Repurposing Old Clothes

My latest craft project has to do with repurposing old clothes.  I have a ton of old clothes - most of them have some sort of hole in them.  They are taking up my hammock space and that's my little reading room.  I kind of gave up on the hammock when I started to work at Subway and it became a shelf for all these old clothes.  My resolution tonight is to find a project for each of them.  I already have a sweater that I want to turn into a skirt and a shirt that I want to turn into a bag.  Wish me luck.  I'll try to take some pictures so ya'll kinda know what I'm doing.  My phone is acting weird, so we'll see if I get any of the photos.

Update:!  Got my phone remastered.  I pretty much hate my phone.  I do not treat it like a little angel.  It is a machine.  Maybe I should, I know a lot of people do. But now it works!  I'm going to try to be nicer to my phone in the future.  It works for me!

I have decided to mend this hideous green dress, where the strap came down, on some of the old clothes, I could not find holes, so just rehung/folded them.

 This is a purple shirt on a purple bed, that I plan to make into a bag/tote. The pink ribbon for the very small hole.  I got this recently from Goodwilll.  

 

 This is a detail of the hippie embroidery that I loved on the shirt

 This is a detail of the ribbon on the shirt

 Here is the hideous blue and green dress.  That is the tear in the fabric.  

 Here is the dress

 It's from Pink Apple, I got it from Fallas, near the mall, in 2011.  

 These are details of the sweater.  Sweet Margaret Obenigba got it for me cause I have a problem with my pants falling down.  It is extra long for that reason. 

 I plan to get it some lining and something for the waist and make it into a skirt.  It's the most complicated project, so far.

 Love me some pastel rainbows!  I think I got this from Target in 2016.  

 Here is the tiny hole.  

 A bit bigger!

 You can barely see it!  But I know it's there!  I'm going to cut a swatch off the bottom and make these pants shorter and sew the patch onto the butt of the pants where the hole is located.  

Some banana pants.   I'm going to hem the bottoms. I've had these forever.  I hated them because they had stretchy cuffs at the bottom and were too short.  I cut a slit in them, but they just frayed and were overall hideous.  How can I get rid of banana pajama pants, though?   They'll make cute shorts.  

Update 12/07/18: I still have all these projects to do.  

A Great Charity to Drop Off Baby Hats and Other Knit and Crocheted Items in the DFW Area

Found a fitting home for my spare knitted baby hats.  Feels good to donate something I don't need to someone who could really use it.  

This is a great foundation that takes mostly blankets, but also takes knitted hats, scarves and blankets for all sizes of patients. 

http://www.warmupamerica.org/parkland

Mail baby blankets to:

Warm Up America! Foundation
c/o Parkland Babies
3740 N. Josey Lane, Suite 102

Carrollton, TX 75007

If you are in the Dallas area and would like to personally deliver your baby blanket or other knitted or crocheted donation, please contact Ann Foster or Lisa Little at Parkland (214-590-8827) for drop off information.

For the latest updates about the Parkland Call for Donations, visit us on Facebook.

So if you are like me, and have an abundance of knitted things lying around that you don't use, send them to the address above or drop them off to help warm a patient in need.   

Hating to loving yourself: An internet journey

So I decided to continue making hats, I have one in the works, no pictures yet, my phone is recharging.

It's the grey and black and it's the largest size because I always worry about babies outgrowing the little ones I knit too soon.  It's going great so far, but I I'm decreasing and I think I missed some stitches, because things aren't turning out too evenly. I've got six stitches on one side of the marker and eight on the other side.  Not a problem for me, though.

I'd love to visit with others while I knit.  I know a couple of sisters who knit and craft.  Meg Hunter knits and Ahunna Ikpeowo crotchets, while Joanna Jenkinson crafts with leather.  I've looked at the Meetup site for this and while they have a group, I'm on the waiting list.

My mom crotchets, but hasn't done it in a while. I tried to convince her to finish that quilt I started and the cross stitch I started but I don't think she's interested in craft leftovers.

I want to take back charge over the quilt.  It's all kinds of purple, perfect for my room and it's not going to get cold this year so...I could just use it as a cover and not my allergies inducing duvet.

Still lonely as heck.  I want someone to tell me what to do, but you know what happens when people do that.  Things turn into work and they pick something that you don't want to do. It feels good after you accomplish it.  But if you are alone all the time, you only get vaugue impressions of what people "want" you to do, not a clear picture and some people say "Figure out your own damn thing to do, you're an adult,"  and it's really disappointing and not that easy, cause when you are kid everyone tells you what to do.

So what's more important, resetting your biological clock or getting things done, even if at the wrong time?  I think I'm going to AVON til 11 and if I feel sleepy by then I'll crash, or just lie awake in the dark, thinking about things.  I got this super awesome book, which was totally out of character, because it's a cheap paperback workbook, and trashy looking, The Girlboss Workbook, by Sophia Amoruso.  I love it because it is different from books that I would usually get.

I also got a journal, but when I think about it I panic.  I have in my head the perfect journal, the journal devoted to one subject, glory be to God.  It would either be 1.) poetry.  2.) A novel.  3.)My special journey. 4.) Deep dark secrets or junk journal, but God knows, I've got way too many of those.  Really though...I have a blog.  I don't know why I bought the journal, except that I'm a hopeless perfectionistic, romantic dreamer.  Really, I have a blog to post all my secrets on.  Am I right, people?

For next time:  Get your butt up, break that sleepiness seal.  You won't regret it.  Go to the meeting, return those texts.  Don't reveal all your secrets in one blog, leave an air of mystery.
For this time:  Get your butt up, AVON out, love yourself.

Update:  Reading this post, I got the incredible idea about how great it would be if there was a craft supply company like AVON, where crafters sell to crafters. I dunno, just another half-baked idea.

Baby Hats for Baby Heads

I have two infant baby hats, but looking at how fast the babies are growing on Facebook, I'll have to create a larger version.  I'm going to go with the largest version possible, because they will always grow into it and they are stretchy, especially when washed. Here are the finished projects.

Also, to those who were hopeful about the Modge Podge experiment, I apologize.  The materials were way to expensive, I didn't have any desk space and I was distracted with other projects and life matters.  I don't have the money or the time right now.  But I do want to start a new knitting project, something I could work on my free time, that wouldn't be too expensive.  I really have felt that I need to do something else creative in knitting so stay tuned to my next knitting project.

Update:  I'm making this neat grey shawl out of wool.  I needed to rekindle my love for knitting, not just churn out baby hats for babies I never even got to hold.  So making a cool shawl for myself, which I'll probably never use, because winter is over and it took me all winter to make it.  Well, maybe if I have a sleeveless dress.  Looking out for that perfect item to match.  Maybe a little black dress?  A little grey dress?

Update, Jachin still has his hat and wears it.  Not too shabby!
And I made the grey shawl and usually use it on the couch to warm up.

Knitting Pattern Errors

So I'm knitting this baby hat and it comes up with impossible instructions, which I didn't have a problem with the last time I made the hat. Somehow I must have missed them.

They say that you need to knit until the last two stitches, stitch two together and then slip a stitch, which would be fine, but shouldn't it be knit until the last three stitches, you stitch two together and then slip one, making three last stitches.  I think my mind edited it out before when I made the other baby hat and things turned out fine.

It just irks my perfectionism to know that there may be more perfect instructions out there that I don't have to fix, or that have another way of dealing with the problem to come up with a better hat than one where I will have to fix instructions to make.  I get really grumpy and old when it comes to crafts.  I'm not one of those people who post their projects made of light and air on Pinterest.  I'm more of a panicked new mother, attempting to fix my kids using impossible parental guidance from an old Mother's Day magazine.

Bawls.

Why god, why do most patterns have an error in them, especially free patterns.  I think it's a secret plot to challenge knitters intellect.  Thus far I have thrown up my hands at this particular baby hat, but tomorrow will have me back at it.  It's for Zoe, after all.  I can't give up because of one simple mistake.  Plus I've already subconsciously moved past in on the first baby hat I made, so this one will have to be done the same way.

Knitters, have you experienced this? How have you dealt with errors?

Update:  I don't remember sending this particular hat, but I think I finished it. I have a lot of extra hats lying around.  Zoe's head is probably already too big, and I need to start thinking about toddler's patterns.  I have one big hat, but 5 smaller ones, for infants.  The only newborn I know of is Jessica Ventura's third, but he seems to be growing fast, too.  Babies, that's the only thing, they don't stay small.

First Attempts.

It was whorish.  I bought the supplies, put in the time and effort and ended up with a lot of scraped up paper, beads, ribbon and glue.

I'm not totally sure why my craft project, Modge Podged Altoids Boxes, didn't turn out like the pictures.

There were a lot of drying issues.  I would smudge the paper, and it would tear and bubble up.  Then, the Dimensional Magic, I thought was dry and it was not at all and I'd end up with a half-wet finger print smudge.  The Altoid boxes had raised letters, which would show up under the Modge Podged paper.

I think I have to wait a long!!!!!!!!! period of time for the Modge Podge to dry and I have to reduce the amount of the glue I use on the paper, because if the paper is too wet, it bubbles, unfortunately.

To say the least morale is down.  I have two empty boxes mocking me on my desk.  I didn't think this took any skill.  I didn't think I would have to care. I didn't think I would have to be cold and impassionate, as I took my lover, crafting, and held it's gooy glue between my furious fingers.

There will have to be adjustments made.  I'm going to go over the instructions again to see if there is something I missed.

Wildly Important Idea

I am going to make crafts, document the hilarious results and then sell them on Etsy for ridiculous prices with links to the videos of me making them.

Do I even think this will work?  No. That's kind of the point.

What shall I start with?  I'm actually pretty good at knitting and I really suck at cross stitch, but I can do a passable needlepoint project.

I really just want to jump in there and craft my little heart out.

I have all these craft books.  A knitting one, a needlepoint one, a beading one, and a general holiday crafts one.  There is the internet, an endless resource of free random craft projects.

I'm thinking crafts involving lots of glue.  I can see myself gluing things together.   Modge Podge it up.



I'm so going to do this.  Internet: Challenge, Accepted.