It's that time of year... craft sale time!

Being a stay-at-home, homeschooling mom, I don't have tons of opportunities to make money. Every year about this time I start getting ready for my one big opportunity :) -- craft fairs (well, maybe not that BIG, but a little extra income this time of year is good!) My product is felted wool mittens lined with fleece. During the summer I look for wool sweaters at yard sales/rummage sales/etc. and then shrink them ("felt them") right away in the washer/dryer with my regular wash. I pop them into a box in the basement, always with grand ambitions to start on the mittens in the summer (yeah, right!) Despite my grand intentions here I am again, a few weeks from the first craft sale, with a lot of mittens to make!

Here's some of the progress thus far:

Homeschooling 2 high schoolers and one jr. higher...leaves me not much time for extra stuff like this :) SOOOO...here I am at 11:00 p.m. cutting out mittens :) Yes indeed, it's that time of year! :)

This is my 6th year doing this. I started making these mittens as a response to a **mistake** of washing/drying a cute wool sweater--I didn't want to get rid of it so I looked for ideas of what to do with it...and love them!!

So--how are they made? I take shrunken wool sweaters and I buy fleece at the fabric store when it's on crazy sales (I used to recycle fleece, but find that I like the new fleece better to work with and I think it feels better). I found a pattern online made of 3 pieces (I think maybe this was my first pattern (THIS) ) The difference is that I add a cuff which I cut off of the wrist or waist of the sweaters.

It's a pretty easy project, but they do well at craft fairs! I guess I'd better get sewing!

(((Here's the other idea I used last year, not sure if I'll make them again this year, but I DO like them! :) )))