Upcycling an adult sweater into wool longies

This is a tutorial on how to create wool longies for babies or toddlers. They are often used by people who cloth diaper their children because the wool soaks up leaks but keeps the baby's skin dry.

First locate a wool sweater, second hand stores probably have some in stock. I have heard that you can use wool blends, but don't get a blend with less than 80% wool for the best absorption. And make sure that the blend doesn't contain cotton or rayon, polyester is fine. All this will be located on the tag of the sweater, if it isn't located at the neckline look at the side seam at about waist height. If there is no information on the sweater and you are uncertain about the material, then do not use it for this purpose. HOWEVER, you can make the pants if you want to just don't count on them wicking away pee like 100% wool would. One tip is that wool sweaters should be labeled dry clean only.

It has often been recommended that you "felt" the wool to bind the fibers together more. You do not have to do this, but it will make the spaces in the knit smaller and the knit tighter. If the sweater is a very bulky one I don't think you have to do this at all. And on the ones that I have that are fine morino wool, I don't even think that they felted when I processed them.
In order to felt your sweaters you wash them with hot water and detergent, then throw them in the dryer on high. Ta-da, hands free felting!  Both of these things would normally "ruin" your sweater, because it felts the wool, hence the dry clean only label.

This is the sweater I found, 100% fine morino and didn't seem to felt too much. When sewing this project you should sew with a zig zag stitch to keep every thing nice and stretchy and to help keep those knitted fibers all encased.

First step is to cut off the sleeves to the length you need. You can find out how long you need by measuring a pair of your baby's current pants and adding a bit for growing into. The green pins that you see a bit more than half way up are marking where the legs end and the crotch seam will begin. Again you can use a current pair of pants to find the this spot and mark it a bit higher than that for growth.

Next you cut from the top down to the spot you marked. I cut very close to the seam on both the front and the back of each sleeve in order to remove the seam completely because it was bulky.

There is a trick you can use when sewing the two legs together and this pic doesn't show it too well sorry. You flip ONE leg inside out and leave the other right side out. Slip the right side out sleeve INTO the inside out sleeve and pin them together from the top edge to the crotch and back up to the other top side. This pic shows me having pinned from the top edge to the crotch seam so that you could see how I slipped one inside the other. When you sew it like this it keeps the raw edges of the seam on the inside of the pants where it belongs and keeps all the material safely tucked away so that you don't accidentally sew something into the seam that doesn't belong there. I have done it!

When you get it all pinned sew together in one  long seam. I like to back stitch over the dead center of the crotch where the legs seams are just to strengthen the seams.

Starting to look like pants?

To add a waist band cut off more material. Measure the length of the pants you just made across the front from hip to hip and double it, this will give you the length you need. My elastic was 1 inch so I made the strip for the waistband about 4 inches wide. I wasn't specific because I used a scrap from the sweater and it just happened to be about 4 inches.

What I did was fold the material over the elastic with the right side of the material facing out, zig zag stitch near the elastic without catching any elastic with the needle, then trim off the excess material near the stitching.

In this photo you can see where I put a yellow pin (at the top of the pic) and green pin (at the bottom of the pic) in order to mark the exact opposite ends of the band.

Then I brought the yellow and green pins together and marked the "new" opposite edges again with pins in this photo green at the top and blue at the bottom. This marked the waist band at 4 spots equal distance from each other. I then put 4 more pins exactly half way between each of the original ones for a total of 8 pins. I did the same thing with the pants. I do it this way because I hate measuring!
 

Then with the pants turned inside out and the waistband on the inside of that I matched up the pins and  attached the pieces together. When I sewed it I simply stretched the waistband as I went to match the length of the pants.

 

This is what they look like finished. There are a few other ways to make pants like this, but for me this worked out just fine. I was also able to use the same sweater to make 2 other items, a larger pair of pants and a hat.

We had an outing

On Saturday my niece and I went out in public for the first time in our fursuits. We signed up for a charity walk for our local humane society, hence the matching t shirts. We really had a good time. People took pictures of us and with us. We scared a couple of dogs and kids, but for the most part were accepted pretty well.

I don't know if I mentioned this before but there are NO fursuiters or mascots here. (With the exception of the mascot for a minor league baseball team over an hour away and the giant hot dogs and brat costumes that they put people in and make them race on the field.) So needless to say, we took people totally by surprise!

Tools for Fursuit

These are items that you could use to make a mask. I am sure that others may do it different, this is just what I have or that I prefer.

Glue gun and glue sticks, I like to try and use the clear sticks if I can find them incase any glue ends up showing in my craft projects. I keep my hot gun on a plate wrapped in foil it keeps the gun from sliding around which it will do because it is so light and makes for easy clean up of glue drips.
Scissors, yes I use more than one pair I have a really sharp pair I use on fabric only so that they stay sharp, I use all purpose scissors for all my other tasks
Razor tool, you use this for cutting the fur you can use any type of razor tool like an exacto, a box cutter, a snap off retractable, or simply a square blade that you can get from the hardware store. Please be careful when ever you are cutting with any razor tool, it goes without saying that they are sharp and can cut you easily.
Needle and thread
Pens
Ruler or straight edge
Paint pens, for coloring the eyes
Brush (forgot to include) I use my dog's brush to brush the trapped fur out of sewn seams

Optional tools
Sewing machine, you do not need a sewing machine in order to make a fursuit. If you do not have one but wish to give this a try all you need is a needle and thread, of course it takes longer but it is more than doable.
Face mask, one thing I didn't find out about until it was too late is that when you are shaving fur or cutting through the fur not just the backing, little bits of it float around in the air and you are going to breathe it.
Clippers, for shaving the face of the mask. It is not necessary to do this step but a lot of people do in order to give their suit a more finished appearance.
Foam head form, this was really cheap and you can leave your mask on it while working. They come smaller than a human adult head but can be padded with foam to the exact size of your own head.
Yarn needle, for sewing the mesh together. They are cheap but if you don't want to purchase one you can do what I did for my first head and use a garbage twist tie folded in half with the ends twisted together.
Seam ripper, (the tan thing above the clippers). You can use the dull prong to pull loose any fur that gets sewn into a seam.
Cutting board, I use this plastic one so that I don't mess up my work space (I.E. my dining room table!) I use it when I am cutting with a razor tool and when I am hot gluing the glue comes right off it.
Straight pins to hold items
Cups, I used cups to mark the placement of my eyes  as well as the template for drawing and constructing my eyes. For me they were very important.

Materials for Fursuit

This a picture of types of basic materials you could use to make a mask head. I am sure there are other things people use but this is what I am going with.

Plastic mesh for the base, I am planning on using black for the interior of the mouth
Yarn to sew the mesh together, I prefer it because it is lighter than hot glue and you can take it apart easily if you need to rework your base.
Foam, this is left over pieces I had but you can use any kind you like
Buckram or a see through fabric for the eyes
Fun foam sheets, for the eye and mouth details (I used it for teeth too)
Felt sheets, for eyes and eyebrows
Sculpey, many people have used this to make teeth and mouth interiors
I have not decided if I will attempt to make the bottom jaw move, but one set of directions I found called for using rubber bands and brads (those are the little metal pieces at the bottom of the picture, I had some for use with scrap booking and were very small so I used small machine screws and nuts on my first mask it worked great)
Craft Fur, this will be the most expensive part of your project. I got this fur from Hancock Fabrics when they had a fur sale so I saved a lot of money. If you sign up to receive fliers from places like Hancock or JoAnn Fabrics you will save your self a bundle by finding out when they have a sale on the things you need and they often have a coupon on the flier for around 40% off.

Squirrel Costume

This is my second head. The quality of the fur is far superior to my first. The jaw on this one doesn't move.
And the model in this picture won't stop making silly faces! But that is ok, at least she is willing to model.

This plastic mesh base isn't finished it is a work in progress, but is the only photo I have of it.

My first attempt at making a fursuit

I did a lot of research on the subject, typical me. I didn't want to spend any money on something that could turn out disasterous, so I scrounged through my supplies and was able to make something that is completely usable! I used plastic mesh for the base, I sewed it together with yarn to keep the weight down (hot glue can get heavy), then I covered it with foam. It has a moving jaw so that isn't attached yet.

I covered it with a couple of different types of fur, none of which were too expensive so the quality isn't great. It isn't quite finished, it has no nose, the mouth isn't finished and the fur could use a bit of trimming.