Tutorial Tuesday - Simple Sweater Hat by Nancy's Couture

Today's tutorial is from Nancy Couture's blog (Thanks, Nancy!!!), and is one of the easiest recycled wool projects i've seen in a while! Here is the one I made, following her instructions, and it literally took only minutes to make! I swear my husband just happened to be wearing that shirt, and didn't put it on just to match the hat ;)


Ready to make your own? Head on over to Nancy's Couture tutorial!!

Sale! Sale! Sale!

I have reached 400 followers on my blog, so it is time for a sale! Let's do this in 4's since it's 400.

Buy 4 sweaters, get one free (of equal or lesser value)! If you buy 8, you get 2 free, buy 12, you get get 3 free etc.

Blankets are all $4 off!

This sale applies to sweaters not yet listed as well, so if you are looking for something specific let me know!

To take advantage of this sale, just check out through Artfire, but stop when it tries to redirect you to Paypal. At this point, contact me with the email address to send your revised invoice to, and your sale prices will be reflected on the invoice.

Sale ends at midnight (central time) on Wednesday, December 1st, so hurry!

Get fantastic art for a bargain price! Small Business Saturday!

Do you have an American Express card? If so, head over HERE and sign up to get a $25 credit when you spend $25 or more on small businesses... today only! Not sure where to spend that $25? Go go my friend Jen's website!

From Jen:

"Hi everyone! Jennifer Edgley Paintings qualifies for this. Spend $25 or more (with your registered AmEx card) on my artwork and American Express will give you a $25 credit on your next statement. That would make 2 of my $15 notecard packs $5! What a great holiday gift!"

This is Jen, holding the painting I bought from her at one of her shows. Isn't it fantastic?

Something you won't find at my craft shows

You see the finished products & the tutorials I post here. They are finished, and look good, right? Good ideas, and pretty products? Now what you don't see is my "mistake pile" next to my sewing machine, that is almost as tall as my sewing machine, that is awaiting some quality time with a seam ripper. What you also don't see is the great ideas that weren't so great after all. I made what I was going to call "oven mitt-ens", basically a large thick mitten, like my regular mittens, but with more arm coverage. I thought it would be cute, and something different than the same old oven mitts. Great idea, right? So I make the pattern, make the tester prototype, and i'm using it to get a pizza out of the oven. It's working great, so i'm feeling happy about my cool new oven mitt. Then I go to switch hands to hold the pan with my left hand, so I can cut the pizza with my right. That's when I realized it was hand specific, and could only wear it on the right hand.

I'll still use it (when nobody else is around), but I won't be making any more "oven mitt-ens"!

What I've Been Working on Wednesday

Meet Victoria Marie, the newest member of the Resweater family! I made a beret hat from the circles that are left over from making the adult sized berets (tutorial here), and it was the perfect size for an American Girl doll, or other 18" dolls (Victoria is an Our Generation doll), so I am going to make some girl/doll sets of hats. Hopefully i'll have some time this week to make some!

Last week my mom gave me some custom orders for some friends of hers, so i've been busy making those. I'm pretty happy with how they all turned out :)




So, what have you been working on? Feel free to post pictures of your finished projects on my FB page!

Tutorial Tuesday - Recycled Wool Cardigan Hat!

Please excuse my lousy lighting self portrait above. I assure you the hats look much better in real life! This hat was inspired by this fab tutorial, but alas, I am lazy and decided there had to be an easier way! Are you ready for the Resweater lazy version? ;)

Step 1 is to find a felted wool, or cashmere, cardigan with buttons down the middle. I know a cool place you can get one, if you don't have a cardigan to work with ;)



Next, I sewed a little between each button, just so it wouldn't gap open. I used a contrasting thread to show you, but it's still a little hard to see... sorry about that.


Next, Cut the biggest circle that your sweater will allow. The bigger the sweater, the bigger the circle (the sweater I used was a women's medium for a reference).


Now take a piece of very stretchy felted ribbing, and cut it to fit your head the way you want it to. It can be the ribbing from the sweater you cut the circle from, or you can take some from another sweater like I did. I like the contrast.


Sew your ribbing into a loop. I used my new machine's fancy stitch to get a flat seam (love it!).


Sew your the unfinished edge of your ribbing to the edge of your circle, wrong sides out, s-t-r-e-t-c-h-i-n-g the ribbing (not the circle!) as you go. I can stretch evenly as I go freehand, but if you are not sure, you can pin it at different parts, so you know if you are stretching enough or too much. Now turn it right side out & you are done!

Because of the stretchiness of the ribbing, these hats will fit both children & adults. A word of caution: Boys don't like to model girl hats.

Jack's Christmas present - Kangamonster pillow

This came out exactly how I wanted it to, so I am thrilled! I call him Kangamonster, because his mouth is a pouch (kangaroo). I made this for Jack, because he likes to take toys into bed with him, but doesn't like to bring his smaller toys, like action figures, with him. He's afraid they'll get stuck somewhere or fall off the bed. Now he can stick them in Kangamonster's mouth where they will be safe until the morning... unless Kangamonster is hungry!