Upcycling without Training Wheels

When our cashmere sweaters get too moth-eaten to wear--actually I'm not quite sure when that point is, because the dude wore a sweater with at least two visible holes in it yesterday. He wasn't out in public or anything...anyhow, at some point, we decide to retire the sweaters, and they end up in the craft room. I have ideas people. I have taken a felting class with Betz White. I am ready to upcycle all the wools! (Now what I need is more time.)

Anyway, I had these sleeves cut off their respective sweaters and I wanted to make a scarf.

Last November, I pinned them together and showed my niece during our crafting day. She looked at me with one of those preteen looks. As a result, I have no faith, no faith, in the finished product. I decided that the arms were too full and I should (1) stitch each arm to its mate for length and (2) stitch them so they were three inches wide. After fixing a moth hole on the pink sweater, I realized I should fix the holes before I made them so narrow the brush mat wouldn't fit. (To fix moth holes, you take a piece of yarn or sweater fabric and you needle felt it onto the hole. And to do that you need this mat* that looks like a scrub brush. Et voila!)

Anyway, I altered the pink sleeve, then the blue, then I was pinning the grey and .............. Do you get those moments when you are crafting? One that will cause you to use way too many periods in your ellipses? I lost all momentum. I did not know how I was going to go on with this Incredibly.Boring.Project. But I had to! You were waiting! I had promised! But the project...it.was.sooooooooooooo.boring. I complained about it on twitter...and Facebook...and then I got myself together and braided them. And sewed them up.

Then I walked around the house wearing a cashmere scarf for hours. Because it was almost 60' outside and what you need to do is wear a cashmere scarf around your house.

If you made it this far, thank you. I am going to try to choose projects that aren't so cranky-making in the future. But at least we can see why I put off making it all winter. Clearly, I knew I was going to need your help and real impetus to get through.

It's harder than it looks to photograph yourself.

What this kooky craft-a-day thing demonstrates is how much I need my loyal readers to get through it. Your comments propel me on to the next project and the next and the next and the next. And I thank you for all your help!

* Don't buy the one I've linked to. It has the better picture, but Amazon itself has the same one for half the price.