Before you toss your sweaters with holes, or the comfy-cozies that have pilled beyond wear, consider these creative ideas to re-use your old sweaters.
• How To: Repurpose Old Sweaters into Chair Covers
• How To: Make a Patchwork Pet Bed
• How To: Harvest Yarn From a Sweater
• Wool Sweater Sleeve as Wine Cozy
Read on for the full list of projects...
• Sweater Bedspread
• via Night Owls Menagerie blogspot: How to make a sewn dryer ball from recycled material
• via Woman's Day: Make a Cozy Throw with Old Sweaters
• Sweater Stocking Pattern
Other alternatives: Give someone something warm at Goodwill. If your sweaters are beyond repurposing and give-away condition, cut them into strips and donate them to your local SPCA. They can always use clean rags for animal care.
Images:
Top left: Night Owls Menagerie Blogspot
Top right: How To: Repurpose Old Sweaters into Chair Covers
Bottom left: How To: Make a Patchwork Pet Bed
Bottom right: Woman's Day
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Comments (7)
Cut the legs off a fleece-lined pair of old sweat pants. Cut a pair of holes in each pants leg where your dog's "shoulders" would be if he were using the pants leg ankle opening as a neck hole. You now have two surprisingly durable dog vests (and a pair of shorts). Time: 10-20 minutes. Source: Instructables?
No, dressing up dogs is cruel. Give the animal its dignity.
Donate the old sweaters to an animal charity that will use them for rags.
Love that throw quilt made from old sweaters.
Like the pillow and the blanket. Couldn't agree with zazzu more on animal dignity, though.
I have a trashbag of old sweaters somewhere I've been saving for a project like these. Just can't make myself start.
zazzu, my dogs are more comfortable walking on cold days in their vests because they're smallish, with little fat and fur. They really enjoy their soft, stretchy vests. If you check, then you'll see that it's standard for whippets to be dressed for warmth in winter. About dignity, their hacked vests are plain gray.
Ditto to Miami's Elaine. My 13-lb little dog is not built for cold winters. He's much more comfortable, and stays out to play much longer, when he's wrapped up in the little fisherman's aran sweater I knit for him.
Some dogs need sweaters because their breeds don't have the body fat to prevent chills in the winter. Greyhounds, for example, might get sick if you didn't provide a way for them to stay warm.
Yes, and a whippet is much like a greyhound, only smaller.