Turning Felted Sweater Scraps Into a Scarf!

Here in Michigan, there’s a cool nip in the air, and that can only mean one thing… its time to start thinking about making gifts for the holidays! Not to mention that just the thought of autumn makes me want to start making things from felted wool sweaters. So today, I had a look in my felted wool sweater stash, and saw a lot of scraps. I came up with this scarf to use them up.

I started by pulling out some sweater scraps in colors that I liked together. I looked at the largest pieces to determine how I could use them to create my scarf.

In this case, I determined that I could cut 4 15″ lengths that were 3″ wide to create a long narrow scarf. I didn’t mind that 2 of the pieces were from the ribbed bottom of the sweater, I just used them as the ends, because I thought it would look more interesting that way.

To connect the 4 pieces, I overlapped the ends about 1/2″ and sewed a straight seam down the middle. To tidy up the ends, I used a zig-zag stitch on both sides as shown below.

I sewed all 4 pieces together into a long scarf. Now I needed to decorate it!

You can cut any kind of shapes you like to decorate your scarf. I happen to love my Big Kick die cutter for this purpose. I cut flower shapes and leaf shapes  from more scraps and played with the different combinations of color and texture. I also raided my button stash to add centers to the flowers.

Using heavy perle cotton thread, I hand sewed the button to the flower shapes, then decided on the placement, and sewed it onto the scarf. I did the same with the leaf shapes. For the tiny flowers, I embroidered french knots in the center because they were too small for a button.

I think its a fun and easy way to use up some of those leftover felted sweater scraps and get started on your holiday gift making. I have plans for several more, inspired by the colors of the scraps in my felted sweater stash. Please let me know if you make a scarf like this. I’d love to see a photo of it! And as always, please leave a comment and let me know what you think of this project.