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Tuesday, December 14, 2010

National Cupcake Day

December 15th is.......
National Cupcake Day!
 To celebrate this magical holiday, I popped open my handy-dandy book by Betz White called Warm Fuzzies.



Here's the short version of the tutorial.......
Use 3 sweater sleeves. Cut 2 rectangles, 4" x10". Fold in half and roll, creating a gradual point. Sew the end shut. Cut the cuff off the third sweater, fit it around, sew in half, cut off the excess, and stretch it over the cupcake. Cut out a felt circle, stuff with felt scrap, and hand sew around the edge. Pull tight and sew shut. Cut out a leaf, and sew both to the top of the cup cake. Place lace around the cupcake, and hot glue the ends. Cut out a final circle from matching felt, and hot glue to the bottom of the cupcake.








Time for a scrumptious cupcake and tea!

(There may be some confusion as to when the real National Cupcake Day is; this link should clear the matter up once and for all. http://www.tfdutch.com/foodh.htm)

Sunday, December 12, 2010

Cotton Sweater Scarf

Somewhere, in the vast depths of your closet, lurks the tragically bulky, lumpy, stained, torn, white, cotton sweater. This one had make-up on the turtleneck, a big hole by the arm, and stains around the bottom. A perfect candidate for reconstruction. For this tutorial, you'll need an old, bulky sweater, good pair of scissors, and possibly a bleach pen.

Before cutting, sew a line around the bottom. This will prevent it from fraying while you cut and sew later on.


Cut around the top of your sewn line.


Set your machine to a wide, but tight zig-zag, and stitch all the way around the cut edge. Zig-Zag two parallel lines and cut between to make it one long strip.


 Bleach out any unwanted stains, and you're good to go. Stitch On!


Style 1 


 Style 2



  
TIP: To make it more antique looking, use 3-4 tea bags in a bucket of hot water. Dip the scarf in, and rinse. Place in dryer to set the stain.

Saturday, December 11, 2010

Felted Sweater Scarf



For this tutorial, you will need a denim (jeans) pant leg, buttons, and various squares of old felted sweaters.

Felted sweaters are easy to make, in fact, you may have one in your closet. Starting with 100% wool, toss the sweater into the washing machine on the HOT, heavy duty, setting. A little soap helps too. To further shrink your wool, toss it on the dryer for a while. Congratulations, you've made a tiny sweater....also known as a "felted" sweater. Once this process is finished, you can cut shapes from the sweater without it fraying.

Cut a  4 to 6 inch wide strip of denim from the entire length of the pantleg. For a longer scarf, use another pant leg. Fold into thirds, and iron flat. Zig-zag stitch down the middle.

Cut the felted sweaters into floral shapes. Sew a button to the center, and sew onto the jean strip. Continue until the denim strip is covered.


Garage Sale Craft Haul

While out and about at garage sales, I found a wealth of threads, and other craft supplies. I admit, I fell into the "scarcity" mode and started grabbing like a crazy woman at a Black Friday sale. Once I had my hoard, and could calmly look through it, I realized I had to stick to what I needed, and not what I might want to use 10 years down the road. Back went the yarn, fabric, and crochet needles....well most of them anyway.

Keeping a couple of crochet needles, my haul was narrowed to spools of thread, zippers, a pair of pinking shears, and a bobbin holder. At .20 cents each, how could I resist? (The picture only shows a fraction of the $10 bag full.) Stitch on!