Recycled Crafts: Warm fleece cowl, Another way to give an old t-shirt new life

Living in Minnesota inspires me to make a lot of winter accessories.  And loving nature inspires me to reuse and recycle craft materials. When the weather is chilly there's nothing better than having a warm soft cowl, or neck warmer as I often call them.

Fleece cowl

I was inspired to make this cowl recently when I tried to wear this shirt I had picked up at the thrift store. It was hopelessly too short, and a little too tight. Time to recycle this shirt!

The shirt was a very thin thermal knit so I decided to line it with fleece. This orange fleece from my stash just happened to be exactly the right width already!

I cut off the bottom of the shirt like so.

Then I cut the fleece to match, the slight flare of the bottom of the shirt works perfectly for a cowl.

Then I sewed up the side of the fleece, to make it into a tube. And put the right sides of the fleece and shirt together.

Then I sewed the top(narrower) edge. Turned the cowl right side out, and sewed the bottom edge using the hem of the shirt to make the bottom look finished. While sewing the bottom edge I used a zig zag stitch and stretched both fabrics a bit to create a slight flair at the bottom.

Viola! A nice cozy cowl, made with recycled craft materials.  Now I am ready to brave the elements. Come on snow I am ready.

More recycled crafts,

• Cork and Bottlecap Mushrooms
• Map Paper Beads
• Leg Warmers made from a sweater
• Valentine's Day Collage
• Necklace from vintage tie
• Unique Jean skirt made from discarded jeans
• Beret style hat, made from wool sweater
• Matchbooklet made without vintage matchbook
• Mini book made from Vintage matchbook