What a special Tuesday it is! Barack Obama is now president and I raise my TCT cocktail to his successful presidency. I'm so glad I took an early lunch to watch the whole thing live.
Tonight is a craft involves both 1) less work then it looks and 2) recycling of things you may have lying around. Both things I love!
Materials:
Felted sweaters (You can do this with an old sweater, a wool one you don't like or one you've accidentally shrunk. See instructions on how to felt below.)
Scissors and/or fabric cutter and board
Thread and needle (or sewing machine)
Cocktail of the Day: Mango Margaritas (I love both food and drink leftovers from Mexican-food themed potluck parties!)
1. Get an old sweater and felt it by the following process:
Agitation + Heat = Felted
I've accidentally done this to multiple sweaters but washing in hot, drying on high, and washing/drying with stiff articles of clothing (you know to pound the fibers) all apparently work well. You can even agitate by hand to get the desired consistency. In my case, the sweaters had been preshrunk.
2. Once your sweater is dry and felted, cut out a mitten shaped half on the sweater using a template made of cardboard. Depending on the size of the hands you're making them for, you should be able to make at least one mitten (two sides remember) from each sleeve and a pair from the body of the sweater. That's two pairs minimum. Tip: Make the template way big for your hand; you'll be sewing the edges and lose some of that extra material.
3. Cut four equivalent mitten shapes from other parts of the felted sweater as suggested in step 2. Using the same template for each will make sure the mittens look uniform.
4. Make mango margarita with some mix, tequila, and ice. Yum. Raise your glass to change, and cute mittens.
5. Line up two mitten halves and stitch (except for the opening of course). Watch bad television or Wii while waiting for your turn to sew at the machine. You can also hand stitch while watching bad television. Realize how much you love things like infomercials and CW sitcoms and feel slightly ashamed. Tip: Sew carefully to avoid the dreaded claw and other weird lumps in your design.
As you can see, we had an additional crafter S join us tonight. (I forgot to ask her permission to use her on the web so I cropped her. Next time, I'll ask and maybe you'll get to see her!) S made a matching hat to go with her mittens with the leftover part of the sweater.
*Remember how I talked about shrunken sweaters during my Fashion Friday post? Maybe you can pick up a nice cashmere shrunken sweater on your next trip to the used clothing store and make your loved ones cashmere mittens!
All in all, quite a cute and historic Tuesday. Happy crafting!