How to Make a Capelet from an Old Sweater
I’m Claire. I have an Etsy Store called Small Stars and I sell vintage Capelets made from felted sweaters.
I’m a costume designer and a technician. I've worked for L.A. operas, into theater group and film. And I thought of my store really as a creative outlet and released for my fulltime work.
This capelet is really good for an L.A. winter. It just covers you a little bit and keeps you warmer on the neck. You can wear it with a navy dress or dress with a pair of jeans.
So today we’re going to turn our sweater into felt and I have with me a red sweater. And what I normally look forward at the store is a sweater that has the nicest fiber. This is a two-ply Kashmir, a hundred percent Kashmir there which is really nice.
I tend to look for like anything wool and Angora Kashmir. Mohair has shrink up better than a cotton. So we’re going to pop it in the washing machine. Once, really, really hot. Twice if they aren’t really not shrinking out. I have to dry it. Again, it’s really hot. Away we go! It takes about an hour and that shrinks right off.
I think my costume system work for a long while which meant that I was doing a little shopping or fabric shopping sampling and I felt that I wasn’t actually having anything tangible that I created in there.
When you’re searching for a production, it’s almost when you have a design. You’re part of a team in creating but you haven’t done that whole piece by yourself. See, I felt like I can never feel entirely proud of the whole product. Here is the cape which is at the end of it, I have a piece of work that I can directly be proud of, that I've created from start to finish. I love being really hands on about it.
My mom knew how to sew and did tried to teach me how to sew. However, I’m not very good at taking directions. So my first year of school was Fashion College. They didn’t teach you pattern making but they taught you how to minute to make them and then how to construct from that. And so it was a year kind of making course really. And then my design degree had no rule making and whatsoever. So as soon as I've got out, I took another internship in San Francisco for the theater there and basically learned construction for theater which is different than fashion construction.
My favorite stage is putting the sweater on the set and finding the trim and the buttons that go with it.
I think some black lace would be really nice.
Everything I make, I make as if I was making it for myself. And so I try and make it as a wonderful and beautiful as I can and then I decide not to get pressure about it and let it go.
I do try and think of characters when I’m creating these pieces. I really love fairytale and so I like to try think of my kit that’s belonging to the modern versions of fairytale characters.
My button collections, one is from my grandmother from my mom’s side and one’s from my grandmother on my father’s side. And the one from my mom’s side, I think she also inherited them from her mother because there are buttons in there that are completely from centuries.
I love vintage buttons. Everybody has a memory about buttons. We actually had a project, my first projects in fashion school and we went around the room and everybody had a story from like their childhood where something is really stuck on that memory of buttons. It almost like smell, it takes you back to that time.
The great thing about felted wool is you don’t really intend it.
So now, there it is! Ta-da! Done.
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