Inspiration for My 13th Day

A Sweater Purse in the Making

Yesterday I found myself at the local bookstore and couldn't help but look to see if there were any books to give me ideas for new projects. In fact I found two! One of them, Sweater Surgery: How to Make New Things with Old Sweaters by Stefanie Girard was the inspiration for today. The book has many patterns to make everything from hats to stuffed animals, and it has several  purses in the mix. One of the purses, called "Gathering-Up-the-Goodies" Bag was what brought me to starting my purse. Though I like to have a pattern to start with, I end up almost always changing something. This is no different.

The beginnings of my purse:

Soft cocoa-brown sweater.

Here's the label:
94% Lambswool, 5% Nylon, 1% Spandex
It is soooo very soft.

Here was the hard part: making the first cut. I had to  hold my breath.
You can see the "incision" line--the white chalk marks.
This does feel like surgery!

Very hard to make that cut, but here it is. I succeeded.

Another cut. They say it gets easier, but not so far :-/

Removing the sleeve from the body of the sweater.

The sleeve cut into one long strip for the handle of the purse.

This is the experiment of the project. Since I didn't like the way the pattern indicated to put in the curtain grommets I am testing a slit reinforced with a bound-buttonhole using the ribbed portion of a pink felted sweater. This is the reverse side.

This is the front. Very classy I think.

Here I have stitched the bottom seam of the purse. (The section that I cut first.)
Now I'm using my sewing machine. Time to branch out from hand sewing.

I have spent several hours on this, and now I must put it to bed for the night. More to do tomorrow.