Upcycling Sweaters

People, let’s be clear about one thing. I love a good tag sale. I was raised on them.

Saturday mornings in my childhood were spent riding shotgun in my mother’s Ford Escort careening around the backroads of Connecticut looking for tag sales, with a bagel clutched in my hand– “breakfast on the road” and quarter to go wild with at the first stop.  Who knows what treasures await?  Balls of yarn! Old books! Vintage fox stoles! Oh, adventure!  Still to this day, I can’t resist the pull of that large piece of cardboard saying “Garage Sale”.

But this weekend is the Superbowl of tag sales.  The Olympics of thrifting. People of the Bay Area–I give you–the annual Oakland Museum White Elephant sale!

It is a hullabaloo of second hand goodies that makes me break out in a sweat of shopping excitement as soon as I enter the sale.

Every year, I set my cap on a certain item–cool vintage sheets from the seventies, old knitting magazines, used board games.  This year, I’m all about the sweaters. Yup! Because I want to try that green craftiness that I’ve been hearing so much about from Martha.  You know, taking old sweaters and turning them into something just as awesome, if not more so than the original sweater.    It is even greener than recycling–upclycing.

If you are not in such a crafty mood or too busy to craft (cough cough), you should check out other people’s craftiness at Etsy.

Sesame Seed designs creates these gorgeous felted caps for babies that kills me!  I can’t decide between the deer and the dinosaur… Or the leaf.

I love the sweaters made from a sweater!  Like this bye bye Birdie sweater!

Or this ric rac rainbow cardi. People, you know how I feel about ricrac.  Both are from Etsy seller, Poppytop Sweaters.

Etsy seller Snugglepants turns the sleeves of sweaters into the cutest and warmest pants around! Like these orange stripey ones or these crazy striped ones.  Very clever indeed!

But I had to finish this post the same way I started it. With this little lady.  Joseph may have had his technicolor dream coat, but check out this very colorful patterned skirt made from old sweaters on it’s charming young model.  I’ll take the boots, the rabbit fur vest and vintage luggage too, please!  Actually, I’ll take the little girl to boot! She is working that skirt like nobody’s business!

The perfect ensemble for going to a tag sale with your Mom!

5 thoughts on “Upcycling Sweaters

  1. Thanks Marla! I love wooly-baby too! Sadly, their Etsy shop was empty because they have been so popular, but true–what a great site! I want them in my size too!

  2. I love making new things out of old sweaters. We (people who cloth diaper around these parts) use wool pants are diaper covers over cloth diapers. They are breathable and comfortable and darn near bullet proof! They are my most reliable solution for heavy wetters over-night. You can search for wool pants on Etsy by searching for longies, woollies, etc. So, they’ cute pants are more green than many people probably realize.

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