Dinning Room Chair Redux -Upcycling Wool Sweaters

I find my inspiration in some pretty funny places. Sometimes that inspiring thought has to sit in my head and gather momentum before I act on it. Such was the case of the super cool chairs at A Knitted Peace, a very hip knitting shop in Littleton, Colorado. I was there about two years ago when I spied a wonderful chair. For some reason I assumed that it was made of thrift story recycled wool sweaters that had been felted in the washing machine. I examined them closely and decided that I had to make at least one of those, too. The hunt was on for blue wool sweaters in a variety of shades. How could that be? Well, more difficult that I would have expected. It took me two years to get around to the project partly because I found out that 1)there is a short window of time when you can get wool sweaters at the thrift store, 2)finding blue wool sweaters is much more difficult than I expected.
It turns out that the most popular color for sweaters at my local thrift stores is brown, or gold, if you are in the woman's section.Nonetheless, I preserved and finally gathered a nice pile of sweaters which I felted in the washing machine and cut apart. As I was involved in the treasure hunt for the perfect sweaters for this task, I came to realize (duh!) that the chairs were most likely recovered with hand knit and felted bits. Once I realized this I dithered over whether I should knit and felt some rectangles, but decided to stay with my original plan. It felt good to know that I had a back up plan.

I spent Friday evening cutting the sweater bits into usable strips.

Moxy was happy to give his approval to the project and act as a supervisor. After all, he had an invested interest in making sure the chair turned out nicely.

That took a few hours, much longer than I would have expected.

Then the sewing took place on Saturday. I found that it is best to pair the extra stretchy knits with the more solidly felted pieces so that they keep their shape better. I also remeasured and re-trimmed them, just as I would with a regular quilt piecing project. That went pretty well. I used a zig zag stitch for extra measure. The actual construction and reupholstering went pretty quickly. I was able to design, sew and apply enough to get all three chairs done in one day.


Larr found the chairs at a garage sale a few years ago.They are a wonderful find because they go so well with our other Scandinavian dinning room chairs.

As you can see, they were very ugly. The cat had gotten into a pattern of sharpening his claws on two of the chairs. This made me feel embarrassed when we had guests over.


Here are two of the three chairs. I had intended to photograph all three, but must have become distracted and forgotten the third one.

I am happy with how they came out. My idea is that I can simply replace parts if the cat continues to use the chair as a scratching post. I have plenty of wool left over. I am even considering redoing a chair in the living room. Perhaps I will be more adventurous with that design.