It's Tutorial Tuesday!

I'm still working on a couple of tutorials myself, but thankfully there are a few great Tutorials from some very talented people to share!


Over at Quotidian Life, you can find this beautiful recycled wool table runner... another great use for scraps! It is not a tutorial, per se, but she describes how she made it, and is pretty self explanatory once you read it.


Dena, over at Everything But The Oink, has a great tutorial for using all those little leftover scraps to make an adorable scrappy scarf here.


Last, but not least, Amy, over at While Wearing Heels, has yet another fabulous felt food tutorial! Check out her adorable apple tutorial here.



Thank you, ladies, for your fabulous contributions to the recycled wool community! :)

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

My husband got me [us] a GPS for Christmas, so I made a little pouch for it, so it won't get scratched when I throw it in my purse. I just used a couple of scraps I had on hand, and it took me under 5 minutes to make! Front & back:



Two more pairs of Jack's jeans ended up with holes in the knees, so more patching had to me done! Jack asked for an owl on one pair & let me have creative rights to the second. I wish I would have made the owl & the background colors contrast more, but oh well!


I think this one's going to look better as the edges fray more.


I made my son's Lego table this week too.



I think it turned out great! I wish I had taken a "before" shot of the coffee table. It had crackled gold colored leather on the top, and this looks so much better! I love the style of the table, and it was the perfect size for my son's room. I had so many great suggestions for glues, but once I got to the hardware store & started reading all the labels, I kind of went pale. Everything was toxic, and the bottle that the clerk was urging me to buy said "WARNING: This product contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm". When I read it out loud, he said "those hippies in California worry about everything". I laughed, and said "and rightly so! I'm not putting this crap in my son's room!". I ended up reading all the labels, and found one with no warnings that said "non toxic", and that is what I used... Gorilla Wood Glue. It seems to be holding up with no problems, and I am more than willing to reglue, should a piece pop up in the future. It is worth the piece of mind.

May the force be with you! ;)


So, what have you been working on?

It's Tutorial Tuesday! Ice scraper mitten!

I don't know about you, but we have got a lot of snow & ice lately, so I decided to make a mitten for my scraper, to keep my hand extra warm while i'm scraping my windshield. This is super easy & only takes minutes to make. Ready?

First you will need a felted wool sweater sleeve, cut across evenly.



Place your ice scraper handle in the center of the cut end, and cut around it, leaving a seam allowance and an smidge of space on the sides (I left about 1/2 inch all around).




From here, you can just sew up all the cut ends, or round off the corners (which I did), then sew


Kinda looks like a wool wine bottle, eh? Now just flip it right side out...


and push the long skinny part in with the handle of your ice scraper...



and you're done. Wasn't that easy? Now your hand will be nice & toasty while you scrape :).

It's What I've Been Working on Wednesday! A tennis dress for Spots!

Even though Spots was a year old when we got her, she still had a little growing to do, so the dog sweaters I made for her are a bit short now. I wasn't planning on making more, and making do with what I have, but she loves her sweaters! She likes to wear them around the house, and to bed at night. I don't blame her... I like to wear sweaters too ;)!

I made this over the weekend, and like how it came out... it looks like a little tennis dress :). I used my original tutorial here, to make a new pattern. I used a lightly felted men's merino sweater. I decided to leave the original collar on it, and made the legs a little long (this one will be an outdoor dress).



For the skirt part, I cut off the waist band, along with a few inches, and sewed the finished edge to the sweater. The result was a cute little flared skirt. The practical question, which i'm sure some of you are asking, is will she pee on the skirt when she does her business? Nope! When she squats down, her tail holds it out of the way.



Since I couldn't just get one good picture of it (I don't know why I thought getting a picture of a dress on a moving dog, that wanted to sniff around and not model, would be easy!), here's several pictures...







So, what have you been working on?

It's Tutorial Tuesday! Cashmere toddler dress!

This tutorial for this adorable dress (on this even more adorable little girl!) comes to us from Sew Country Chick! I can't imagine anything more cozy to make a little girl's dress out of, than cashmere! Ready for the tutorial? Click here!

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 Tutorial Tuesday! Play food!

We keep our fruit in a pretty colander I found at a garage sale, and I think it looks great...


except when it's empty....


Then it just looks like a colander on the table. I think I will make some felt food to fill it, for the times we are out of fruit (ok, we are never really out of fruit, because we keep a lot in the fridge too, but that's beside the point). Maybe you have a fruit bowl to fill, or some little ones that would love some new play food.

I found all these great tutorials over at the While Wearing Heels blog. While she uses craft felt for hers, you can always use recycled sweater felt in it's place. I recommend using Merino wool sweaters, but most sweater felt will be fine.















Are you inspired now? I am... as well as a bit hungry ;)

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 Tutorial Tuesday! Make a cashmere tie or a felted wool bow tie for your little guy!

These 2 tutorials came from 1 talented lady... Melinda, over at Dahlhartlane blog! To go to the felted wool bow tie tutorial, click here.



To go to the cashmere neck tie tutorial click here.



While you're there you have to check out her paper mache nativity... it's amazing!

Happy New Year & Some resolutions

Happy New Year! Welcome to 2012! With a new year comes resolutions. This year I have a personal resolution, as well as a professional one, and they kind of go together.

My personal resolution is to streamline my house, and get rid of everything we don't use or love. I found this decluttering calendar online, which I thought was brilliant... a simple task for each day of the year. I have also been utilizing Freecycle lately to get rid of things we no longer need, but are still very useful to others. I will work at this slowly throughout the year.

My professional Resweater resolution is to concentrate more on my blogging, creating tutorials, and making useful things for our household/family/friends, and less on making things for shows to sell. I want to also spend more time listing sweaters in my shop, so I always have a fresh selection. Because of this, I would like to scale down my personal stash of sweaters, and felted scraps, and will be putting together some great mystery boxes in the next week!

On a completely random note, our power was out for several hours this morning, so that meant no heat. We just threw on slippers, and extra sweaters, but Spots was cold too. Though I usually only put her sweaters on her for going outdoors, I realized it would be a good idea until the power came back on. She got excited when she saw it, stuck her head right in when I held it out, and looked so relieved when she had it on. So, use #25653 for recycled wool... keeping dogs warm when the power goes out ;).