Weekend Wool Felting

Last year I became interesting in felting old wool sweaters after pinning a few items that used that technique.  Although I was interested in it and wanted to experiment with it myself I didn't have a clear project in mind to make it happen...until last week!

Last week while scrolling through the latest posts by all the bloggers I follow I ran across this from the Can't Stop Making Things blog and thought it was just so cute and knew I had found my inspiration!

 

My Inspiration from Can't Stop Making Things

As I've written about before, Saturday mornings usually mean a trip to our favorite thrift store  and last Saturday I knew just what I was after!  I immediately checked the rack with all the 75% off items and found a green sweater that would make good leaves...score!  After rummaging through all the other stuff I made my way over to the racks and racks of sweaters feeling my way through until I found a beautiful royal blue sweater as well as a amethyst colored one and red one too, luckily one was another 75% off and one was 50% so I only paid full price for one of them.  What is full price you ask?  A whopping $2.29 is the full price so I paid less then 5 dollars for all 4 of these wool sweaters.

One of the other projects I'm working on is making a brooch bouquet for my Niece's wedding this spring so earlier last week I thought I'd just run into the Goodwill store to see if they had any there for me to buy...and you know, while I was there I may as well just look to see if they had any sweaters that I could use to make one of these.  I didn't find any sweaters but did find a pale pink wool vest!  Well actually, I did find a men's olive green lambswool Old Navy sweater so i brought that home with me too.  Of course I didn't think to take any pictures of them!  I just have to add that I paid for my restlessness...each of the sweaters was $4.49 at Goodwill, which is what I paid for all 4 at my favorite store...just sayin'!

Once I had amassed my collection of wool sweaters washed them in hot water then dried them on the highest heat my dryer could muster and pulled them out half the size they were when they went in!  On purpose I shrunk them...lol.  I really wanted to give someone that cliche tearful heartfelt apology for shrinking their favorite sweater and thought about my hubby...but then I'd have to have had to explain it all to him first place! 

I pretty much followed her instructions for making the flowers, I cut the felted sweaters in several circles, I used 8 inch circles for the pink vest and got about 5 of them and using 6 inch circles for the blue sweater.  I then went back and cut notches in the outer circle then used a wavy kinda crazy line to cut into the circle making spirals.  To form the flowers I departed from her tutorial a bit and just layered the center of the spiral around itself till I got the the tail and then tucked it in.  I secured it all with stitches and sewed buttons in the center of each flower. 

Here is the pale pink vest transformed into a flower scarf, of course it was my first project and I was too busy playing to stop and take any pictures.  I'm not liking the big pink 'buttons' I used so I may take it apart and rework it using her tutorial for making the flowers cause I like hers better.

This is the blue sweater transformed into flowers and I like it much better, and the buttons in the center add just a touch of bling are at least proportionate to the flower...I like it!

I liked it so much I wore it today to work!

The best part?  I still have 3 more sweaters to play with!  I have plans for them too, can't wait to see what I come up with for them.