Well, here it is, the project in all its glory. It's been sitting in a little pile on one of the couches for a couple of weeks, waiting for the right-sized person to come and pose in it for me. And here she is - the lovely Laura!

She loved the hat and mitts particularly - and would probably have appreciated the waistcoat more if it hadn't been 27 Celsius that day!

More photos below - in the detail photo you can see the lace pattern of the original jersey, on the back of the mitts.

I really do need to steam the armhole trim - it would lie a lot flatter if it were properly finished.

Materials (in case you've just started following):

• Old shrunken jersey from the 'Sallies', dyed and felted.
  
• Navy dye (hot acid variety)
  
• Heavenly Wools 'Nightfall', spun into thick and thin singles and felted
  
• Leftover project yarn: wool, mohair and alpaca, spun from Little Wool Co sliver, 1990s vintage.

Now I have a complete set of mitts! And the hat is well on its way as well.As I continue on with changing a 'manky' sweater into a 3-piece fashion extravaganza, I will keep photographing, particularly the details as the work progresses.

The original jumper had a lace border around the bottom of the sleeves and garment. You can see this quite clearly in the photo.
Here are the finished mitts, with their 'hand-crafted' edging.  

The hand length is a little shorter than I would like, but they do successfully cover my knuckles. I prefer mitts with short fingers but this cloth is not really suitable for this treatment - I would have had to insert gussets between each finger - very fiddly!

The finished edge - knotty but nice! This is the beginning of the hat edge.
You can see how the thick and thin yarn provides a great texture of bumps. It wasn't until I started working on this edge that I realised how regular my thick and thin yarn was - perhaps I need to work on a little bit of irregularity!
The first row is plain blanket stitch, the second is needle knots worked into each blanket stitch top loop.

These cuffs are terrific! They are nice and stretchy, textured without being rough and uncomfortable; I love this bumpy look too. Here you can clearly see the starting chain that I made to pick up the stitches. Magically, I managed to make both chains the same number of stitches without counting. 
The cast-off cuff edge is very flexible and (I think) looks nicer than a cast-on, and I like the simple finish of the pickup chainstitch. If I was knitting then attaching the cuff, I'd stitch it to the mitt using surface backstitch through the loops of the final row.

Moving on to the hat next week...

I'm just kicking myself that I didn't take a photo of the hideous mangled oatmeal jersey before I started this project - it was truly a sight to behold. My first thought when my daughter produced it was "What on earth can I make out of that?".

Further inspection proved that it was of good quality; had a nice feel if a bit lumpy, and was quite big, a major concern if I was going to shrink it a bit more in the dyebath.

Once I had it dyed (see previous post) I finished all the edges with overlocking (although the fabric was pretty comprehensively felted after the dyebath, I wanted to be sure) and inserted some little gussets cut from scrap into the thumb area of the mittens to give a wider hand and better fit around the thumb (I did all this 'by eye' as I'm a bit of a risk taker!). I shortened the mitts because I found that I had made them much too long in the wrist and they were a bit floppy.

Having chosen some felted thick-and-thin yarn, plus a light navy/purple wool, mohair and alpaca yarn from my 'stash of the ages', I began to play about with various ideas, starting with the mittens. The first attempt at cuffs, made with the plain yarn, was hopelessly clumsy-looking so I undid that and used the thick-and-thin. You can see the edge of the starting row of chain stitch (in the plain yarn) that I made to begin the knitting. The more bulky yarn gives a pleasantly lumpy finish, which actually looks as if it's supposed to be like that! (It was - but it needs to be convincing). Then I started working on an edging strategy for the hand end of the mitt. this was crucial as it would be a keynote for the whole set.

I'm not particularly fond of blanket stitch, as it can look very "home made" and I wanted a nice-looking, hand-crafted finish (I hope you understand what I mean here). The thick-and thin yarn is a pain to stitch on the felted fabric with, but it gives an excellent edge with a lot of interest - it forms a wavy pattern which is very pleasant. I decided to add a little height to the edge by forming a row of needle knots on top of the blanket stitch. This looks great and is quite unusual. You can see this on the thumb edge of the mitt. The finished edges of the original jersey were in simple rolled stocking stitch, which needed to be stabilised before continuing (it kept rolling while I was trying to work on it), so I have simply slipstitched them in place with a cotton thread.

 To start the hat, I sewed the (former) neckband onto the joined sleeve pieces with the overlocker. I had to trim the hat pieces a bit to get a nicer look to the shaping. Then I made a tassel by unpicking some of the thick-and-thin from a locker hooked sample I had made a few weeks ago - that was a bad idea! This was attached to the hat by stitching a few threads back and forth and then blanket stitching over the threads, forming a strong attachment which allows the bobble to flop roguishly.

To be continued...