Saturday, March 15, 2014

Felted Sweater Quilt pt2

OK....so it's taken me longer than I expected to get this second part of the quilt project posted...sorry!! We've been really enjoying the blanket!

It's been so great this winter!! I LOVE to cuddle under it in the camper (which does NOT stay super warm, especially with all the wind we've had this year)

Making it was super simple.....I know you can do it!

Here is the more dense fabric after you've washed and shrunk (felted) the sweaters


The sweater felted and the pocket stayed.....I want to keep this in the blanket to hold my goodies....you know, a little snack, the remote or some tissues. 


Now for the work. Time to start cutting the sweaters into usable pieces. First step is to cut out the seams....they just get too bulky to sew through all those extra seams


 I was going to do things in a very random patchwork, but when I started sewing I went right back to the cutting table and started whacking things into squares and rectangles. 


I used my ruler and rotary cutter to cut down the sleeves, and necklines



In the end you get rectangle, but this isn't a perfect project! There were several pieces that had ripples like this one that need to be taken care of.....of course I didn't get pics of the fix.....basically you just want to cut it smaller and re-square it. For the piece above I cut the bottom of the piece off and left just the rippley part. I took that strip and cut it in half and suddenly the one rectangle with ripples became two funky shapes that laid flat....it was like a magic trick!! You just have to use the ruler and rotary cutter to straighten the pieces back up so you can sew them. 



I tried to keep as much of the fabric of each sweater as possible. Using a rotary cutter is a great way to make this happen (you could do it with scissors, but I'm a rotary addict anyway) 



This might look like a sleeve, but it's actually a body piece from one of the sweaters. I left it this shape and put it with a sleeve to make a block. That's the beauty of this project....you can do whatever you want!! It's an easy breezy project to cozy up your cold days! 

I seriously can't lay under this blanket and not fall asleep! It's the perfect kind of warmth........Really warm and cozy, but you aren't sweating, just toasty!!

If you make your own felted sweater quilt, share your pictures with me! 
I'd love to see how yours comes out!