Upcycling without Training Wheels

When our cashmere sweaters get too moth-eaten to wear--actually I'm not quite sure when that point is, because the dude wore a sweater with at least two visible holes in it yesterday. He wasn't out in public or anything...anyhow, at some point, we decide to retire the sweaters, and they end up in the craft room. I have ideas people. I have taken a felting class with Betz White. I am ready to upcycle all the wools! (Now what I need is more time.)

Anyway, I had these sleeves cut off their respective sweaters and I wanted to make a scarf.

Last November, I pinned them together and showed my niece during our crafting day. She looked at me with one of those preteen looks. As a result, I have no faith, no faith, in the finished product. I decided that the arms were too full and I should (1) stitch each arm to its mate for length and (2) stitch them so they were three inches wide. After fixing a moth hole on the pink sweater, I realized I should fix the holes before I made them so narrow the brush mat wouldn't fit. (To fix moth holes, you take a piece of yarn or sweater fabric and you needle felt it onto the hole. And to do that you need this mat* that looks like a scrub brush. Et voila!)

Anyway, I altered the pink sleeve, then the blue, then I was pinning the grey and .............. Do you get those moments when you are crafting? One that will cause you to use way too many periods in your ellipses? I lost all momentum. I did not know how I was going to go on with this Incredibly.Boring.Project. But I had to! You were waiting! I had promised! But the project...it.was.sooooooooooooo.boring. I complained about it on twitter...and Facebook...and then I got myself together and braided them. And sewed them up.

Then I walked around the house wearing a cashmere scarf for hours. Because it was almost 60' outside and what you need to do is wear a cashmere scarf around your house.

If you made it this far, thank you. I am going to try to choose projects that aren't so cranky-making in the future. But at least we can see why I put off making it all winter. Clearly, I knew I was going to need your help and real impetus to get through.

It's harder than it looks to photograph yourself.

What this kooky craft-a-day thing demonstrates is how much I need my loyal readers to get through it. Your comments propel me on to the next project and the next and the next and the next. And I thank you for all your help!

* Don't buy the one I've linked to. It has the better picture, but Amazon itself has the same one for half the price.

Another Gift

This time it's a belated Christmas present:
betz white's tutorial on felted rosettes + new green mama's felted coffee cozy tutorial =

The colors are a little off--the cozy is a brighter green and the leaves are mint green but we took the picture in a Starbucks with an iPhone after 5:30 p.m. (We couldn't get the right angle when it was on a coffee cup, but it does cover most of a tall cup.)

Reading Round Up

I am doing some work, so I'm stitching less lately. Tomorrow, however, is a big stitchy day. First it's Library Craft Circle Friday. Have I mentioned how much I love my library? I love my library so much that I joined the board of the Friends of the Library as the secretary. Yes, I know, it will make me busy and drive me nuts but, people, I love my library! Next, it's Stitching at the Ford. Sure it's the second Friday of the month and not the third, but I'll be dragging the marquoir down to Chadds Ford for an evening of wining and dining. Okay, there'll be diet Coke and pizza, but we love when the marquoir comes out to play, don't we? (Must find orange shirt to wear.)

While we wait for fabulous photos from these events, why don't you take a look at what's out there on the innernets:

• What did stitchers do before electricity? How did they continue stitching after sundown? The Needleprint blog has some interesting photos of museum pieces that answer such questions.
• You know I'm not a total fan of the "upcycle" but this is one hot tomato. {via Craft Gossip}
• And even though I amn't a fan of the upcycle, I have been searching for some time for a project to make from the dress my sister wore as my maid of honor. Now I've found something, it'll probably be ready for my 10th anniversary. {via Craftzine} (Not sure I will use these directions exactly...)
• Something to do with the bazillion and one slides I recently inherited. Of course, my scanner requires that I take the slides out of the mounts. So this project would have to be reserved for the slides I am not scanning. (Random people at random parties, bishops speaking at 60s-era graduations, etc.)

Recycle, Remake, Rewear

Sissy wore this fabulous dress as the maid of honor at my wedding. Last weekend she gave it back to me. "I'm never going to wear it again, maybe you can make something out of it, like a pillow." As much as I appreciate her faith in my skill in remaking, I'm a little sad. Of course I know she's never going to wear the dress again--it is almost seven years old--but it's just a little sad that that dress won't exist anymore except in the photographs. Which is why I have a giant box of wedding dress stuck behind a chair in the bedroom--it doesn't fit anywhere else--I just have a hard time letting go of the material object.

So I turned to some of the craft books I bought recently, and bring you two short reviews based on whether they will help me remake this dress.

First up is Hip Handbags. Hip Handbags offers seven generic purse pattern with 3-5 variations--both sewing variations and fabric variations, as well as good solid instruction for using the patterns, choosing fabric, sewing and embellishing. Each bag is rated for its hipness, which is, ultimately, only a gimmick. The last few pages show "hip" artist-made bags which range from the sublime to the ridiculous. No instructions are given for these. The bag I would most likely make from this fabric is the clutch-style purse. Not sure if that's Sissy's style, though.

I next turned to New from Old: How to Transform and Customize Your Clothes. They offer three main categories: dying, embellishing, and remaking (turning a pullover sweater into a bolero, making a tablecloth into a skirt). The book contains much useful information for doing all these fabric tricks, but pages and pages about dying, four pages on dying underwear? At page 66 (of 144), I finally got to the kind of thing I was looking for. I did find two things I would definitely make for myself, including the bolero jacket from a sweater, which kept me from returning it. I find that people who do cross stitch and make greeting cards don't need much help in the embellishing area. I didn't find a particular pattern for turning a strapless, backless evening gown into anything, but I'll keep thinking.

How to redesign a storebought sweater?

Trinny and Susannah say I shouldn't wear turtlenecks. And I believe them. I like my neck a lot better when there's a plunging neckline below it.

Of course, I have two fantastic cashmere turtlenecks. How can I change their shape? Can one sew a knit item? Neither are handknit, both are ultrafine gauge. I don't even want to own needles small enough to "reknit" the sweater necks. If I just cut off--and serge, or something to prevent ravelling--the necks, the sweater will look like it's had its turtle cut off, if you see my point. One is a delightful, thick, aran-like sweater. I need need need to keep this because it's so soft and cuddly. I just wish it didn't make my chins look like they were breeding. To say nothing of the too-large breasts that run into my too-short waist.

I don't want to donate these to a cause. I want to wear them and look smashing. Help!