Tuesday, September 09, 2014

patchwork sweater blanket

I love upcycling all kinds of things but one of my favorites are old or thrifted sweaters. You can transform an old sweater in all kinds of things (pillows, poufs, arm warmers, even a new sweater) but one of my favorite things to make is a blanket. With fall coming, you can never have enough cozy blankies (thats what we call them around here)!

When I am out thrifting I am always on the lookout for cheap sweaters with colors or pattern that catch my eye. I like to keep a little stash in the studio for fall and winter projects. 

I grab a few sweaters (I used 4 for this blanket and have enough leftover for another project). I like to pick funky and unexpected color and pattern combos.

Next, I cut them up into different sized squares and rectangles.

Then I piece them together, pin everything and get busy sewing!

Sewing sweaters can be a little tricky and messy because once you cut up a sweater it will want to unravel.

I use a really tight zig zag stitch when sewing the pieces together. This keeps everything together and helps to avoid any unraveling.

I stitch everything on the outside because I prefer to have my stitching and seams show (that's just my style not a requirement). The cool things that happens when you are sewing sweaters with a zig zag stitch is that the seams get curly which adds more texture to the surface.

I sew everything together and call it good! While you could back the blanket I prefer not to because I like the back side of all the sweaters showing.






13 comments:

Emie58 said...

GREAT idea..... makes me want to go out and buy a serger for those raw edges... will be making one of these for sure!!! Thank you for the inspiration!!!!!

Sue Marrazzo Fine Art said...

What a lovely idea!!!

Karin said...

Sieht wunderschön aus! Eine tolle Idee!
LG Karin

lilyandthelotus.blogspot.com said...

Love your way of adding brilliance to your studio. You have more patience than I do but it seems you love this...I have several in my storage you would love lol
Have fun and so looking forward to your classes.
susan s

An_Geli_Ka said...

absolut cool...now i know what do to with my really loved old staff ;-)

stefanie stark said...

Oh this blanket looks super cool! It was such a wonderful surprise this morning to find something beautiful like this when I went to your blog. Thank you for all the wonderful inspiration you always share!

Roben-Marie said...

Absolutely gorgeous!!

Anonymous said...

great idea !!! I love the mix of soft colors punctuated by touches of pink vivid !!!
Bravo!

Kolein said...

It's so gorgeous!

<3

Anonymous said...

great idea, thanks. just a thought, couldn't you zigzag stitch around the square before cutting to ensure raveling does not happen, then zigzag over these stitches again when joining squares together?

Anonymous said...

Is there anyway you could do this without a sewing machine, because i don't have one at home but i absolutely love this idea!

Anonymous said...

Can you crochet. You might be able to crochet the edges together. I was thinking of trying that. Or you could try hand sewing being careful to catch the stitches on the sweater that might unravel.

Sanjay Sharma said...

Nice

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