ANN'S Winter Project: GUEST BLOG

2-28-12

Project Woolly Part 1 Wool Sweater Mittens

This story began last fall at the Westminster’s Craft Show. Next to Judy’s table was a lady selling these beautiful wool mittens for $30. I was amazed to find out they were made out of wool sweaters with a fleece lining. They were absolutely beautiful but thrifty me could not part with $30. The following day, I Googled “wool sweater mittens” and this video came up with a pattern. As I watched the video, the lady said “you can whip out a pair in 30 minutes”. That was enough for me to get excited about a winter project, make a few for my friends and try to sell a few.

The directions looked simple: use wool sweaters (at least 60%), felt the sweaters, cut and sew then make the lining, sew the cuff and add a button. Like I said, sounds simple. So I got my friend Donna interested and planned a Saturday evening sew-athon. My goal was to whip out 6 or so by the weekend. Well, the 30 minutes turned into 3 hours for 1 pair.  Here’s a pic of my first pair.

After cutting 20 sets of mittens, I began sewing only to figure out, this pattern was a bit small.  And here I thought I was ahead of the game.

Scratch that and I found another pattern with a better video. So how many mittens can you make out of a sweater? Well that depends on the sweater, if it felted/shrunk well, you may only get 2 from each sweater. Tomorrow I’ll break down the steps of how I transform a sweater to mittens.

Chat Later

That Girl, Ann Marie