The Gloves

By popular demand, here are the fingerless gloves with the stockings.  They where made with the extra sleeve ends by cutting a 1 inch snip about 1-1.5 inches down from the edging. I cut them so the seams of the sleeves ended up on the palm side. Now they are keeping my hands warm while I type this post!

Well it is that time of year again, time to hang up those stocking in hopes that someone will come along in the middle of the night and fill them with goodies.

Last year I threw away the ratty acrylic $0.99 cent stockings my BF had promising that I would make new ones worthy of actually hanging in my living room. But I must say this is one of the brokest holiday seasons I and may other folks out there have had in a long time, so going out and buying yarn or fabric was not an option. What to do?!

A few months back I was purging old cloths, old like from high school, and I came across a beloved red and gray Fair Isle sweater that had developed some holes. Even if the holes had been fixable it was too small, so I tossed it in the washer and felted it thinking I would make a pillow out of it or start collecting to make a patchwork blanket. I remembered the sweater and I knew I had my answer.

So here it is, how to make some fun stockings out of a felted sweater:

Materials:

-One 100% Wool Sweater in holiday colors

Note: those scarry winter sweaters are great if you can find a wool one and they are very cheap at the thrift store

-Some good fabric scissors or a rotary cutter

-A sewing machine, but needle and thread work too, just slower

-A stocking pattern, optional but good for anyone not comfortable freehand sewing without a guide

The Felted Sweater

Step 0: Felt your sweater in a washing machine, just run it through with your regular wash, might take a couple washes to achieve good felting.

Step 1: If you are going to make hanging loops from the neckline first trim it off

Cutting off Neckline

Step 2:Lay out your sweater on a clear table, it may not be totally flat because different areas felted different amounts but that is fine, just do the best you can. See Top Photo.

Step 3: Cut up the center of the sweater. Just be as straight as you can or use a ruler and rotary cutter if you have them.

Cut Up the Center

Split Sweater

Step 4: Cut off the extra sleeve lengths on each sweater half, save these to make fingerless gloves. Turn the sweater halves wrong side out.

Trim Sleeves

Step 5: Sew the curve to form the toe on the sleeves. You may have to try a few different curves until you find one you like if you are not using a pattern or pre-marking the curve, it just depends on how “perfect” you want it to look. If there are any holes you can adjust the curve so they end up in the seam allowance or later you can embellish over them.

Sew the toe

Adjust the curve

Step 6: Once you have the curve you want, trim off the extra seam allowance so it won’t take up room later on.

Step 7: Sew the heel curve and leg seam, stopping just before the end. The heel seam starts up where the neck opening of the sweater is so that the ribbing/edge treatment of your sweater forms the cuff of the stocking when you are all done.

The Heel and Leg

Step 8: Insert the loop to hang it with. I used 1/2 the neckline for each loop. Fold over the strip/ribbon and insert it as in the picture below. It may be easier to sew by hand if it is very bulky, flat ribbon is easier then my neckline bit on the machine.

Insert the Loop

Step 9: Trim off any extra seam allowance from the leg and heel seam. Turn the stocking right side out.

All my waste

Step 10: Marvel at your craftyness!

Happy X-mas!

All in all this took me and Libby about an hour, mostly because we where taking pictures and giggling a lot. If you have any questions leave me a comment. You can click on the pictures to see larger versions.

Have a happy, cheap and eco-friendly holiday!!!

So do you remember that yummy looking yak and merino roving that I got at Color from  A Verb for Keeping Warm?  Well I have been busy on the wheel lately and it is now a lovely fingering/lace weight yarn.

50/50 Yak and Merino

I also finally got the last bit of the Plumber plyed and am now trying to decide what to spin next out of the stash. While the spinning bug has been great, the Sidlelines Top kind of got put on well, the sideline for a bit but I am determind to get back to it tonight as the spinning urg seems to be wanning  a little.

I have also been working on another Noro scarf, just something for mindless craft moments, like on the drive to SoCal and breaks at work when I can’t get enough of a patterned something done. This one is in Silk Garden and is just single crochet with a treble crochet lattice edge.

Noro Silk Garden Scarf

What have you been working on lately?

This weekend was a fun tea things filled weekend. On Saturday my friend Nita (SpitSplice to any Ravelers out there) came and dropped off two boxes full of crochet and knitting patterns for me to go through (more on these later) and then we and her hubbie went to my local tea bar, L’amyx, for a nice cuppa and chat before wandering around the shops (more on that later too).

Saturday also found Will and I up on Piedmont Ave poking around the shops after breakfast and I gave into a bit of temptation and got these:

Click Me!

And……

Click Me!

There is a whole series of these mugs by Mud Pie Collections and I must say I had a hard time picking just one mug to get.

The tea deck is great fun. There is a card for all the basic kinds of tea, such as matcha, Assam, green, white, etc as well as some herbals and blending tips. And there are recipes of tasty treats such as scones, Buckingham Palace Shortbread, and more. It is great if you are just learning about teas because each card talks about how to brew the specific tea, a little info on how it is processed, the region is originates from, etc. I can’t wait to try the shortbread recipe!

Anyway, more to come on the treasures from Nita and other fun things, afraid my flash drive with photos is being sat on by a cat at home.

Click Me!

A fab Blog/Mag by Erin Loechner, not to be missed! Oh, and a pdf of the mag is FREE and no trees are harmed in its downloading, but some of the stuff is so cool you might want to print a few pages.

Lately I have been spending a lot of time at my local library, the internet library that is, Google Books to be precise. You have probably heard about Google’s efforts to digitize the worlds reading material and how many are split on the issue of the legality of it all. Full versions of alot of books are not avaliable because of copyrights. Meanwhile, Google is scanning all kinds of wonderful, historic books that are past their copyright date and you can download the full text version in PDF format. Now you might be like, ok that is nice, but what are you going to look up unless you are into the classics right? Well me being me the first thing I searched for was KNITTING and then CROCHET. This was soon to be followed by search for dyeing, cooking, needlework, sewing, embroidery and well you get the idea.

I found a treasure trove of books from the turn of the century (not the recent one,haha) instruction books on the domestic arts, back when it really was art (well it still is but that is another post). I could turn this into a long post with lost of titles but I think it is much more fun to go poke around for yourself, or check out my library feed.

Many of the patterns have no picture, there is no
gauge, yarns are called things like Berlin Wool or Lambs Wool without any really idea of size. So trying to just jump right into knitting these is a little scary at first but I for one want to give some of them a go. I mean really, I have just as much basic know-how as these books are assuming the craters of old had right? Plus if I get stuck I know where to go, the gals in the VicKnit Yahoo! group are sure to have some ideas on what to tryout first. Lacis is also just a quick 15 min drive away and the gals there are very helpful. At the very worst I might try contacting my great-great grandmother on the other side (just kidding, but wouldn’t that be cool!)