A Recycled Scarf

Some time ago I was inspired by a series of posts on Annekata's blog, and stored the idea of this scarf away in my mind for future reference.  I did not print out the blog post as, if I ever got around to making one, I didn't want it to be a slavish copy, but an 'inspired by'. 

I did, admittedly, reread the post last weekend in a quiet moment when I was rummaging around a series of blogs.

One of the things I was going to do for Me Made March 2011 was upcycle/repurpose/whatever it's called an old cardigan.  It had been mine a long time ago, when I wore long, straight cardigans and pretended to be Virginia Woolf.  (Except in the brilliant writing and the madness departments!)  Then I was going to send it to charity when Baby Bear caught sight of it and decided she liked it.  Then she got sick of it and it was about to go to charity again when I realised that it was 96% wool, a lovely bright green, and would probably felt nicely.  Then I decided not to felt it, but to cut off some of its length and trim it with mauve braid, give it new buttons and wear it as a cardigan again.  THEN I washed it in preparation for its rebirth and discovered that the silly thing was full of moth holes.

Back to the felting idea.  Also, I had been reorganising the wardrobe so as to find what 'corporate' clothes I had to be able to wear to my new job, and I found a pair of execrable pin-striped shorts.  What possessed me to buy them?  They had never been worn and I wasn't going to start now.  I do wear shorts in hot weather, comfy denim shorts, but never to work!!!

Hence this scarf.  The shorts were poly/cotton but I washed them in with the three washes that the cardigan went through, so that any shrinking that was going to happen, would.  Then cut them both into circles, and sewed them up as you can see.

I was hoping that I would have added an original creative touch to Annakata's scarf but actually she must like to sew in a meandering way like me, so they look very similar. 

The horrible shorts had five self-covered buttons on them which were reused as embellishment, as you can see, on the ends of the scarf.

The leftovers were chucked out as there wasn't enough left to do anything much with.

It is the sort of scarf that will be worn for decoration, not warmth, because apart from anything else, I can't put the felted wool against my increasingly tetchy neck!!!