Old Woolly Jumpers

Old woolly jumpers, no longer loved and destined for the recycling/charity shop have become my obsession recently.  They are quite hard to come by though, most knitwear seems to be acrylic these days. 

This is how they started, slightly musty and a bit worn.  Bunged them in the washing machine on a 90oC wash with some lovely smelling washing liquid and conditioner, and now they look like this!

I'd say they shrunk by about 40-50%, seems to depend on the type of wool.

The bluey coloured one was a wrapover style and had two long knitted straps so I cut these off to test if the stitching would come undone.  It didn't, hoorah!  The straps were the perfect size to experiment with my first felted corsage.

Have to say I really like working with felted wool.  Due to it's denser nature it lends itself really well to flower making.  I want to try something else with it now, maybe some applique, not sure yet.

  

 Here it is on my Dennis Basso wool scarf, rather fetching don't you think.

  

From the side you can see the thickness of the felted wool and how it ruffles so nicely.

 

Ooh  I've just noticed I've passed the 100 followers mark!  Always amazes me that you lovely people take the time to pop by so look out for some sewing based freebies over the next few days :o) xx