Thursday, January 27, 2011

Thrift Store Monstrosity

I have been so inspired by the felting projects/tutorials on various blogs that I decided to try it myself. I went to the Thrift store yesterday morning to get some 100% wool clothing. I bought 10 pieces of cardigans, sweaters in Ladies and Men's L and XL sizes. I washed and dried them on Hot settings but somehow they didn't shrink or felt as much as I thought they would. May be the wash setting wasn't hot enough? I guess I can always wash/dry them again.

A couple of the Men's XL cardigans shrunk just enough to fit me as maternity cardigans. I'm actually glad because I am running out of warm clothing that could fit my bump. These grandpa 100% wool cardis came just at the right time. I am thinking of refashioning them and give them some feminine touches. Will do that in the next 2 weeks.

Anyways, I also bought this Monstrosity of a cardigan. It actually didn't have a label so I don't know if it's 100% wool or not. It was in the Ladies' XL section and it's HUGE! Even bigger than the Men's XL cardigans. It has thick green and aqua stripes and the shoulders are gathered with big shoulder pads. Who was wearing this thing, I wonder? But for some reason I was really drawn to the colour. I washed/dried it on Hot settings but it didn't shrink that much. I guess may be it's not 100% wool. I don't think I can refashion it into another cardigan that I will wear - perhaps some winter accessories? This is going to be a fun design challenge!

2 comments:

  1. I have seen that when felting the wool you have to wash and dry them a couple times if it doesn't feel quite felted enough. I did the same thing - bought a bag of wool sweaters and felted them all at once ... the weird thing was when I was transferring to the dryer it smelled like a wet dog was in my washing machine - thank goodness when the wool was dry the smell was gone :)

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  2. Thanks Shannon! I think I might have put too many things in the washer all at once. I read somewhere that I was supposed to leave some room for the sweaters to move around so that they get agitated more (and thus shrink more). I'll try that next time.

    I had that wet dog smell with a couple of sweaters too. I wonder what caused that?

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