The Pledge
I have officially signed the pledge provided by the Wardrobe Refashion blog site. I made a commitment to myself and my blog that I will not buy any clothing new or used for the period of one year, but the site only gives you the option of 2/4 or 6 months. You can of course renew your vows after each time period has expired. If you are interested, visit the site by clicking on the icon.
I also vowed to pack up all my clothing that did not come from a dumpster and start over, so as to have a 100% cast-off, reject, garbage wardrobe. Well, I had been doing really well with that. Finding clothes like crazy in dumpsters, but when I got sick this past weekend and was just freezing, well I put on a hat. I didn’t realize until I had been wearing the hat for 2 days that it was not a dumpster hat. My only consolation is that I did actually sew it myself. But even considering that, it does not fit within the parameters of my rules. Not because I made it and didn’t find it, but because I purchased the material new. So since I have not found a hat, I decided I needed to make a hat out of something I found in the dumpster. Here is what I found and how I made my hat.
I found an Abercrombie and Fitch, mostly wool sweater, that had seen better and bigger days. The whole sweater was shrunken or felted. Someone may have thrown it in their washer or dryer by accident or even on purpose not knowing what would happen. The body of the sweater was the same size as my head so I thought I would just cut off the sleeves and the top. I put it on and tried to pin along the curve of my head to get it to fit just right. Then I sewed it together using two strands of embroidery thread and an embroidery needle. I think it came out fairly well. It has some bumps in it where it just doesn’t fit that well, but I may still be able to fix it. It was a little itchy on my forehead so I think I will be making a more comfy hat a soon as I find some polar fleece that has been tossed.
cc said,
February 13, 2008 at 11:51 am
Cool hat! Are the sleeves big enough to make mittens out of? There’s a woman in Massachusetts who makes pillows and blankets with used sweaters- Crispina- I think?
Mommalynne said,
February 13, 2008 at 10:53 pm
Or make a scarf out of the sleeves if they are long enough. Sew them together.
wasteweardaily said,
February 14, 2008 at 9:10 am
Hi CC and Mommalynne
Thanks for the suggestions. I was wondering what to do with the sleeves, but it had not occured to me to make something to go along with the hat. The sleeves are not big enough for mittens, but may make a nice scarf. I’ll see what I can do. I’ll check out Crispina.
Cindy in FL
Lauriloo said,
March 3, 2008 at 1:51 pm
A local lady makes fetching stuffed animals out of old sweaters. They all have button eyes harvested from old sweaters and many of them wear outfits made from other old sweaters. If you were sufficiently obsessed, you could stuff and stitch them with old sweater yarn. Here are some examples I googled. Not nearly as good as the ones I’m talking about, but you get the basic idea. http://www.uncommongoods.com/item/item.jsp?itemId=14627