Kid-a-fy a Shrunken Sweater with the power of felt.

22 Feb

I loved this sweater, it reminds me of Brobee from Yo Gabba Gabba or Steve Blue’s Clues. I have no idea why that prompts a grown woman to want to wear it but – that’s just me and if you know me your nodding your head at this point.

And yeah I know I gotta get out more.

At any rate it’s felting made it an unlikely candidate for re-shaping so kid sweater it would be.

Here’s what you will need to kid-ify your sweater.

Pink Tutu felt (you want a felt with some wool content)

Orchid felt (you want a felt with some wool content)

Coal Roving

#36 felting needle

Foam pad that fits in the arm

This Template sized to fit (My pigs fit into a 4″ x 4″ square)

Wash felt in hot water to shrink it up too and to make it a bit thicker.

You can also sew the felt to the sweater like a patch.

Then have your model try on the sweater for size

I pinned in the areas I wanted to tailor and measured an inch below her elbows making sure both were even.

Here’s where I realized I knew nothing about working with knit pieces and had to defer to twitter and Maura Huston for assistance where I was assured it was not sacrilegious to cut up knit pieces.

I know I should have marked, stitched and trimmed off the access at this point but I got excited about the needle felting so I cut 2 pigs from my fulled (shrunken) Pink Tutu felt, 2 snouts from fulled Orchid felt, and laid out the roving in the design I wanted and slipped the foam pad to the arm.

And then you stab it with your felting needle…a TRILLION times.

It helped to needle felt the eyes in first to keep the felt from shifting.

And we’re stabbing and we’re stabbing.

I found a song moved this a long…

**Sung to Michael Jackson’s Gotta be startin something.

Said You Wanna Be Feltin’ Somethin’
You Got To Be Feltin’ Somethin’
I Said You Wanna Be Feltin’ Somethin’
You Got To Be Feltin” Somethin’
High ones Get Over (Yeah, Yeah)
Low ones Get Under (Yeah, Yeah)
You’re Stuck In The Finger (Yeah, Yeah)
And The Pain Is Thunder (Yeah, Yeah)

KEEP GOING…or quit and just sew them down, I’m not judging.

And we’re stabbing and stabbing and then…

TA-DA

It should look like one piece.