Recycle Old Sweaters | How To Make a Sustainable Bag for Shopping

copyright Art of Living, PrimaMedia,Inc/Maria Liberati
All over the world ,people are responding to financial crisis by recycling..or reusing everything from food to every day objects…and with good reason. Food is a precious commodity and should not be wasted if it is still  good and reusable ..so many great recipes to reuse food…
Recycling is great for the environment and produces less waste..I love this bag that recycles an old sweater.  Great for shopping and a stylish way to shop…thanks to Rachel Myers for her guest post and instructions on this..
Guest Post by Rachel Myers
 
Ill-fitting and old sweaters, especially really bad Christmas ones, have a knack for ending up in a closet somewhere and taking up space. You’re never going to wear it again, but who would throw out the sweater you got as a gift? Why not use it instead of wearing it? A simple solution is to make a nifty little bag that you can use for small craft projects, kids things, toys, the grocery store and almost anything else you could think of. And whoever gave you the sweater will be delighted to see you using it instead of hiding it.
The first step is to decide which sweater to use. Plain sweaters tend to work best, but designs can dress it up a bit. For myself, I chose two designed sweaters. The first was a kid size sweater made of sweatshirt material with a small, printed design on the front. The second was a tight knit green sweater with a snowman and lots of snowflakes. After you’ve picked out and washed your sweater, lay it out and mark out your cuts. You are going to make four cuts. First, cut off each sleeve near the seam. If you want a fringe look and a little less sewing, simply leave the seam on the bag. Next, cut out the neck line. This is tricky but if you should end up with a U-shape and two handles. Lastly, trim the bottom of the sweater to the desired bag size.

 
 
If you’re working with a jersey or sweatshirt material, all you need to sew is the bottom edge. You don’t need to worry about fraying edges and only need to clean up the other edges if you want to. For my green knit sweater, I did a few things to avoid it unraveling. First, on the sleeves, I left the seam on so if the edges do fray, they can only go so far. On the neck line, I folded the edge and stitched it. Now it won’t fray and it looks nice. For the bottom edge, I reused the trim from the very bottom of the sweater to create a more flashy edge that helps hide seams and adds a bit of color.

This simple project can be finished in an hour or less and can even be a fun project for kids. You can add iron-ons, sew on seed beads or add a lace trim. You can be as creative as you want to be and end up with a cute, useful bag you can take almost anywhere.
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