While moving everything out of my office and using that space for other purposes, I have been forced to actually look and move things that have not been touched in years. This is one of those things - my recycled upcycled knitted bags. In 2010 or so, I had a boatload of novelty yarns. Why? Who knows! I was drawn to the colors and textures but it is not something I would use to knit something for myself to wear, but bags might be something I could do! So I started playing around. I quickly realized that just an eyelash yarn with another more bulky novelty yarn did not give me the density I was looking for.
I needed some kind of liner for the bag. I tried a few kinds of material (I am not a sewist but had some scraps of random things) . At the time our son was 12 and going through clothes like nobody's business so going to thrift stores was a favorite place to go to drop off his outgrown clothes and take a quick look for anything promising. Somehow, I came across the idea of using the pockets of jeans for the interior of the purses. Cut the legs off the pants, remove the waist band, stitch the bottom up, turn them inside out and stitch them inside a knitted tube and add the waist band as a strap! I was on to something.
The legs that were cut off, made perfect liners for small crossbody bags. Once I got the process down, I made lots and lots of these bags and sold them at our local Art Center.
I had people dropping off all kinds of jeans to me, from children sizes to plus size women's. (those were my favs) . I even taught a couple classes. It is was fun and gave people a sense of accomplishment by completing a project that had a purpose and repurposed a discarded piece of clothing!
I also tried my hand at a bit of colorwork and sewed a plain liner inside.
Maybe I should rethink this and try some stranded colorwork bags. That may be my next personal project!