Blooper Reel from cloth diaper video

Friday, December 31, 2010

How to Felt a Sweater to make it Leak Proof

First you will need a soft wool sweater. The best place to get wool is in a thrift store. When you go, you are looking for sweaters with no less than 80% wool. Cashmere, Merino, Alpaca, and Agora are all types of wool and of course it can be listed as just wool on the tag. A combination of any of these works great. If it isn't listed at tag on neck look inside on the side seam. I also recommend lighter weight sweater that aren't to bulky.  Make sure the sweater is soft when you rub it against your cheek. Try to stick to Men's size large and Women's large or X-large. The sweater will shrink to half it's size when felted. You will be using the arms and lower portion of the sweater, so have fun with patterns and designs.

Felting
This is a fancy word for shrinking your sweater to make it leak proof.
*A word of caution: You should felt sweaters of like colors together. I learned the hard way that when sweaters are felting the fibers from other sweater will stick together. Think white sweater with red fuzz all over it.*

Wash your sweater in hot water without laundry soap, you will wash it with soap after you make your project.  I dried my sweater in the dryer after washing them and don't recommend it. It made the sweater very pilly. This just added another step of removing the piling. Just lay it on a towel on the table. You may need to wash a lighter weight sweater twice to get it to felt tighter. I washed my Merino sweaters twice and the regular wool once. The rule of thumb is, if your adult large now looks more like a child's large it's felted.

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