The Ultimate Refashioning Project

I am not sure that refashioning is even a word, but it seemed to be the perfect way to describe the project I just finished. This all started with my Mom cleaning out my Dad's closet. I have a weakness when I see old clothing. I start imagining what they could be in a second life. :-) Am I the only one?

I spotted my Dad's old jacket and quickly decided that Goodwill was out of the picture. Grey is so in and I knew many of my sewing buddies had felted their old wool clothing into lovely pieces of fabric. I grabbed the jacket and drove home. My washing machine was ready to get to work. Felting is done by simple washing 100% wool in hot water and detergent. The agitation of the machine and of course the hot water cause the fibers to bind together. The more you wash the more the fabric is felted (the smaller it gets). The resulting fabric is then dried and you have a great piece of "new" fabric. Many of my friends use the felted pieces for wool applique and their creations are just gorgeous! The knitters out there are very familiar with felting to create purses and many other wonderful things.


I did cut the coat apart before felting. I removed the lining to use later and cut the coat into smaller more manageable pieces.


After the felting was complete I had to decide how to use my "new" fabric. Since I am a true "purse gal", the choice was easy......A Purse! I found a pattern that I felt would work as a starting point and off I went.


The pockets from the jacket were rescued and used in the lining of the purse. I have 3 great pockets inside my purse.


I used the jacket lining to line the purse and to create some piping to use between the purse body and the ruffle along the top.


The bow on the front pocket was also created out of the lining.


I love the end result! Everything that I used creating the purse was a recycled item. Even the buttons that I covered for attaching the handles were given to me by a friend. The original price on the package was .39. Obviously that was a long, long time ago!


I have a lot of gray in my closet so my "new" purse should get used often. One of my favorite combination's this season is gray and yellow. I am hoping that my new "coat purse" will be the perfect finishing touch to this outfit. I challenge you to look around with new eyes at some of your bags headed for Goodwill. There may be some object hiding in them that would be perfect for a "refashioning" project of your own! :-)