Fall is in the air and that was the inspiration for a weekend of “what was old is new again” projects in the LooseKnit workshop. Perfect for some quick knits for gifts and then overhauling some rather forlorn items.

Project 1: Steeking a sweater that was never right for me to begin with.

As a knitter myself, I rarely purchase knitted items. On a trip with my mom to Orcas Island a few years ago, I spied a beautiful fair isle sweater that I could not resist, and my wonderful mom chipped in with me to help me buy it.  It was right in color, but just enough too big and bulky that it was never a good fit for me. After a few years of non use, I had tried fulling it to take it down a notch, but it was just still just too big as you can see from the bad photo below. It’s been gathering dust and pills on the bottom of my sweater stack for too long.

This weekend I decided it was time to either do something else to make it wearable, or just find it a new home. I took scissors in hand and sliced it right up the front. Though many knitters are horrified at the thought, steeking, as this method is called, is a time-honored knitting technique.

Since the steeks result in raw edges, I applied I-cord down the front (had the perfect color and weight in my stash) and added a band of purple Angora on the inside, to encase the raw, steeked edge, and for just a touch of luxury. Still needs buttons and button holes so I’ll steek those next. For now, I have a cardigan I may actually be able to wear!

Project 2: New Pair of Slippers

Last week I found a name brand child’s sweater at one of our local thrift shops. Knowing it would work best as felt, no matter what I decided to turn it into, I washed it and just kept looking at it for a few days. I finally realized there was just enough in the body sections to make a pair of felted clogs. So, a little pattern draping, some machine sewing, a bit of knitting a pink I-cord around the top, and some finishing by hand yielded this pair of slippers. As I was working on them, my color blind husband yelled out, “Dibbs!” He thinks they are tan and brown, haha. I’ll work on a pattern and see if I can replicate these for others on my gift list.