Sweater Jacket

I was sitting down to sew the buttons on my new jacket and I thought it would be a great project idea to share.
Years ago, my mom made me a jacket with plaid wool and handknit sleeves, back and collar. I have no idea what happened to that one (my guess: I outgrew it), but this year she asked me if I'd like her to make anything and that came to mind.
I found a pattern on Etsy for a letter jacket, ordered the fabric I wanted off www.fabrics.com and cut the front out for her. She then knit the rest out of coordinating yarn we found at my local knit shop. She made me two! I am so in love!

My other sweater jacket is a nubby brown. These work for dressy or just for staying warm.
The great thing is that a lot of people don't have patience to knit a whole sweater. For this, you could even just do the sleeves. It's up to you how much you knit. I hope some of you give it a try.

Reworking it!

The clothes my youngest son had this last go around were really cute. We had a great assortment of t-shirts and I was sort of sad this fall packing them away, knowing that this spring when I pull them out they will probably be too short.
Last night at Old Navy, all my problems were solved.My daughter told me the big thing is sweatshirts and shirts with raggedly sewn lettering. When I looked at what she was talking about, several tumblers in my brain clicked. 1. The ragged fabric is just knit or felt. 2. I can take the decorative part of the t-shirts and sew it to a larger shirt- the knit edge doesn't fray, and the ragged edge being in style means I don't need to disguise it. 3. Plain t-shirts at Walmart are under $5.

Now, this new crafting idea benefits my daughter, too, because we found the CUTEST pizza shirt in the toddler boy section. I'm going to cut one up and sew it for her.

I'm sure my family will laugh at this picture. I told her dad to pick out any old size because I'm going to cut it up. I thought it would be dramatic how small the t-shirt was for her. He picked a 5T. (she's 12 years old) I was going to show the conversion of this shirt, but we don't have an old t-shirt to modify (yeah, right). So, Here is the conversion idea with the large embroidery design:

 I've also decided to do the large machine embroidery design on the back of one of those cut up t-shirts and sew it to another shirt so that the back isn't scratchy :) Anyone else have that problem?

I'm also hoping that by reinforcing the back of the design with stabilizer it won't roll up like they tend to do.

Pretty nifty, huh?

And He Loves Me Anyway

Don't worry, this really isn't a blog about love. It's about testing it. In my move to blog mostly with pictures, I have gone around the house and taken photos of all the projects I have in my docket. They are not really in any order, and I may have forgotten one or two (say, putting stone on our focus wall, which I don't have in the works yet). In the interest of full disclosure I admit I almost never craft this way. Just as I almost never read two books at a time, I almost never have more than two craft projects just sitting there. I do stack and sew an entire stack of projects in one sewing binge, which may be how I've gotten so behind. Because the top project in my docket is a quilt I've been working on since last February.

This project is a Nook Case for my Etsy shop. I have decided to sew on these everyday while my daughter practices piano. It's a modified Tiger Mother technique, since I've found she practices longer if I'm in the roome. It happened sort of serendipitously after I moved my sewing machine into the piano room.

My sewing corner: I cut out small projects on the piano (not recommended since I've scratched the top with a few pins). The tote is extra special: hand-knit by my sister-in-law, Melanie, then felted!

A little shirt for Mikey the Monkey, who you will meet later. This just needs snaps and buttons. Wouldn't take me one evening, and it's sitting on the front counter in the piano room, but I never think of it...

Did you see the cabochons in the first post? This is my stack of supplies on the kitchen counter for making them. I bought 5 bars of Sculpey, and I've gotten 6 cabochons out of half a bar of Sculpey, so this mess is going to be here a LOOOOONNNGGGG time.

This is the biggest problem. I think I'm half way done. It's ten feet long and in the very center of my living/diningroom. The cats love it.

My favorite: I love to take this little bag to piano lessons and I get 1/2 hour of uninterrupted crochet/knitting time!

Photo 2 of my knitting bag: it's sitting next to the kitchen on the floor. Did I mention I have a craft room?

The girls both want rain capes. I'm kind of excited about this project, but it's pretty far down on the list.

I love the Campy State pillows, but I was not paying $150 each for them! So I asked for the napkins for Christmas, and I'm going to embroider them myself. They will make a great Piano Time project.

My first crocheted flower for a scarf I'm making. I followed the directions, but I didn't count carefully. When my square came out as a (what's the five sided one?) I contacted the company that wrote the book. Then while I was waiting, I tried again. Ooops.  do you know they were actually contacting the author? So I emailed back very sheepish. NOW how do I turn this into a hat?

Meet Mikey. Charlie named him Mojo. I just need to tack his shoes on. Seriously. 4 tacks and he's still in my stack???

For my Etsy store, the main product was a doll that wears a sleeper. Everytime I list a doll, the person who buys it requests a different sleeper. So inside this tote I have about 10 little sleepers in different fabrics. I plan to sew them all up, list the doll and let them choose from what I have instead of running all over town trying to guess what they like. It turns out I'm getting old tastes.

In my craft room, several projects in bags on the floor which are shown below:

Wow! 5-6 projects right here in this little stack. Can't share what they are. It's a surprise.

A pillowcase to match the new quilt. I figure I have time!

A new project. I decided not to start this until after I have the quilt done. I'm going to card the giant bag of wool, spin it and dye it. I have to learn how to do all that, but the bit I tried is enormously fun and the feel of my hands after playing with the wool was amazing.

We had lunch with the family of a man Eric (my husband) mentored at work. His wife brought me this fabric from Burma. I think I'll make a skirt so that next time they invite us to a pig roast I can push harder to go. (I married a picky eater)

Wish me luck!

Doing it Myself

I have been bugging Hanna Andersson to put out more Dala Horse Pajamas every year since they quit carrying them. Ha! I just had a breakthrough. On Spoonflower, you can design your own fabric, and I know how to make pajamas. I've known about Spoonflower for a long time, and I don't really know why it has taken me so long to put those two thoughts together. Seriously. I have called Hanna Andersson. I have used Contact Us, and now I've posted to their facebook page. Maybe I'll let them know I'm making my own.


                                                     
While we are at it, I started making Cabochons for jewelry this week. They aren't fabulous yet, and the picture blows up on my Etsy site to a size that would make any of us nervous (think of when HD TV came about and we could see the nosehairs on a newscaster):

My surprise at seeing the tiny 1" cabochons blown up so big is that I can see faults in them that I cannot see with my eye. One had a splash of paint on his cheek! Once I saw it in the photo, I was able to scrape it off, but it's a little horrifying to have arwork studied at that level.

On the subject of Doing it myself, I remembered back to when I had purchased a Gerber Baby Charm (with points earned off babyfood jars), and decided to make a matching charm for Paige. I found a girl in Denver who could convert my sculpt into a pendant. I made a sculpt of Paige, and at about 1/2" it was adorable! I set it on the counter while I mothered...and then I set something on top of it and cracked it in two. It had been fabulous.

But now that I'm back in the cabochon/sculpting business, I got to thinking I can make charms! I just have to find the right person to convert them from sculpts into charms. You may look at the cabochon and think "yeah" right. We'll see. 

My next blog is going to be photographs of the stacks of projects I'm building. 3-4 Nook Cases cut out and waiting to be sewn complete with zippers etc ready, the quilt, Maybe I shouldn't tell you, so you'll still read it.