Finding something to repurpose, bring back to life, beautify, or otherwise transform is something that has always motivated me. For me, it has taken many forms… from flipping a foreclosed property, to reconfiguring a financial system, to more recently creating crafts. We always have more available to draw on than what is directly in front of us when we add our imagination and vision. I remember seeing the El Anatsui display at the Denver art museum and really appreciated that he was inspired to use the metal from liquor bottle tops to make malleable sculpture that looked like cloth. It was his imagination and vision that saw liquor bottle tops and envisioned something more. Up-cycling is another way to describe how to apply this concept. My most recent examples of this are with mittens, slippers and woven pillows.
So… I started making mittens way before the Bernie Sanders thing. I am talking months before. Okay, that’s not that long, but still, it was before. I was inspired by the idea of up-cycling felted sweaters because I lucked upon a ton of 100% wool sweaters last summer. My first project with the sweaters prior to the mittens was slippers, for my family last Christmas. 18 pairs to be exact. I convinced them to send me outlines of their feet for a surprise Christmas gift. The cool thing about the slippers is that in addition the wool upper, I also re-used leather for the soles from a couch I reupholstered. Okay, back to the mittens. As I mentioned, my first inspiration was the sweaters, but I also found some wool scrap fabric from a Colorado coat company and started using those for the mittens as well since they were more sturdy. I found an old YouTube video on cashmere sweater repurposing and thought what a great use they would be for my mitten linings instead of felt. Boy are they warm and soft!
When making projects, there is always a little material remaining that isn’t used up. From making scarves and blankets, I have bags of scrap yarn left over and I nearly threw it away before I saw some videos on creative wall hanging weavings. Of course I didn’t have a loom yet, but that didn’t stop me. I found a small table loom and began teaching myself different patterns. It was fun to look through all of the scrap yarn to find colors that went together or created an interesting pattern. Something that would never be enough for even a baby sock was well used on my woven canvas. It also took the pressure off of me as I was learning because it wasn’t an expensive material I had purchased, it was just scrap yarn. I have since made my weavings into wallets and purses as well as pillows.
My last example of up cycling is wool clothing. I used to love to wear wool skirts, which have since fallen out of fashion, but I still have a number of them in my closet. I have been able to use these to make purses that are current and unique. I also found I was able to use the extra wool scraps from my mittens to make my daughter a jacket and a quilt. I seem to have rubbed off on my dad as well who recently cannibalized his old coffee table to make my soap displays. I hope you too can find something in your life to transform and up-cycle to create a new life for otherwise overlooked items.
