How to Felt Old Sweaters Into Booties

Find online or buy a sewing pattern for booties. Since the felting process will shrink the fabric considerably, the pattern should be in a size at least 25% larger than your planned finish product. With felting, it is best to err larger rather than smaller, but make sure your pattern pieces can fit on your old sweater without overlapping.

Pin the sewing pattern to the sweater and cut out the shapes. If your sweater has multiple colors or other decorative features, you may want to design those into the new booties by placing the pattern pieces creatively.

Sew the oversized booties, following the instructions of the sewing pattern.

Felt your sweater booties. Place the wool sweater into a mesh wash bag or a zippered pillow case and place it in your washing machine. The bag or pillow case will keep loose wool fibers from coating your machine, leaving less to clean up later. The ideal wash settings for felting are low water level, hot temperature and a heavy cycle with high agitation. Adding a small amount of dish soap will aid the process along.

Start the washer, and use the tongs to check the booties every five minutes for size and density. The longer you wash the wool, the thicker and smaller it will become, because the felting process shrinks the wool considerably.

Remove the booties before the spin cycle ends, when they have reached their desired size. Remove excess water by rolling them in a towel.

Shape the booties by hand and allow them to dry. Some people prefer to either dry the damp booties over a hard plastic form or to stuff the interior firmly with plastic bags to keep the shape -- the felt will be slightly stiff after it dries. Wash your finished product by hand in cold water to prevent any unwanted future felting or shrinkage.