Sewing Mittens and a Hat from a Thrifted Sweater

My first crafting hobby, at least of my adult life, was knitting. I taught myself how to knit in 2005. I have continued to knit and have become quite good. Knitting is relaxing, portable, and thoroughly rewarding to figure out. But ....

I have a new crafting love. Sewing. I bought a sewing machine last September (2011) and quickly fell in love with the speed with which you can create a project. A baby blanket, which was a month long endeavor on knitting needles can be a three hour project with a sewing machine! I've been hooked ever since.

So, when I came across this post from A Beautiful Mess about sewing with knit fabric I was intrigued but equally scared. As a knitter, the idea of cutting a knit sweater was terrifying! I filed the idea into the back of my mind in case the perfect sweater happened across my path.

$7 sweater from the thrift store

Well, today it did! I found this beautiful red intarsia sweater for $7 at the Salvation Army. It is a men's large so there is quite a lot of fabric to work with. I decided that I would try to make a mitten using the two sleeve cuffs as the mitten cuffs and a hat from the waistband area.

Mittens pinned.

No going back after this!

I followed A Beautiful Mess's advice and increased my stitch length to 3.5. The mittens went fairly smoothly, but the hat caused a bit of trouble. I decided to fold the waistband/hat cuff over and on my first attempt I sewed around the entire hat while it was inside out. When I flipped the hat to the right side and folded the brim up, the seams were on the outside. I ripped the seams and re-sewed the top of the hat (it really didn't fit correctly the first time) and the brim seams on the right side. It all turned out great the second time!

Success! Mittens!

And a hat!

Now, if the weather would get cold enough to warrant wearing hats and mittens!