Finally finished! Not sure I'd really recommend this project, or if I'm up for doing another. Though I love how it finally turned out, it was one of those projects that was quite frustrating at times. Mainly because I wanted it to look tailored and sleek at the end, and mismatched bits of felted knit fabric apparently don't lend themselves to that look.
But for you brave souls, here's how I made it:
1. Acquire a stash of shrunken felted wool sweaters. Its pretty critical that they are all of similar weights. Cut into strips - I used a rotary cutter and made my strips around 4" wide.
2. Sew your strips short end to short end to make long strips. I used a zigzag stitch and contrasting thread and butted the fabric next to each other (did not overlap). This is not particularly strong, but you'll reinforce later.
3. Arrange your long strips into a pleasing arrangement, then sew the long strips to each other along their long ends also using a zigzag stitch. I sewed them all into groups of three, and then combined the groups of three. This is the VERY fiddly part. One of my strips had much more stretch than the others and ended up pulling the whole thing out of square. I ended up taking that one out in the end.
4. A steam iron is your friend. Once I had sewed all the strips together, I pressed it with a steam iron. It really helped to flatten out the wavy seams and I could pull and stretch it until it was square again.
5. Next, you are going to reinforce your seams with iron-on seam tape. Lay the seam tape along the seams on the wrong side of your blanket and then cover with parchment paper and iron it. It will melt the seam tape onto your seam and strengthen it. Apparently some of these tapes come with a peel-off backing. Mine did not, so I used parchment paper so I didn't iron the seam tape TO my iron...
6. Now add your backing fabric. I used flannel. Lay your fabrics on the floor, wrong sides together. Then pin with safety pins down the center of your strips, not the seams. Use lots of pins. You may want to use your steam iron again to flatten out your blanket - I did (I really wanted mine to be square).
7. Now you're going to quilt it. Which means sew over your seams again with a zigzag stitch, through both layers of fabric. This stitch will also sew through your iron-on seam tape, further strengthening your blanket.
8. Last step is to bind your edges. I had left extra length on my flannel side, so was able to just fold it over and stitch it down. The other method would be to bind with separate strips of fabric. No need to use bias cut fabric, it doesn't need to stretch.
http://www.instructables.com/id/Cashmere-Patchwork-Quilt/
