Making Progress

Several months ago, I began a project in tandem with my best friend: creating things out of discarded wool sweaters. We had learned that one could "felt" wool sweaters purposely--as opposed to doing so inadvertently by tossing one's best wool sweater in the wash!--and then cut the sweaters up for craft material. I purchased many wool sweaters at a local Goodwill store, washed them in my washing machine (placing each sweater separately in a pillowcase), and then dried the sweaters on a low setting. Then I cut up each sweater and stored the material in copy paper boxes I bring home from work. Then I began my work.

I first made a jacket, a vest and a cell phone holder. The jacket and vest were each made from a single wool pullover, cut open up the front, hemmed, and embellished with crochet, embroidery, and appliqué. The smaller jacket fits my daughter but not her style; I made the red vest for my mother. The small jacket I made rather quickly, the very first thing I made using sweater-felting, as one can see in the hastily stitched hem. But after these small projects, I decided to tackle something much larger, a quilt for each of my two children.

Here's the idea I came up with to make the felted quilt project more portable. I cut felted sweaters into 7-inch squares. Then I cut squares out of cotton material a little larger than seven inches. The cotton material is from handmade clothes and scraps I have collected and saved over the years. If I liked a piece of material, I kept it, storing it in a large plastic zipper bag with an image of the Virgin of Guadalupe on the front and back. I hem each wool square, embellish it with embroidery, buttons, appliqué, or designs cut from other material. Then I handsew a square of cotton backing to the completed wool square. When I finish making 160 such squares--80 squares for each quilt--I will use yarn to sew a blanket stitch around each square and then crochet the squares together. I am a little over one-fourth the way through with this project. I decided to make the quilts at the same time rather than trying to complete one quilt before starting on another.

Here is a picture of the squares I have completed. Though the picture indicates almost enough squares for one quilt, these squares are for two quilts. I have a lot more squares to make. Although I embellish most of the squares, I am also making squares with no embellishments because I think the quilt might be a little too overpowering if every square had buttons and bows. The striped squares in this photo are unembellished. All of this is hand-sewn. And while the work may look tedious, it does not seem to be so to me. I find the work engaging yet relaxing. Engaging because I create a design for each type of sweater-square. I look at the square and decide what I am going to create on that square. Can I draw a design that will look good appliquéd? Will I appliqué a flower, a whale? Will I sew interesting buttons on the square? What color of embroidery thread will I use? Although some of the squares have turned out less successful than others, I will include them all--they tell the story of my creation, of my increasing confidence with the work and of my developing expertise with the material. And of my love for hand-crafted items and for my children. Every stitch is a conscious, deliberate stitch, in the moment--and for that reason, the work is relaxing.