Felted Mitts for Charity

Here's yet another way to make warm mittens.  I have a lot of wool on cones, but mostly not enough of any one color to make a garment.  So I decided to try this approach...

1.  I knitted up blanks---like 170 stitches x 200 rows with my 100% wool.  I did do a permanent cast on and cast off.  Some people don't when they knit blanks, but I didn't want to take the chance of things unraveling and getting wound around anything in the washing machine.  I used every needle on my standard gauge machine, but any machine works.  Try the loosest tension to help the felting.
2.  I did two cycles in the washing machine to get the fabric felted really well.
3.  Found a template on the internet for making mittens out of fleece.  This is size 2 to 4.  Cut it out of paper for a pattern.
4.  Once dry, I pinned the pattern onto the felted material and cut out 4 pieces for each set of mittens.
5.  I sewed around the doubled pieces at about 1/4" seam allowance.  My sewing machine didn't like this very much because there wasn't much for the feed dogs to catch onto and push forward.  The doubled fabric was pretty thick too.  A walking foot probably would have helped things along.
6.  I clipped the seam wherever there was a curve so that it would turn to the right side better.
7.  Cut a piece of fabric for each mitt about 1 inch by the circumference of the cuff (plus an inch to turn back and hide a raw edge).    Sewed this on by hand to not further irritate my sewing machine.  Adds a little decoration.
8.  I cord (Not felted) about 20" long to thread through the sleeves so that the mitts won't get lost.  Attached to side of mitts.

Did 2 pairs----but I'm sure they were more labor intensive than just knitting the %^&&*^ things.  I just had to try it and maybe you will find it more fun than knitting them outright.