Whimsy Space: How to turn a sweater into a purse

Thursday, January 26, 2012

How to turn a sweater into a purse

I have a friend who is a knitter and wanted a new project bag. She had spied a purse that I made for my daughter out of a sweater and and presented me with this sweater the next day!

Cute sweater to hold yarn!!

The problem was, it had a bunch of holes in it! The only requests she had were to make it as big as possible and have an over the shoulder strap.

So I cut out two rectangles, cutting around the holes.

I added stabilizer to give the purse some strength and make it easier to sew, then I serged the sides.

I thought a liner would be nice with a pocket for needles or scissors. Since this was a recycling project, I used material from an old skirt! See the tag.

Be sure to leave an opening at the bottom of the lining for turning!

I used one of the sleeves to make the shoulder strap. I just used the width of my ruler and used my rotary cutter. Then I added stabilizer.

I cut 3, but I only needed 2.

I sewed them together and the unravelling edge and saved the finished end for attaching to the body of the bag.

Since I had a little extra material, I decided to make a flap. This pic doesn't show that I have two sides that I sewed together. I again used stabilizer and I made the finished edge the outside edge of the bag.

I joined the unravelling edge to the body of the bag.

Attached my strap to the outside of the bag.

Then, I sewed the lining to the bag. I am sorry I don't have a pic of this, but it goes like this...put your bag right side out, then put it inside the lining that has the wrong side out (so right sides are together). Sew all around the outside edges. Turn the bag out of the lining and sew up your turning hole.

Top stitch the lining so it will lay flat. I added some velcro to keep the flap closed. Things were looking good, but one problem was just bugging me, there was a hole right on the top flap. I had tried to mend it, but I could still see it.