Sweater Renewal: Felting Knits into New Sweaters and Accessories by Sharon Franco Rothschild, published by Potter Craft (August 19, 2008).

Don’t throw out your old sweaters: better yet, stock up on old sweaters from grandmas house, thrift shops and garage sales. You will need them in order to have a lot of fun with the projects in this book.

First up, about this book, I love the sweet little drawings throughout, showing the design concepts and including how-to steps. The photography is colourful, the pages are not glossy but this ads to the down-to-earth nature of the book style and concept of recycling.

The projects themselves offer more than just cutting up sweaters and sewing, there is embroidery, handstitching, applique and crochet as well. The projects run from the very simple (my 8 year old daughter would have no trouble) to quite difficult (requiring reasonable crochet and embroidery skills but not an expert). The style of the projects range quite a bit too from sort of clunky and chunky to pretty groovy and hip. So quite a bit in here for most people.

To give you an idea of the types of projects my faves are: cosy needle holder, these are simple tubes of sweater material sewed up and felted with some decorative beading or embroidery to make them really fun and colourful. :: patchwork scarf, very simply made but what I particularly like about it is the crochet edging and beaded tassles. :: A gorgeous flower power girls cardigan which is a felted adults sweater which has been cut down the front and trimmed with embroidery, crochet and blanket stitch. This cardigan looks so sturdy and practical but very pretty too (there are adult versions of this as well which i also liked the look of). :: The fair isle flowered skirt is just gorgeous – sort of hippy in style but depends on the sweater you use. It is basically the body of a sweater with the arms and neck cut off, trimmed with a crochet waist band and a decorative crochet edge.

In addition to all these fabulous patterns there are some really good instructions for all the techniques that are used as well as templates in the back for the applique and embroidery designs.