Sweater Weather

Even though it's not quite sweater weather here in San Francisco, I've had sweaters on the brain for the last couple of weeks. I love repurposed sweater crafts. Remember all of these great ideas? Well, I wanted to come up with some things of my own out of a few sweaters that I was ready to part with. I thought a little patchwork throw would be cute, but I didn't have quite enough sweaters so I hit the thrift store, and now I seem to have developed a sweater addiction. I've amassed quite a sweater collection. After a warm wash and dry, they're in fluffy, wooly piles on the floor in our bedroom. Instead of making the throw for now, I've been making pillows. Lots and lots of pillows!

Lisa is having a little craft sale get-together at her house in November and asked if I'd like to participate. I wanted to use the sweaters and thought pillows would be fun to make. I think I've made 12 so far, but these are a few favorites. My wool town pillow, remote control pillow, and sweater vest pillow. Last weekend at the flea market I bought a small stack of wool plaid blanket samples. I wasn't sure what I'd do with them, but they were so great I thought I could come up with something. They're the perfect size for a little houses.

Lisa actually gave me the idea for the remote pillow. I have a cute little pillow with a pocket in the back, but I've never known what it was for. It's the size of a credit card, so I thought maybe it was a tooth fairy pillow. I tried to think of some other pocket ideas for pillows and Lisa suggested a remote pocket. It's been quite handy the last few days! That darn thing always goes missing, doesn't it? Like socks in the dryer, it just seems to disappear sometimes. Not anymore! The pocket and back for this pillow is from a super soft cashmere sweater. The remote now has a posh home and won't get lost. (Caroline gave me the needlepoint bunny pillow--it just looks cute with remote pillow.)

And the grey one above is from a really pretty sweater vest. I wanted to keep it to wear, but it was way too itchy. And for this one I made my first buttonholes with my sewing machine! That was so fun. I made them a little too big, but I just ended up using larger buttons, which fixed the problem.

These are just a few of the pillows. My favorite pillow design will have to stay a secret until after Christmas. It's for a few little people in my family. They wouldn't see it on my blog, but their mommy would.