The (sad) tale of a sweater

I had this idea for a felted coat for Clementine made from one of my old wool sweaters. I called my sister Elli who knits and asked her for some help. She explained that (and this is the gist of felting) you can basically wash the sweater in hot water repeatedly until it is the desired size, and that the wool fibers will tighten up so that you can cut  up the sweater and not worry about it raveling.So I got right to it. I stuck the sweater in the wash and then dried it on high and lo and behold it was just about Clementine's size. Sweet.

{these two sweaters used to be the same size}Next up was the hardest part. But I took a deep breath, and cut it right down the middle with the scissors.

Phew. Then I chopped the arms off:

Not too hard. Maybe even easy! Next I cut the neck ribbing out:

Easy peasy! I trimmed the bottom ribbing off.

Looking pretty good! I'm feeling pretty good about myself. I'm on a ROLL. On FI-YAH.How about some pockets?

NO PROBLEM! See, I'm good at this, I'm making it happen, I'm a WHIZ. Watch me make a coat from a sweater in a snap, yeah???OK, time to add a button tab and a zipper. Little strip of sweater = Button Tab. Trip to Joann = 12" Sport Zipper.

So I hit my first bump with the zipper when the sweater started stretched way more than the zipper and looked weird. OK. But I can roll with that. A little unsewing, a little basting, a little try-it-again. The next attempt was better, but still a bit bubbly:

But not too bad. I could probably just put this under the iron really quick, just steam it up a little, just flatten it out a bit. Right?So...I put it under the iron AND THAT'S WHEN IT ALL WENT HORRIBLY WRONG. As I lifted up the iron I saw long red strings like hot glue. Seriously? No, joke, I had melted the zipper SHUT. Unbelievable.

So that's how that went. Learn from my mistakes.

On the plus side, I can still get the zipper partially open. She can just wear it as a pullover, right? Kidding, sortof. Time to start unsewing again. *sigh*