Ombre Sweater Hat

When I saw this cardigan, I loved the neck detail and the buttons. I was sure that I could flip that over and make a hat using the neckband as a headband. Didn't know how, exactly, but I was pretty sure I could do it. Plus, for $4, how could I go wrong?

Like with the cashmere hat, I cut open the seams -- but not completely! I needed some of the sweater to complete the bottom of the beret. I cut the sides open to the armpit, and the seams of the raglan sleeves a little. 

I placed the round beret pattern piece over the top of the sweater, to get a general idea of how far out I needed to cut, in this case, about three inches out from the neckband.

I couldn't find any chalk, and my tailor's pencil wasn't marking the knit, so I used a crayon.

I didn't want to pin my pattern piece to the sweater and try to cut it that way, so after I marked a few dots all around the neckline, I traced the circle on a piece of cardboard to use that for a template to mark my cut line.

Looks awful, but it worked fairly well.

I lined up the edges of my template with the dots I'd marked, tugging the sweater in place where I needed to. Pressing down hard on the cardboard, I marked the line. (Note to self: get chalk.) After the work I had to do for this, cutting the top piece was a cinch.

I had initially planned to line the top part of the hat with some extra suit lining, but decided not to after recalling what a pain in the butt the satin was from the cashmere hat. I sewed around the edge with a quarter-inch seam allowance, then did a tight zigzag between that and the edge to prevent raveling.

It ruffled the edge beautifully! I turned the hat right-side out and topstitched through the zigzag (inside), right along the edge of the hat. I wanted to stiffen it a little more.

I went around a second time in the same place, this time pulling the knit taut using both hands to encourage ruffling and reenforcing the hem.

In these photos, I had not yet done the handsewing of the buttoned cuff.

Sewn placket

In the end, I have a very funky and unique beret, that looks a little less like a beret and a little like textile art. I love that the button placket stiffens the side, so I thought I'd try to treat the shoulder seams the same way I did the crown's hem, but without the ruffling. I zigzagged up and down those seams, and what do you know - it worked! I might be able to get them even stiffer, but I don't want to mess with it when I'm happy with how it is now. My other option would be to sew in some boning, and that might be overboard.

Those seams did curl a little, but not very noticeably from the outside.

Proud of it? You bet!

I am going to need to annex that closet soon...

Recycled Sweater Beret

Went to Savers yesterday to look for corner shelving for the laundry room; ended up with a bag full of clothes to repurpose and no shelves. *sigh* On the other hand, I scored two cashmere sweaters for $14. I had intended to turn them both into berets, but one actually fit, so one sweater for me! I bought 4 knit tops, 3 sweaters and a sheer scarf for $30. (Shop on Mondays with their club card and save 25%.)

100% cashmere... yum!

I loved the colors of the scarf with the sweater, and wanted to try to incorporate it into the finished hat, but first I needed a hat.

I turned the sweater inside out and cut off all the seams so that I had 4 flat pieces: front, back, and sleeves. I laid out the pattern pieces to find the placement. The wider bottom piece fit on the front of the sweater, and the top went on the sweater back. The sleeve was just a tiny bit too short to accommodate the headband, so I had to find a different material for that. I used a mossy green velvet leftover from a dress Mom made my daughter a few years ago.

I needed loops to hold the scarf on the headband once the hat was finished, so I used kiwi green ribbon and machine-basted the top of the headband so I could sew it onto the hat without worrying about the ribbon.

Pinned, not yet basted.

The hat went together fairly well. The satin lining was pretty slippery against the sweater, but I was worried about raveling, so I double-stitched the outside of the beret.

Inside seam of the beret, double-stitched.

I was a bit concerned that it would make the edge too stiff, but I didn't dare clip it and risk everything falling apart. Turned out just fine.

Once the body was all sewn together, I could add my be-ribboned hatband. I double-stitched that, too, and zigzagged around the edge.

It's a little messy in there, but it won't show.

The scarf fits nicely in the loops, but it has a tendency to fall to the bottom of the loop;
I need to tack the bottom of the ribbon on the band to prevent that.

The whole thing was made in a morning. I cut apart the sweater last night, but I didn't cut the pieces until this morning. Berets are practically instant-gratification millinery. :) I'm so happy with this. It's pretty, it's warm, the scarf makes it a little different. It can be removed and a different scarf swapped in, or the hat can be worn without a scarf.

Since I already had the satin lining material, velvet for the band, ribbon and thread, this cashmere beret only cost $8. And since I have the sleeves and pieces of the front and back, I have more than enough of the sweater left over to make a pillbox. Maybe embellished with little dusty pink roses made like the ones in tutorial below, and ribbon embroidery.

http://capungmungil.blogspot.com/2011/10/diy-felt-rose-flower-tutorial.html

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I have to laugh. My husband just commented that if I keep making hats like this, I'll have to open a store to sell them. I told him that I'd already reached a solution: I'll annex the guestroom closet for hat storage. "Everyone should have a hat closet!" I told him. He seemed unimpressed with my genius. "You have some too!" I pointed out. Still nothing. Perhaps I merely rendered him speechless.

Felting Sweaters

I saw something in the Summer '11 Art Quilting Studio that I just loved. Roben-Marie Smith's felted cuff bracelets were featured in the "Art Quilt Walking" article, and they are just gorgeous. Since felting ("fulling" is the proper term) old wool sweaters is something I've been dying to try, this really lit a fire under me, and the other day I went to Goodwill and bought 4 sweaters for this purpose. One is 100% lambswool, so I am positive I'll get what I want from it. Unfortunately, it's also the drabest in color: charcoal grey. The other 3 are wool blends, with lambswool, angora and cashmere (woot!). Two of them are 30% viscose, which according to this guide, might not work out as planned. The final one has only 10% nylon, so I think it'll be fine.

Two have cable patterns, two are basic rib-knit. The pink one has a small hole,
so this was a good sweater to recycle.

My hope is that the brighter ones all end up being suitable for me to make bracelets for my daughter for xmas. I love the color combination of green/aqua/pink, and think that these cuffs would be perfect for her. Smith's cuffs are ivory, tone-on-tone, lovely monochromatic mixes of texture and fibers with lace and vintage buttons. Lovely as they are, white, even off-white, is not a good color choice for my daughter or me. (She tends to wear her jewelry until they literally fall apart, and ivory would show grime fast, and I just tend to be messy.)

Right now, the sweaters are in the dryer, still in the pillowcases. Because the felting process can shed fibers, it's a good idea to protect your washing machine from all those fibers that can clog the hoses, as well as the dryer (for the same reason). When I removed the pillowcases from the washer, I didn't see any evidence of fiber in the drum, so hopefully that worked.

Naturally, I am dying to see if it worked, but I'll let the dryer go for a bit longer before I check. My biggest concern was seeing the pillowcases flowing freely in the washer; not enough agitation might have prevented the felting process. If I have to run them through again, I'll use less water. One site I read suggested putting a pair of jeans in the wash with them to "beat" the fabric up a bit, but I don't wash jeans in hot water (which is required) because I don't want to shrink them. We shall see...

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Well, it's definitely working. All 4 sweaters have shrunk, and the knit is tighter, but they're not quite felted yet. The green sweater was a ladies medium, and is now small enough for a 5 year old. I think it was probably washed before, because it was too short already, but now it's teeny.

The pillowcases are all full of "pills" that would be in my washer if not for them. I think they will be something I can use on the bracelets, as little felted bobbles. I'm washing the sweaters again, in less water this time, and hope the agitation is greater, producing better results.

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Two of the pillowcases came open in the second wash. I'd opened them to see how things were coming along and retied using two corners rather than twisting and knotting like I had initially (see pic above). The washer had some pills in the drum, but not as bad as I feared. I think after this drying I'll be all set. If it turns out that the 2 with only 70% wool content still aren't quite fulled, I'll stitch to reinforce any cut edges.

The two I retied came untied in the dryer, but the lint filter was not badly clogged up. Don't use the corners to knot the pillowcase; an overhand knot works better!

Whether it was the second wash and dry, or the lesser amount of water in the washer (and more agitation) I couldn't say, but they definitely look felted now. The charcoal sweater, a man's extra-large, is now more like a child's medium. Something I didn't notice about it when I bought it: holes in the elbows, one of them more a tear than a hole. I feel better about buying it now, since I was potentially taking a useable sweater out of the hands of someone who needed it. But seriously people, really? Taking sweaters that damaged to Goodwill? You're buttheads...

ANYway. I have them on drying racks on the table to finish drying and collected all the little pills. Unfortunately, I don't have as many of the blue and green, since those were the ones that came open, probably washing away a lot of them. They're on the flattish side, which means I bet I could even use them in some papermaking projects.

Not sure why the pink one produced so many more pills. Fiber content most likely.

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Once the sweaters were dry, I turned them inside out and cut all the seams off. I saved them, too, because I'm me. Now I have a bunch of pieces and scraps that I can start playing with.

One site I read suggested using the seams as cording.
The ribbed necks I think I'll use as necklaces (choker-length).

Here's what the knitted patterns look like after their second wash. They shrunk up nicely, but the pattern is still visible, if fuzzier.

After two trips through the washer/dryer.

There's enough felted material to make several cuffs. I'll go through my fabric scraps to find bits and pieces to coordinate with these colors, dig in my yarn stash, and try to track down some interesting buttons (holy crap -- vintage buttons go for way more than I wanna spend on ebay!), plus I have a ton of beads. I think they'll be awesome.

What Is Old Can Be New Again

When I was in high school, a summer vacation trip to see family in Mississippi usually also meant a shopping trip for school clothes. One year I got a tie-dyed t-shirt and matching leggings. The leggings were ok, but the t-shirt... oversized with really bright, rich colors, a saturated rainbow with black on white cotton. In spite of many washings, the colors have stayed bright, though the black isn't as dense as it once was. That t-shirt went to college with me, it moved to Chicago with me when I got married, it moved to the 'burbs when my baby was born, and moved again when we needed to find bigger digs. That t-shirt is older than my daughter, older than my marriage! The collar was stretched and fraying, there was a small hole in the front that my previous dog put in it with a toenail, and the seams in the underarms were giving way. Its condition wasn't good enough for donation to charity, but I had seen a way to recycle t-shirts that I wanted to try. Today, I cut up my beloved t-shirt, using a tutorial I found at Polka Dot Pineapple.

Top left, cut and stretched "yarn;" top right, cut but unstretched t-shirt;
bottom, the rolled up skein.

I also saved the sleeves and the shoulders. The pieces are too small to make yarn from, but too big to toss. I have an idea for some of it, but that will only use a small rectangle. It won't be wasted.

My plan is to make a necklace with it, something along these lines but in reverse (multicolored necklace with white embellishments), and not as full; more like this:

I think I want plastic or wood for the beads. It needs to be lightweight, and glass beads would be too heavy. Too, the holes are going to need to be sizable, and I'm more likely to find what I need in wood or plastic. I'll need to browse to see, and if I can't find what I want, I'll just make my own! I might make a bracelet to match, and earrings? Hmm..

This Old Lamp

Went to Goodwill today, looking for stuff to make more garden art for a sculpture garden I'm putting together, and for the things I needed to build a birdbath. I wasn't able to find a base that was substantial enough in the vases or housewares, so I cruised back to the lamps and found this one.

Already removed the hardware and electrical stuff, but trust me, it's a lamp.

Now this thing is completely not my style, but as the base of a birdbath in a flowerbed, I think it will work just fine. (If I hate it, I can always face the painted side toward the street.) I also bought a vase that I'd intended to fit on the top, opening down to fit around the part that's sticking up on top of the lamp, but it's not wide enough in diameter to fit well. Too small by about a half-inch. *sigh* Will have to look some more for the right piece.

Anyway, as I'm looking at this thing with the hole in the center for the electrical stuff, I'm thinking -- Hey, this could make a fountain, one of the bubbler kinds that just spills over the top. It would still need to sit in water, of course, and the small hole that the cord went through is probably insufficient for a good intake, so the bottom would need to be raised up, maybe on some of those little flat glass "stones," but it could work. However, this does not change the issue of "not my style." I could paint it, of course, but it would need to be sanded first, and then I'd have no base for my birdbath.

However... I have to go find a wide-mouthed vase anyway... and I might as well look at the lamps while I'm there. Right??

Orphanware™ - The Tutorial

Back in February, I posted about my glass and china project. More recently, I figured out a way to eliminate the scads of jewelry boxes I have and incorporating the sparkle of glass and the delicacy of china to both decorate and organize an awkward space in one of my closets. I can't claim that I came up with the idea on my own, I was inspired by something I saw at Martha Stewart online.

I suppose I've been putting way too much thought into it, as usual, but I've been trying to find the "just right" piece to go with the orphaned saucers and small plates. I really like my adaptation of using glass pieces with the saucers; it allows the beauty of the china to show (and is sparkly!). I've also been playing with stacking the pieces to make tiers, something I've seen on Etsy from quite a few sellers. Call it upcycling or repurposing, or whatever crafty buzzword you like, it's easy to do, inexpensive, and personal. If you do it yourself, you get exactly what you want, with pieces you found. I'm calling these sets Orphanware™* because I'm using single pieces from what was once a set (usually), even the glassware in many cases were single pieces. I don't like to take one piece from a pile, in case someone else comes along later, wanting to buy a set of the same pattern, but that's me.

There are probably tons of tutorials on the net for this, but I haven't seen them, so I'm doing my own since I have a bunch I'm about to start gluing anyway.

FIRST, gather your pieces. I don't recommend raiding your stash of family heirlooms, but hit the thrift stores - Goodwill, The Salvation Army, and Habitat for Humanity's ReStore are all excellent places for finding pieces, and you can also check The Thrift Shopper for other stores in your area. The nice thing is, many of these stores are charity organizations and by shopping there you're also doing some good in your neighborhood. Prices can vary widely, but plan on paying 50¢ to $1 for saucers and small plates, maybe $2-3 for glass particularly if it's lead crystal and the people pricing recognize it. If you're buying saucers, try to find glass pieces that fit inside the well for the cup (there may be a correct term for that, but I don't know it). Saucers are nice because you don't have to worry about centering anything like you might on a bread and butter plate. I also tried to find glassware that was compatible with the design on the plate. (Perhaps you're less obsessive than I...)

SECOND, soak 'em. Those price stickers are a pain in the butt. The best way to get them off, without leaving a bunch of glue behind, is to soak them in the sink in hot soapy water. Leave them in long enough and you'll probably find they slip off on their own. After they've soaked and you've gotten all the stickers off, wash your pieces carefully. Some of them may be antique or at least vintage, so scrubbing them isn't a good idea. They will need to be completely dry before you start gluing.

THIRD, assembly. I use E-6000 adhesive. It's industrial strength (literally) and stinky, but it works great. For some reason, the tube comes with warnings, but not directions, so save the cardboard that the tube was carded on. If you, like I, threw away the card, the link above has all the instructions you need. If you've never used it before, here's a word of caution, squeeze the tube veeeeerrrrry carefully. It keeps coming out of the metal tube even after you stop squeezing. Once glued, set the pieces aside, out of the way, where you won't be tempted to mess with them. Leave them be for at least 24 hours. If you're making tiered pieces, don't apply your second tier until the adhesive on the first one has cured.

So that's the basic process. Simple, eh? Here's the photos from this latest batch of Orphanware™

This saucer has light blue flowers, and the candle holder accents that.

Because the wire looped around the bottom, I had to use quite a bit of glue to make it enough to adhere to the plate. What's there in the photo wasn't enough - I had to add more. The glue in the center isn't functional, it's to scrape off the excess glue that kept coming out of the tube.

When you have something that's larger than the well in your saucer (or no well at all), you have to eyeball it, or get all anal and measure. It helps if there's a design to follow.

If what you're gluing is transparent, you can also look down inside to see if you're centered.

With no well, it can be tricky to get everything centered. This still needs adjusting.

This saucer has a design in the center of the well, and is too pretty to cover. The candlestick is the perfect way to use the dish, raise it up and make a small pedestalled dish.

The easiest way to do that, including making tiers, is to flip it over. Much easier to get it centered that way.

An example of both a well-fitting piece inside the saucer well, and the glassware complementing the china.

A saucer, a very small brass vase, and a butter plate, soon to be a tiered set.

I like to rotate the piece I'm gluing, to try and distribute the adhesive evenly. This will probably put glue where you don't want it, but once cured, the adhesive can be scraped away.

I did what I suggested you NOT do: I didn't wait for the first two pieces to cure before adding the third. (I'm impatient. Don't be me. Really.)

One reason not to be me, it's much harder to get things centered when you're craning your neck to see the bottom. Also, that brass vase wasn't completely level on top. I had to position the butter plate where I wanted it, tipping slightly forward. (Tipping to the side accents the fact that it's not a perfect vertical line.)

One of the hazards of gluing clear glass on an edge - you're bound to make a bit of a mess with the glue, smearing it inside, where you won't be able to scrape it off once the top piece is glued on.

One more example of pieces fitting well. The top of that candlestick fit perfectly into the bottom of the bowl. Also, the finish of both is a warm white, almost a bone color. Together, it nearly looks like they were always that way.

Other than jewelry or makeup organizers, what else can you do with these? Candy dishes, desk organizers, saucers on pedestals make cute individual cupcake plates... you could even take one plate/bowl combo and put some Easter grass in it with a decorated egg and make individual place settings for Easter brunch. My mom uses the one I have her to organize sweetener packets, and it's way cuter than the things sold for that purpose. This is so very easy to do, and the cost is so small, there's no reason for you not to play with this idea on your own.

* Yes, I am being facetious with the ™ on Orphanware. Because I can. Because it's silly.