Sunday, January 22, 2012

Fabric Wreath and Felting A Sweater

I've never been much of a wreath person.  I hang one out for the month of December since ya know, who doesn't have a Christmas wreath?!  But I decided to try my hand at making a crafty wreath with some fabric scraps I had and a wreath sitting in one my my "I might do something with that someday" drawer.
Ya know when you're a at a garage sale and you see the box with the "FREE" sign on it?  These are they kinds of things people put in those.  Unless it's full of McDonald's Happy Meal toys, I usually just haul the whole box to my car.  Haha! :)
I secured one end down with hot glue and then wrapped my long strip of fabric around and around until the wreath was covered.
Then made some little ruffle fabric flowers.  The tan ones are out of cloth napkins actually, and the middle one fro ma satin scrap.  




And those buttons?  Well they came off of the lovely sweater pictured below... that I bought for 94 cents at a thrift shop to felt for flowers.
I've never actually "felted" anything before and I couldn't believe how great it worked!  Was funny when I bought this because I found a super cute chic gray sweater for myself and then I had this one.  The check out lady was quite stylishly dressed and gushed over the gray sweater.  Then picked up this one slowly... and says "you have an interesting combination of items here, Miss...."
First, you make sure it's 100% wool  This one said "DRY CLEAN ONLY" so I knew  it would probably work great!  I washed it in super hot water, tossed it into the hot dryer and it came out like this:
And she's ready to  be made into flowers!  And of course, the buttons were a super bonus.  You can never have enough buttons!
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See you all back here tomorrow night for Trash 2 Treasure Tuesday!!!!

p.s. I've done so many dumb things lately... I'm thinking about starting a section called "A day in the life of this blond mama".  
Funky Junk's Sat Nite Special

7 comments:

  1. I have a sweater that I washed from the gap...it shrunk up so small that my 9 year old thought I bought it for her...it was my 19 year old sons sweater...I saved it because I thought I could make something out of it...I didn't know that was how you felted it...thanks for sharing

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  2. BTW, a wool sweater doesn't have to be "Dry clean only" to felt. A few years ago I washed my favorite 'washable wool' sweater in the washer on the GENTLE cycle & COOL water. I learned later (while researching methods to 'relax' the fibers, all of which were unsuccessful) that it isn't the water temperature or drying temperature that causes wool to shrink (the actual term is 'fulling'). The kinks in wool are smoothed out during processing, but even slight movement (i.e.'swishing') in water causes the fibers' teeny barbs to hook together, just as they were before the yarn was processed. Soon after that disaster, I had another wool sweater with a spot on the front & took it to the dry cleaners. When I picked it up, the spot was still there. After they recleaned it, it came back a couple of sizes smaller than it started. Both sweaters had been my 'favorites'. THEN last Fall the most recent sweater designated as my 'favorite' had 4 or 5 tiny holes chewed by moths (or silverfish?), even though no other wool clothing in my closet was attacked. Upon reflection, I recall that at 7 yrs. old, my 'favorite' dress got wrapped around the washing machine's agitator. It was the ONLY piece of clothing ruined by the washer. There have been several other items that fell victim to mysterious disasters over the years, almost always my favorite things to wear. So. . . I'm vowing not to attach the word 'favorite' to anything I like to wear! But back to the subject of caring for wool--swish mild detergent in the water BEFORE laying the garment in the sink, & let it soak. It's fine to gently push the fabric down into the water, but absolutely NO agitation or swishing of the fabric!

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  3. I love your scrap wreath, it looks fabulous, especially with the addition of the buttons.

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  4. I love it! I have a whole collection on Pinterest of wreaths I'd love to make -- spring is going to be a whole slew of fun floral wreaths!

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  5. HMMM. I must try this. Thrift store here I come! (watch, now that I want one, this will be the only time they aren't over run with old discarded wreaths)

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  6. Very pretty, Kammy. You are so creative. God bless x

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