Weekend Projects

I started two different little projects this weekend.

First of all, I sorted through my "felting" sweaters that have been sitting around in my laundry room for quite a while. I found one cotton shirt which I obviously bought to wear since there's no way to felt it. So off it went to the laundry.

And I sorted out another sweater that I can't imagine why I would want to felt:

It was a little thick and heavy already, so would only get stiffer with felting. Plus, it's 15% nylon which is a little high for felting. (But just about right for socks!) So I raveled it.

Well, I should admit that I started to ravel it. I got the seams picked apart which is no small feat in itself. And I got the front done and wrapped into a skein (344 meters). But the back is just started and the sleeves are still waiting.
I'm lucky my honey puts up with projects like this sitting on the couch for days. (I do try to keep the chair empty for him.)

As for the felting, there were a high percentage of sweaters with buttons on them. (Part of why they're being felted instead of raveled--the front of a cardigan is generally cut and sewn down the button edges and you don't get one continuous length of yarn.)

I dutifully cut off all the buttons to save for some other garment or project:

I really like the big burgundy ones. Sadly there were only two of them.

Here is a sampling of the sweaters I was doing:

Wouldn't that be a nice combination? I love it. The striped one was, unfortunately, overfelted and is now very stiff and thick. I might still use it; we'll see.

I did more sweaters but you'll have to wait to see the results. Right now I'm figuring on cutting them into squares and sewing up baby blankets; they could be really cute.