Found It on the Internet Friday #16

A while back, I found this business card holder on the Pinterest, and I determined to reverse engineer it and make one for me. And every once in a while, someone would repin it and I would be reminded of this determination, and then I would get distracted and/or busy (I got a lot of stuff going on, y’all) and forget about it again for awhile. So when I found myself preparing to go up to The Knit and Crochet Show, I decided it was time.

And I looked at it, and sighed, and procrastinated, and then realized that I had plenty of little scrappy swatches just hanging around on my desk that would make a perfectly lovely biz card holder if I would only sew them together. So I did that instead.

Why yes, you should totally assume that the cute graphic and font are foreshadowing an updated site design…

30-Second Upcycled Vase

The other day I was at Trader Joe’s, as I am wont to be (though I did find this exhaustingly long article today that kinda creeped me out, so we’ll see), and I decided to splurge a little on a pretty little bouquet of flowers. It wasn’t until I got home that I realized I didn’t have a vase that would work for these. I looked around the kitchen and considered just cutting them down and putting them in a water glass, but then I noticed an empty red sauce jar that was just about the right size and shape.

Unfortunately, although it was clean, I hadn’t had a chance to take the label off yet. What I did have was a room full of fabric and ribbon and who knows what else…I grabbed a nice length of grosgrain, wrapped it a few times over the label, tied a quick bow, and added some water and my pretty flowers. Voila!

Cute, easy, and fast.

T-Shirt Pants! And Also, Longer Pockets

Originally posted on A Frayed Knot Knits 12 September 2009

Today I made a total of 4 pairs of pants and a skirt for me, a skirt for Becky, and deepened the pockets on a couple of pairs of Kit’s shorts. (We will not discuss how long those shorts languished in my “to sew” pile before I got that done. Suffice it to say that I only vaguely remembered them when I found them during one of my studio clean-up days, and he didn’t remember them at all.) Here’s the stuff I made for me — I didn’t think to take pics of the skirt I made for Becky, and Kit’s wearing one pair of shorts and I’m not sure where the other one is, and besides, that’s so easy I probably wouldn’t even count it as a make on its own: just cut the bottom out of the existing pocket, cut a rectangle of muslin twice the length you want the new pocket, fold in half, sew up the sides, attach to bottom of existing pocket. Easy-peasy.

Okay, so the yoga pants-from-tshirt idea came from an article on Craft. However, I felt that the careful measurements and shaping were Not For Me (y’all know how I am), so I simplified. I simply cut the shape of the crotch seam where the armholes are, cut on the fold at either edge of the tee, then sewed the crotches, refolded the tee so the crotch seams are at the center point, and seamed up the inseam. I did add tops to these (except for the lighter blue pair, which were large enough that I did a drawstring waist) by sewing together sleeve pieces in a band and attaching them to the top. The tricky bit is to sew it right side to wrong side so that when you fold the band over, all the seaming is hidden. The coolest thing about these is that t-shirt material doesn’t ravel, so there’s no need to finish the edges. Sweet!

Now I’m off to pack for vacation. Just as a reminder, I won’t be posting much if at all while I’m away, but will continue to make and document every day, and will post a big digest of the week’s projects when I get back. Just so you know, it’s probably going to mostly be knitting, since that’s easy to pack and easy for me to work on without a lot of big machinery, like, say, a sewing machine. But I have some more big sewing projects, and also some cookie and treat making days, planned for when I get back. Oh, and my mom’s coming to visit later this month, so I’ll rope her into helping out, too!