It's What I've Been Working on Wednesday! book eggs!

The Easter Bunny likes to bring books to our house, this year he'll hopefully bring cool Lego books ;), so I made some felt eggs to put them in. They are quite wonky, and I wish I would have taken my time with them, but it is what it is. I should have used a straight stitch, so they wouldn't have rippled as much. Maybe next year i'll make some better ones.

I made the backs with an envelope closure, so I can just slip the books in.



I'm sure my son won't mind the wonky eggs once he sees what's inside of them ;).

It's What I've Been Working on Wednesday!

For a while now, i've been wanting to find a solution to a simple household problem. Where do we wipe our wet mouths after brushing our teeth? Wiping your mouth on a hand towel is unsanitary, no matter how well you've rinsed your mouth. Wiping your mouth on your bath towel is a little better, but probably unsanitary as well. My son & husband wipe their mouths on tissues, but that seems so wasteful! Then, I thought "I can make something!", and asked my husband if he would use them. He was totally on board with it! I figured flannel would be a good material, so I kept my eyes peeled at the thrift store, and though I couldn't find a good flannel sheet, I found these pajama bottoms. I just love the cute owl print!



They were washed, but but had no wear to them, and had lots of fabric! I cut out 5" squares (so they ended up 4"), made seams, and sewed twice, so they will last many washings.



I was able to get 46 squares out of the material. That will last us over a week (2 each x 3 of us = 6 used per day), so we will not run out of them in between washes. I've made 23 so far, and have quite a few to go. I don't mind though... they are kind of fun to make. These would have come in handy when my son was a toddler, as after snack face wipers!



So, what do you wipe your mouth on?

It's What I've Been Working on Wednesday!

I patched another hole in jeans, but this time it was mine! Almost 40 year old women should not play tag on roller skates without all the proper padding on. I may, or may not, know this from experience ;).

Since these were my jeans, I wanted to go for feminine, and since Valentine's Day is approaching, a heart seemed the most logical. I just cut the hole to a heart shape, and sewed a scrap of felted wool behind it, leaving about a 1/2" of denim, so it can fray a little. I stitched it on with a neutral thread first, to make sure it wasn't a wonky heart, then went over it in a contrasting thread. This would be a really cute way to patch a little girl's holey knee for Valentine's Day! I think this will look even better after it's washed a couple times, so the edges fray more, but i'm happy with how it looks.



How's that braided "basket" (I think basket with remain in quotes, until it starts resembling a basket) coming along? Slower than I thought, and a little wonky, but this is a learning experience for me, and I am pleased at my attempt so far.



What have you been working on?

What I've Been Working on Wednesday ... part 2 on Thursday

Totally forgot to post about my skirt yesterday! There was a felted merino cardigan in with the new sweaters a couple of weeks ago, and it kept telling me it wanted to be a skirt! I just cut across under the arms, sewed the cardigan opening closed, narrowed it a bit at the top, and made a waist band (making the back wider, than than the front, so it doesn't ride up on my rear) from the arms. Now I have a cute cozy bum warming skirt! This skirt with leggings is warmer than jeans, and cute with boots to boot! Since taking the above picture (my 6 year old was my photographer :) ), I have seam ripped the bottom 4 inches of the stitching I put in to keep the cardigan closed. It lays & moves better now, and still stays closed. I love the rolled original hem, and little belts... it made for some great detail in the skirt.

What I've Been Working on Wednesday

What is it? I'm not sure yet! I wanted to work on a bigger project, that will take a little time, and I wanted to use up some of the scraps I already have. Since my new machine is in the shop, and I only have the old Featherweight for now, I decide to make something braided. I originally had grand ideas of a rug like this:



... but now i'm thinking a basket like this might be nice:


For now, all I have is this ;)...



What do you think I should go for, basket or rug? So, what have you been working on? As always, feel free to post your finished recycled wool projects on my Facebook page!

It's What I've Been Working on Wednesday

Last week, I found this fabulous piece of kitchy kitchen themed fabric at the thrift store. I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it, but I loved it!



This hutch was supposed to be used for sewing storage, but we needed game storage more, so it became the game cabinet. Looks horrible right?


I made 2 simple curtain panels out of the fabric, and put them on a tension rod. It didn't turn out as awesome as I had envisioned, but it's a definite improvement, I think.



I got a paint sample to match this green...

...and I plan to paint the trim that color. It should look better then. What do you think?

So, What have you been working on?

It's What I've Been Working on Wednesday!

Remember these slippers by any chance? I made these last year from some thick merino, and some alpaca... heaven to my feet (link to slippers tutorial here)! To combat our slippery hardwood floors, I had added some pieces from the bottoms of my son's outgrown & holey non-skid socks (read more about that here).



Little did I know, those slippers were going to be my favorites, and I would wear them every single day for hours at a time. I didn't think of the inevitable... wearing them out! :(



Once holes appeared I knew I had to put something more than wool on the bottom, if I wanted to wear them every day. I found this sweater, and knew that the suede pockets would be perfect!



I seam ripped the pockets & elbow patches off of it, and hand sewed them to the bottoms of the slippers... much better!



Now they should last a while!

So, what have you been working on?

It's What I've Been Working on Wednesday!

I made this wool Christmas tree this week.


Just a decoration, right?



Well... actually it's a hat!


It looks better in real life, but the lighting was bad. I even made the hat band brown (can't really tell from the picture) for the tree trunk. I need to make some mini ornaments for it. I will be wearing it to my son's class party on Friday. I am SO glad he's not of the age where he is embarrassed by mom yet! ;)

It's What I've Been Working on Wednesday!

Saturday's show (which I will blog about next week) has kind of thrown my week off, so I apologize that there was no tutorial yesterday. I was still able to make a few things this week, mostly before my show.

When we have little ones over, I like to bring out my son's outgrown dolls for them to play with. The other day my son told me that they would have more fun with them, if they had more clothes, so I made these little pjs from an infant romper I bought at the thrift store. It was really easy, since I was using the existing hems on the neck, arms, legs, and the snaps of the romper.



I found a great lambswool/cashmere argyle, and used it to make my son some woolly pants, since he was outgrowing some of his. They are much cuter on, and the colors make my son look like a cute elf :).


I made 2 more stockings, that I fully intended on selling at the craft show, but I wanted to have more of a selection, so I never brought them. They look wonky in the picture, but don't look so bad in real life.


That's about it! What have you been working on?

It's What I've Been Working on Wednesday!

After making stockings for my son, my husband, and I, I realized someone was missing.... our dog Spots! I made her a stocking too. When I showed it to her, she instantly got the zoomies (if you have ever had a dog or cat, you have probably witnessed the zoomies at one time or another). It almost seemed like she was excited about the stocking, and we laughed so hard :). No point to this story... it was just funny.


Monster knee patch? Pure genius. Not my idea, but I love it! I found it on Pinterest. Have you been on Pinerest?! It is addictive! It is a virtual bulletin board, to "pin" all those fun ideas you run across online. Anyhow, I found this idea here, and just happened to find a pair of my son's jeans with a hole in the knee, so there you go. The thing I did differently than the original tutorial, is that I seam ripped the side of the leg, so I could do the sewing with my machine. I figure the patch will survive more washings this way, and it only takes a few seconds with the seam ripper... much faster than hand sewing.

before & after:



If you have an older child, and this is too cute for them I posted a tutorial a while back on how to repair a hole with the "destroyed" look, here.


What have you been working on?

It's What I've Been Working on Wednesday!

I love cardigans & hoodies, so when I saw this cashmere hoodie in my size, I grabbed it out of the pile of sweaters that had just come in. I looked it over & found the zipper separating at the seams a little. This made me giggle, because it was probably the reason that the hoodie ended up at the thrift store... silly non-sewing people!


After 30 seconds at the sewing machine, it was like new again. While I was there, I grabbed one of my owls that I made for the owl skirts, and sewed it to the chest.



I then took a fun multi-colored seam and pinned it to the existing hoodie drawstring, and pulled it through. I think that made it a lot more fun, don't you!



I love my new hoodie :) !

What have you been working on? Add anything fun to your online shops? Feel free to post your finished recycled wool (or cashmere!) projects on my Facebook page!

It's What I'm working on Wednesday!

Because of Halloween, I didn't get much sewing in this week, but I plan to make lots of owl skirts this week! I've got some fun scraps ready to make owl parts...


and a couple of owls cut out...


but i'm figuring out how I want them. I wasn't crazy about how the button eyes (above) turned out, so I made some wool ones instead.


I tried something a little different with this sock monkey skirt.

I used the hem of the sweaters, instead of making my own hem. I think I like my own hem better. This ended up looking squarish at the bottom. I also didn't have quite enough of the brown heathered, as I did the red, so I made the brown panels a little narrower. I think that turned out ok. I am hoping to have a tutorial worked up for these skirts on Tuesday, so stay tuned!