How To Felt Wool Sweaters?

[zh97]

I have bought some wool sweaters from a thrift store and I would like to felt them to use in different projects. It seems to me that once felted, the sweater would be bent out of shape due to the seams not felting as much as the rest of the fabric?? Would you suggest cutting the sweater apart? To felt, do you just wash on hot and dry on hot?

As you can tell, I'm a little confused Any help/direction would be much appreciated!

[orangefoot]

Usually the whole thing will shrinky-dink and then you can choose to use some of the seams as they are or cut the thing up. For example I've made one piece waistcoats for my girls and used the original side seam as a back seam. Roll necks can be great waitsbands for skirts especially of you just cut a yoke from shoulder to shoulder and keep the neck attached. See what you want to make then see how best to use your sweater.

Washing with heavy clothes like jeans or towels on hot will be good followed by a hot tumble. Do it again if you want it to felt up even more.

[gmvh]

Ooh, except that I've had bad luck washing things to be felted with towels - the lint from the towels can get felted into the wool and can. not. be. picked. out. Jeans are great or tuck the item to be felted into a pillowcase. A friend had some horrible dye bleeding when felting something recently so I'd be thoughtful about what goes in with it if it's a sweater with color of unknown origin! Good luck!

[kuhlmom]

Felting is such a tricky thing...

Why is it that when I want to felt something for a craft it never seems to felt up great, but when I accidentally wash my favorite wool sweater, it felts up so small my 2 year old can wear it??

[isaberg]

I've had better luck when I don't cut up the sweaters first, mostly because the lint gets so bad from the cut seams.

[isaberg]

My 4yo also steals sweaters that I felt - they shrink down to her size, quite nicely.