Super cute and EASY Wrist Warmers (Re-purposed)- tutorial

This season I made it a point to try and stretch myself creatively and give a handmade gift to some of my closest friends. While some of my friends are artsy... not all of them are. So in an attempt to find something I could make with my hands, yet still make my non-artsy friends (Ah-hem... PATTI) happy, I came up with this quick and easy solution.

My friend Patti asked me for wrist warmers for Christmas. Patti and I have worked together in the past, and she has seen me get crafty on more than one occasion... but in this circumstance...I think she thought I was a little more crafty than I actually am. When she was explaining to me what she wanted she kept talking about crocheting a tube...yada yada yada... The truth is I can crochet a chain, and well anything that can be made from a very simple chain. At this point she lost me. 

So instead of thoroughly handmaking her wrist warmers, I decided to experiment and re-purpose. 

I went to the local thrift store and bought a few old wool sweaters. From here I took them back and washed and dried them a few times to felt the wool really tight. After the sweaters were ready I proceeded to cut strategically to create her wrist warmers.

To Cut, First cut the entire sleeve off of your sweater. This will leave you with two sleeves to work with. 

From here, stack your sleeves so that they are lined up perfectly.

Cut your sleeves to about 14 inches long, so that both sleeves are the exact same length. 

If your sweaters have sleeves that are thin and balloon out wider, the final measurements of the cuffs are roughly 14inches long, and 3 inches wide (I measured a pair I already had for this).

To finish off, rip the seem of your sleeve to create a thumb hole. In the picture below you will see I left about two inches from the top. Depending on how long you want your overhanging cuff to lay over your fingers, you can go anywhere from 1-2.5 inches from the top of the overhanging cuff. To Finish off, I added a blanket stitch just for some added detail.

 You can see here that on the opposite end of the cuff that I did a tight zig zag stitch on my sewing machine. From here I simply trimmed off any excess fabric that stuck out of the zig zag stitch.

Here is how the final product looks while in use. This pair is for our friend Lisa who likes purple.

 To wrap these, I just used a small bit of tulle tied in a cute little bow.

 Of course once you find something really cool to make, the rest of your friends start to drop hints that they might like a pair. So here are a few other sweaters I have picked up along the way for our other friends. The purple pair above were not actually made of wool (you'd be surprised just how hard it is to find purple wool sweaters!) so if you are not a fan of wool, a cotton, acrylic, angora or cashmere substitute should work just fine. The main thing to consider is that your zig zag finish can keep the material from shredding.

Supplies used: Old Sweater, sewing thread, sewing machine (If you don't have one you can finish the edge off by hand just use a tight stitch) and embroidery thread (I used Bazzill Basics, In Stitches thread.)

This is also great if you have sweaters that either you or your husband (not mentioning any names ☺) "accidentally" shrink your cozy wool sweaters. This is a wonderful way of giving them a new purpose and also letting your husband off the hook.

I hope this finds you all well and that it is helpful to you. It is really a simple project, but if you have any questions... feel free to email me :)  I would love to help!

~Liz ♥