Photo Karen Graham.
Used sweaters provide colourful material for new mittens crated by Cavan entrepreneur Amanda Benna.
It’s not glamourous but it is commendable; Amanda Benns creates beautiful, hand-made mittens using items destined for the second hand store or even the dump.
She scoops up used, unloved and untrendy sweaters and diverts them from their looming, ignoble end, using them as raw materials for her beautiful and practical creations. With the help of her washing machine, Amanda transforms these once-loved items into new, attractive mittens.
When wool sweaters are washed and dried, the wool becomes dense like felt, resulting in a material that is thick, durable and water resistant. Once felted, the material can be cut to shape without risk of fraying, and used to create warm and water-resistant mittens.
With a background in pastry, Amanda has an eye for style which is reflected in her mittens that are finished with a coconut shell button on the cuff. She also takes full advantage of patterns on her raw materials, ensuring her products are not only practical but have style as well.
Amanda stumbled upon the idea of creating mittens from old sweaters on the internet. She began slowing, producing a few mittens with discarded sweaters, lining the mittens with fleece for additional warmth and comfort, and offering them as Christmas gifts to her children’ teachers. The gifts proved to be extremely popular, prompting her to go further, creating some for local craft sales and eventually selling them at the local retailer, the Quilter’s Bolt.
Since she began, the idea has picked up some steam, so her biggest challenge is finding old sweaters for transformation. This is not her day job, however. A trained pastry chef, she now teaches in Fleming College’s culinary program and also fills in for her former employer, the Pastry Peddler, when staff is short.
If you or your family members have candidates in your closet that would benefit from this kind of transformation, bring them to Amanda’s booth at the Christmas in the Village event on Thursday, December 6th and offer your once-loved knit items a new lease on life. For those with family members who have difficulty parting with that well-worn but shabby sweater, consider having a “memory mitten” created from the remnants of their favourite sweater. Amanda will make custom items using your own cast-offs to provide a new life for those sad knits in your closet. Wouldn’t that make a surprise gift on December 25th?