Sleeves when you need 'em

I often get chilly in the summer, sometimes from the air conditioning and sometimes from the cooler evenings. A sweater is just too heavy. A long sleeved shirt isn't right for throwing over a short-sleeved shirt or a tank top. What to do? Turn a long-sleeved shirt into a bolero of course!


Inspired by two bolero projects I found online, I made this bolero from an old long-sleeved jersey knit shirt. The shirt sat too short for my liking, so why not cut it off more? I chopped the bottom off to sit just below the bosom, be sure to leave more than you'd think necessary as it does tend to ride up. I cut it right down the centre of the front and made the V from the top of the bosom to the collar. I cut the collar off. I then hemmed all the cut edges, by hand since I find jersey-knit difficult to work with using my sewing machine. Finally I added the button and button-hole. I must admit that the button-hole could use some work. I did it by hand and had no idea what I was doing. It works but just don't look at it closely. If anyone can point me to the proper way to do a button-hole, please do! The button-hole is horizontal to avoid problems with the side getting pulled out of shape.

I must say that I'm very happy with the final result.

Materials:

• old jersey-knit long-sleeved shirt
• needle and thread
• button
  

Steggie!

This is a project from March 2007. I thought this pattern was really cute so I grabbed some scraps of yarn and got crocheting. Here's what happened:


I ran out of green yarn shortly into the project and finished off with some scrap verigated yarn. It didn't turn out as cute for me as it did for the original creator. So there was only one thing to do:


Give it to Mokey! It actually turned out to be a great toy for her. She usually tears plush toys apart but Steggie is still around and aside from being goobered on and dirty he's none the worse for wear. There are no seams to split like with fabric plush toys and when she chews him, her teeth slide through the stitches so they don't create holes for her to exploit. She absolutely loves chewing on him and despite all the chewing and pulling, Steggie hasn't come apart. So for all you dog owners out there, if you want a great toy, crochet one!

Hook size:
G

Materials:

• Worsted weight yarn, I ended up using a dark green from Red Heart and a verigated from Bernat Super Value
• Fibre fill
  

Sleeper of a Bag

This project is from Martha Stewart and while I don't know if I'd say "it's a good thing" I would certainly say "it's not too bad at all." I did have a lonely pillow cases around, so I can't think of anything better than to make a bag with it.


I got this project done in one evening with no seam ripping and no frustration. Yay! The one thing I wasn't too sure about was what to do with the diagonal edges of the pillow case that are inside of the bag. I debated about whether they should be sewed up too but in the end decided for less work and left them open. This leaves a couple of pockets (large and flimsy pockets, mind you) inside the bag and there's no harm in that.

Materials:

• lonely pillow case
• sewing machine
• thread
• straight pins
• ruler
• chalk
  

Travel Tissue Cover

I've found a new and fantastic source of patterns! It's a blog called Craft Leftovers and it's got lots of great ideas for what to do with scraps of things you might have in your craft stash. Aside from the wonderful patterns, great ideas, and being based on a premise of using whatever happens to be laying around, the projects are fairly small and quick to do.

Here is my first finished project from a Craft Leftovers pattern (okay, it's actually the second, but the first was done as a pattern tester for the site so I won't reveal it until the pattern is posted):

They're Travel Tissue Covers! I made one for a friend and one for me. Now I must say, they look like a very simple sewing project, but for a novice sewer like me, there was plenty of frustration that went along with this project, not the least of which was the machine coming partially unthreaded without telling me causing the seams not to sew up properly and me having no clue why. That of course ended with a lot of ripped stitches, swearing, and all sorts of other untoward behaviour. But in the end I got them done and I think they'll work just fine. Making the second one went a lot smoother but still involved ripping out stitches.

The first one I made required some hand stitching in the final side seams where the folded over sections meet. It was just too tough for the needle I had to get through the fabric. But fortunately, some miracle happened with the second one and the needle slid through that section with no problem.

One thing that the pattern doesn't mention is that in the end, after making the final side seams, the whole thing gets flipped inside out. This is very important to know so that the fabric you want on the outside actually ends up being on the outside

I've found that the bottom lip of the opening puckers a little, nothing too serious, but enough to annoy my perfectionism when I was making the first one. I accepted this fact by the time I go to the second one.

Materials:

• 2 pieces of 9" x 6.5" fabric (I used gold satin for the linings, red crepe satin for one and some shimmery stiff purple for the other)
• Sewing machine (though you could hand sew)
• Thread

Bernat Tulip Dishcloth

After the "Feather and Fan" fiasco, I gave the tulip dishcloth pattern on the same Bernat label a go. It turned out much better. It is a good size for a dishcloth and actually feels really good. There was an error in the pattern with the stitch count in one row, but because of the symmetrical pattern, it was easy to spot and fix. Thank goodness, because I would have been really ticked if neither of the knit patterns on that darn label worked out!

Here's a close-up of the tulip detail:


Needle Size:
5 mm

Materials:
Bernat Crochet Cotton