felted sweater purse and coffee sleeves

Years before I had a blog, I made a felted purse. (It was this pattern, extremely easy to knit in a gorgeous Noro yarn and I'm not kidding, I have never had so many strangers stop me on the street and offer to pay me to knit for them. I always just pointed them to the web page, but it's a testament to the pattern and the yarn.)

I thought about this little handbag as winter was setting in and the summer bag no longer seemed appropriate. However, I've got another knitting project going right now and really just wanted something quick and functional. Hence:

(Please pardon my unprofessional photo retouching. The handles don't really glow like that. Unfortunately.)

This was an almost fully-salvaged project. The body of the bag is an old boys' sweater that had been felted in the wash. I felted it further to bring the size down and to add strength. It also added thickness, which made it a little trickier to work with—something I'll have to remember next time.

I think you can just see the remains of the ribbed waist at the top here:

The two-way zipper is from a carry-on suitcase that had fallen apart.

And the lining is my aunt's old jumpsuit, which had shredded after one too many washes. It already had a pocket, which now holds a phone or wallet. I added the requisite iPad pocket, as well, and in retrospect wish I'd added interfacing to make it firmer. It's just a bit flimsy for my taste.

As for the straps, I have S to thank. He wanted to make himself a belt. While we were looking at necessary supplies, I saw that I could get a length of leather strapping material that seemed like it would just work. Cut in half and riveted to the body of the bag, it did.

In learning about leather finishing, I came across this recipe for a homemade wax. This was rubbed into the straps after dyeing, and it brought them from being rather stiff to feeling softer and more pliable. D asked me to fix the old broken dog leash* and after riveting the two snapped halves together, the wax also worked wonders as a reconditioner.

leather dog leash before (top) and after wax conditioner

And that was it. Not a fancy project at all, but it suits my needs right now. I really appreciated having a more winterized purse the other day when I was caught in a sudden downpour without an umbrella. Between the leather wax and the wool's natural water repellency, the purse came through just fine.

But my favorite part of the project is not the bag, it's the pair of reusable coffee cup sleeves cut from the felted sweater sleeves and roughly (very roughly) embellished with glow-in-the-dark yarn.

The glow feature is more fun than practical. But the felted wool is a perfect insulator.

I plan to carry the coffee sleeves with me at all times. And now I have a bag to keep them in.



*This particular post is revealing us to have some unsavory hoarding tendencies. Please ignore.

more christmas stockings

What is it with the little stockings? I have no idea. I actually made these last year but with the knit and felted versions already posted, it seemed too much to post yet another variation on the theme.

They're as fast and easy as possible: cut out of felt (in one case, a felted sweater) with pinking shears and sewn around the edges. They could be filled with tiny candy canes and hung on a tree. I played around with adding numbers for advent calendars, too.

It got me thinking about family stockings. Ours are made from old jeans and prequilted fabric, because the first Christmas D and I spent as a married couple found us in Singapore with only a treadle sewing machine and some castoff clothing to work with. I had rudimentary sewing skills at best but thought of these as temporary placeholders until I had better ones.

With each baby came a new denim stocking: jeans are always available, and it was easier to add one stocking than to redo all of them. But by now I was thinking about knitting Christmas stockings someday.

By the time "someday" came around, however, the boys had already grown used to their funky blue stockings and didn't want anything else. It turns out they were especially fond of the little pocket in front.

But apparently I still think about stockings. A lot. Stockings are fun—they conjure up the feeling of waking up on Christmas morning, the surprise of digging down and pulling something up, and the pleasure of seeing our family names hanging side by side on the...well, we don't have a fireplace, so ours are on a bookcase.

And stockings are such a perfect canvas for customizing. You can make them from anything, in any colors, with any embellishment, any size or shape—just look at what comes up on flickr, for example. I guess I've always been partial to wool myself, which is why I keep coming up with tiny wool stockings. But ours are denim, and I guess always will be.

Do you hang stockings this time of year and if so, what is their story?

needle felting

What I'm loving about this holiday season is how often we've been able to gather and craft with friends. The other day we went to C's house for tea served in antique china cups, Burl Ives and Bing Crosby, and needle felting.


Needle felting is probably the fastest, easiest and most satisfying wool craft there is. It also seems to be the one most attractive to the boys we know, perhaps due to the felting needle's resemblance to a tiny sword? All I know is my sons  and their friends seem to particularly enjoy stabbing wool as a means of shaping it.


Some truly elaborate work is done with felting needles—do an image search on "needle felting" if you want to see a sampling—but it is also possible to get a perfectly sweet and simple shape in an hour or two, tea and singing breaks included.

C makes an ornament:

M works on a Christmas tree:

C and G work side by side:

S felting onigiri. All those blurry hands show needle felting motion as captured by my cell phone. (I'm old enough that it still amazes me to be able to use my little phone to take pictures and upload them to the web. How cool is that?)

And the partial results of that afternoon? J's spiral-adorned heart:

S's rice and sushi trio:

A Seussian Christmas tree:

I'll add one caveat about this otherwise ideal winter craft: felting needles are barbed, and it is pretty easy to stab yourself—and it hurts! The pain from a felting needle lingers enough that all the boys mentioned it. It's thus not a great activity for the young or very inexperienced, but for everyone else, it's a truly fun and relaxing way to spend an afternoon.

a felted pouch

I can't seem to get off this subject, but I wanted to share a way to make a very quick pouch.


I have a little Flip video camera which I love, and which my son also loves. In getting passed back and forth between us, the drawstring pouch it came with somehow disappeared. So while we had all the wool out, I made a quick felted pouch.


The only measuring needed was at the beginning, to get the dimensions of the camera. It was 6" in circumference around widthwise:

And it was about 11" in circumference lengthwise. Divided in two (since there would be felting on both sides), I made a roughly rectangular pattern that was 3"X5.5" with an additional flap up top:

Felted, it looked like this:

When the felt was partially dry, I cut an opening and removed the plastic:

Then put the camera (wrapped in a ziploc for protection from lingering dampness) inside to shape the pouch while it dried:

A day later, I rummaged around and found some velcro and a leftover button. I may change the fastening (or the button) later, but for now, at least, we again have some protection for the Flip.

If you're interested in felting and other handwork, please take a look at Jennifer's beautiful Waldorfian blog, Syrendell. Love the slippers!

(re-)using mistakes

Last week we had some friends over to felt with us and were reminded again of the differences in how people work. Some learn best by doing, feeling out the process as they go along; others like to take in words and precise instructions.

Being of the former type, my explanations fell far short for those in the latter mold; consequently, some stockings felted but did not hold together or else developed little felted tags that hung off the sides.

Two days ago S and I made yet more felted stockings and paid closer attention. Along the way, a little brainstorm hit and we refined the technique a little.

We had saved the felted failures, knowing that we could use them in needle felting. But my hand carders were right there, and I wondered if I could pull them back into roving again. 

It turns out you absolutely can.

(I got this pair of carders on sale when our local yarn shop closed its doors, but I have a friend who uses pet brushes to card wool and gets good results. If I needed carders for this type of project, I would go with the inexpensive pet brushes.)

Carding is done with the handles facing outward. You brush in a single direction at a time, back and forth until the wool fibers are separated and aligned. The matted lumps above became the fluffy wool below.

Then you start wet felting as usual. I'd meant to try and quantify the process a bit more, but I can't pretend it's a strength. How much wool do you use? You use enough to enclose the pattern.

How tightly do you hold the wool when you submerse it in the water? You hold it as tight as you need to so that the wool doesn't fall off.

How long do you felt? I usually start to shape the felt around the pattern as soon as I feel it collapsing in the water. I may bob it up and down a bit, may pat the wool into place around the shape, and then will scrub back and forth (in water or a ziploc) to get it densely matted. Answer: you felt...you felt until it looks and feels the way you want it to. 

Over the day, we used up all the leftover felted scraps and tags, then tried cutting open the stockings we weren't that fond of, carded and refelted them. That worked, too. I had some chunky, unplied yarn sitting around. With some patience, it also broke down and was able to be felted—in fact, it turned out to be my favorite. Hand carders can salvage and recycle quite a lot, it seems.

By evening we had a new pile of little felted stockings, the wool more variegated and blended than our first set was.

Strung into a garland, they add color to the house in this otherwise wet, gray season.

little felted christmas stockings

I guess I got on a bit of a tiny stockings jag. A friend had asked about making felted stockings last year. We never got around to it then, but it's been on my mind this year so S and I did a trial run last week. Here is how we made them:


First I drew a pattern on a plastic bottle in a shape that S and I could both live with. He thinks stockings should have a big toe to hold a special something at the bottom. I prefer a long cuff, and so our end result was a bit of a compromise. The pattern was cut out with scissors—had I thought ahead, I might have spaced more carefully and been able to get 6-8 stocking shapes. Extra pattern pieces come in handy, as you can continue to make more stockings while the first ones are drying.

Besides the pattern, all we used were wool and a bowl of warm, soapy dishwater. A towel on the counter also comes in handy. Below is one of the color patterns S laid out. You can felt in a single color or in several, but many small pieces gets a little tricky, so it's a good idea to start simply. The wool is wrapped around the plastic pattern and carefully submerged it in the soapy water.

Once underwater, we agitated the piece as if washing clothes by hand. After a only few minutes of swishing and scrubbing, the wool begins to take shape.

A semi-shaped piece can be put into a ziploc bag and felted from the outside by rubbing it vigorously back and forth across a towel.

You can felt as little or as much as you like. I experimented with leaving the top of the cuff a little looser and fleecier on some of the stockings (see photo below) but generally we aimed for a denser, smoother felt.


The stocking almost always felted so well that the plastic pattern piece ended up completely encased but once the stocking had partially dried, it was easy to snip open the top with scissors and remove the pattern so it could be used again.

We made the set below in an easy afternoon, music on, stopping for little breaks here and there. These could be finished in a number of ways: adorned with more felt, beads, bells, yarn or embroidery; hung with a loop of ribbon or fabric, trimmed with straight or pinking shears. We'll make more and play with the finishing over the next month, although I am inclined to keep them as is, with very little embellishment. I love the look of the wool itself.

Felted stockings are a faster way to make a stocking advent calendar. They can also be hung on a tree or strung across a window. One can also use this wet felting technique to make pouches and cases, bowls and baskets, tea cozies and coffee cup sleeves—the pattern is simply adjusted to suit the project. If you do try some wet felting, for little stockings or otherwise, I hope you will post about it and let me know. I'd love to see it.

little stockings advent calendar

Remember these? They were the reason for my very first blog post, as I wanted a place to post the pattern.


Lovely and artistic Sam left a comment suggesting making 24 of them into an advent calendar. This year I decided to do just that.


Knitting during music lessons and at other spare moments, I eventually made some revisions to the pattern and turned it into a printable .pdf file.


The file can be found here.


The original goal of the pattern was to be able to knit up something quickly. But it's easy to get bored doing the same thing over and over so in the end, I traded a little speed for some variation: striping and stranding, duplicate stitching and basketweaving. With last year's trial versions thrown in, there was soon a good-sized pile.

And at Michael's, we found something to hang them that seemed made for an advent. Twenty-four to a pack!

Here's how they are hanging—I think you can barely make out the dates scribbled at the top of the clothespins:

And here's all 24 of them, waiting to be filled:

I'd love to hear about (or better yet, see) your advent calendars, homemade or otherwise. Please feel free to link to your photos or blog posts in the comments.

playing with yarn, part 5 (knitting rhymes)

Knitting is rhythmical, and one way to help keep rhythm while learning is to knit with a rhyme. When my older son was young, we learned this one for the knit stitch:

Under the fence

Catch the sheep

Back again

Off we leap

At that time we knew of no purl rhymes, so we made up our own:

Yarn to the front

Dive down deep

Catch a pearl ("purl"--I know, ouch!)

It's yours to keep

(Sometimes it's hard getting that loop off the needle in four short syllables.)

A quick search now turns up all sorts of knitting rhymes, not only for knit and purl, but also for Continental and English knitting. I think all that matters is that the rhymes you use are easy to remember and intuitively fit the motions of knitting and purling. A good rhyme helps cement the physical memory; the less you have to think about knitting, the more fluid and enjoyable it will be.