It all started when Mr NixBits walked into the room, distraught because his favourite lambswool jumper had been viciously attacked by killer moths and was hopelessly ruined. Ever the dutiful wife (stop laughing, those of you who know me!), I resolved to find another use for the beloved grey sweater, which we bought in the USA a few years back and was therefore irreplaceable. I, of course, trawled the internet for ideas and found the wonderfully easy to follow tutorial, a link to which I have posted at the bottom right of this page (only because I cannot work out how to put it here!!). So firstly I felted the jumper….
and then drew some templates of my size 5′s…
Then cut out top and bottom templates……
and then trawled the internet to learn how to do blanket stitch….don’t laugh, it was my first attempt! I then attached the strips of the ribbed edge of the jumper to tighten up the top of the slippers…….
and here’s the roughly finished product!
and here’s the underside with Sock Stop squirted on, so I don’t break my neck on the wooden and tiled floors in our house….
Now of course, this has set me off on a whole new, addictive path. I thoroughly enjoyed the therapeutic repetition of blanket stitch and fell in love with making things out of other things, so have since been trawling the local charity shops for woolly jumpers and old blankets, which are now filling the house to such an extent that our builder, who is in in the process of building me a studio down the garden (amongst other things) has suggested it may need to be a two storey structure just to fit everything in!!
Here are my first attempts at using this wonderful stash – aptly named “Creepy Critters” as I seem to be incapable of producing anything that doesn’t look like an extra from a freaky Tim Burton movie. Scary Hare (or Rabbit in the Headlights) and his two brown chums were made from an old Witney blanket, which was made just a few miles up the road from where I live, sold by Habitat and then discovered by me in a local charity shop for a mere £3.75. I could probably make 100 critters out of it and still have some left over!!
If you have any other ideas of things to create from old woolly jumpers and blankets, please feel free to share!
Love & hugs, Nikki xxx
