it thoroughly (although the yarn had absorbed the dye so well that not much rinsed out), and hung it to dry. Do you like my improvised drying rack which doubles as a floor lamp?

To measure the yarn my husband screwed a couple bolts into a board 18" apart. This was a rather tedious way of finding out approximately how many yards were in a ball of yarn, and hopefully I'll be able to come up with a better way later on. Nevertheless, I discovered that with this particular yarn 250 yards = 2.3 oz = 65 grams.

The yarn sure makes a beautiful skein.

Most of the yarn I wound up on my new Lacis Ball-winder - my favorite new tool! It really sped up the process of winding from skeins, plus the balls are very attractive. Although the balls vary in size somewhat (such must be the case when using recycled yarn) I made sure that each ball had at least 250 yards.

And there you have it, an old sweater turned into a beautiful, bright pile of yarn! The only question remaining is - how does it knit? And what about felting?

Well, here is a pair of t-strap booties that I knit with large needles in order to felt them. Kind of misshapen at first...

...but so sophisticated after felting!

These Mary Janes were knitted on small needles, so they are close in size to the felted booties. Another style, same yarn.

The Mary Janes are newborn sized, and the T-strap booties are just a bit bigger at 0-3 months.

Suggested retail: $7/250 yard ball of yarn, and $15 each for a pair of simple booties like these.

Stay tuned for more dye lots and projects with upcycled sweaters. I've got a lot more in the works that I'll be posting as the weather cools down and our thoughts turn to stylish warm accessories!