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Make a Fabulous Felted Combo.

Felt a few old sweaters, especially ones with Fair Isle patterns, and turn them into a warm hat and mitten set. For extra fun, top the hat with a handmade pompom. This project provides:

Step-by-step instructions
A list of everything you’ll need
Helpful illustrations and diagrams

Getting Started

You can create great looks by combining several different felted pieces, using sweaters with a variety of patterns. Keep the color palette the same, but have fun mixing up the patterns—who says both mittens need to match?

Fast Felting

To make this project you need to know how to felt wool. But you don't have to make felt by hand using wool roving and special tools, which is time consuming. Instead, you can use your washer and dryer as felting power tools, which allows you to make felt fabric in a fraction of the time hand-felting requires, and with a lot less effort.

Choosing a Sweater to Felt

Not all items knitted of the same type of yarn will shrink and felt exactly the same way. When selecting a sweater to felt, start with one that’s much larger than you want the final piece of fabric to be. It’s possible that a loosely knit sweater that goes to your knees could end up toddler-size.

Needle Felting Technique

Needle felting is a great way to embellish fast felted items. To do it, you use a specially designed needle to incorporate wool fiber, called wool roving, into the fabric.

Place a foam pad under your project to protect your work surface and the delicate felting needle. Use a piece of foam that’s at least 3" (7.6 cm) deep for added security. Place the felted wool fabric to be embellished on the foam pad. Lay the wool roving across the fabric. Jab the felting needle down through the roving and fabric repeatedly until the roving is sufficiently incorporated into the base fabric.

Drink-Mix Dyeing

Unsweetened powdered drink mix is an easy-to-use and inexpensive way to dye small pieces of felted fabrics. Best of all, this nontoxic option gives fabulous color that’s surprisingly colorfast. If you wish to dye more felted fabric, such as an entire sweater, you might need ten or more packets. Hint: any brand will work, especially if it contains vitamin C—the ascorbic acid enables the felt to take the dye.

Mitten Basics

Create a custom mitten pattern by drawing around the left or right hand on paper, adding 1" (2.5 cm) to the top of the fingers, and rounding the sides as shown. Draw a second line 1⁄4" (6 mm) beyond the first outline for the seam allowance. Cut out the mitten pattern, trace it in reverse for the other hand, and cut out the second pattern (see figure 1).

To cut out mittens, lay the patterns on a felted sweater, aligning the bottom of the pattern with the ribbed edge of the sweater. Be sure to match any pattern and align stripes on the sweater, if necessary. Pin and cut out two left-hand mittens and two right-hand mittens, one layer at a time (see figure 2).