last stitches of the year
Dec 22, 2008 Friday night we put the new paper pennants to use with our ham biscuit and champagne-fueled open house. Then it was onto five pairs of fingerless felt gloves for all the ladies in the family, including the little bitty niece.
These are actually really simple to make – the hardest part is thinking far enough ahead to felt your sweaters and let them dry. Use sweaters from the thrift store or your closet that are 100% wool, put them in the washing machine on hot, and let them go through the agitation cycle until they’re felted and you can’t see individual stitches anymore (you might need to go through the cycle a couple times).
After they’re dry, cut the sweaters along the seams so you have a nice big pieces of flat felt. Fold and cut a long skinny trapezoid for your glove: 13” high (one edge on the fold), 3” at the top and 4” at the bottom. Repeat for other glove.
When you open your fabric, you’ll have a piece of felt 13” high, 6” across the top and 8” at the bottom. With your machine, zigzag stitch across the 8” bottom. Next you’re going to zigzag stitch across the top, and about the top third of each side to finish the edges of the thumbhole. Here’s my little sketch that might help, but I'm bad at drawing straight lines. Please cut your lines straight:
To do that, measure 4½” from the top and begin. Zigzag up toward the top, continue across the 6” edge, and 4½” down the other side.
Fold your felt in half, right sides together, and pin. Starting at the top, zigzag stitch 2½” down. Backstitch to secure. Lift needle and pull fabric 2” for the thumbhole. Leave that open, then zigzag stitch again and continue to bottom to finish the glove. Turn inside out. Repeat with other glove.
Despite all these words, these are really simple to make. But if you want to make an even easier version, you can simply cut the arm of the felted sweater, cut open a thumbhole, or skip the thumbhole altogether. The gloves won't be as fitted, but they’ll keep your forearms nice and toasty.
And one more thing: you should definitely know about the tea in this mug. It’s called Chocolate Mate Solstice from Pixie Mate (perfect for today – happy solstice!). It smells a little chocolate-y and a little chalky and I love it, deeply. We fix up a pot in the morning with honey and milk and before I know it, I’m on my third cup. Is that bad? The copy on the box is zippy and sassy and tells you that you can conquer the world.
I, for one, believe them.
make
Reader Comments (5)
I love felting old sweaters. What a lovely way to use the fabirc it makes! I throw an old pair of jeans (zipper removed) into the wash along with the sweatrs; it seems to help the agittation process so I don't waste water by running it through so many times.
Hi Sara, thanks so much for the tip -- I'd love to cut down on the water usage and will try that next time. Thanks for writing!
For those of us who are less than crafty--what does "'wrong' sides together' mean?
Hi Jill, Sorry for the delay -- I dropped out of communication among the Sierra snow drifts! And your question made me realize that part of the instructions should read "right sides together." So thanks for drawing my attention to that! I corrected the directions above but the concept is the same: "right sides together" means the right sides of the fabric (or front of fabric) are touching when you pin and sew. It makes more sense if you look at fabric and you can tell what side is "right" and "wrong." By the same token, "wrong sides together" means you pin or sew the fabric with the wrong sides touching. Does that help?
Thank you so much for sharing this pattern. My sister died recently and I have all these wonderful wool sweaters of hers that she felted by accident and was looking for a way to cherish them. So thank you for the wonderful idea.