Old Wool Sweaters = New Purse

A dear friend (Gail, you know who you are!) makes the best wool purses...so she encouraged me to give it a try. First, I went to garage sales and thrift stores and looked for sweaters that were made of at least 90% wool.  I didn't pay over $1 for each of them. I also picked up purse handles, but you don't have to have them, you could just use the sweater material. I washed them in hot water, then dried in the dryer. This shrunk them and 'felted' them. They were ready for cutting.

Today, I took these supplies above, along with fun material for the lining and turned it into this (below).

And the inside looks like this below.

I just made it up as I went along, so I decided that a tutorial would not be good since I really didn't know what the outcome would be. The leopard print fabric are side pockets (on each side, inside) to hold my cell phone, keys, etc. The three sweaters that I used cost $2. The handles were 50¢, and the rest, lining scrap fabric and buttons I already had on hand. So the total cost was...$2.50! Plus my time of one hour. And I have enough left over to make another purse! Pretty good, don't you think? You can enlarge each picture by clicking on it, then click again for larger detail. You can then use your 'back' button to return to my blog. Terry
I'm linking up to these parties:
Sassy's Trash to Treasure
Linda's Nifty Thrifty Tuesday 
Kim's Boring to Better Party Wednesday 
Kelli's ReStored It Wednesday 
Gina's Transformation Thursday
Becky's Under $100 Party Thrusday
Wendy's Frugal Friday 
Funky Junk Interiors Sat. Nite Special
Meg's Everything but the Kitchen Sink Friday 
Cindy's Show and Tell Friday
Courtney's Feathered Nest Friday
Debra's Vintage Inspiration Friday
Jane's Frugalicious Friday
Kate's Flaunt It Friday 
Stephanie Lynn's Sunday Showcase Party