Fabric Yarn- Barbie Clothes, Finger Knitting, and Braided Tee Shirt Rugs

Excuse the cell phone pictures on this post, since it was a 5 day weekend due to snow, I was home with my 6 and 7 year old stepdaughters and we did a lot of crafting that I wanted to write about.  A year or two ago, I went on a fabric yarn making frenzy and cleaned out the Goodwill of about 20+ tee shirts and 2-3 sheets and made 6 or 8 balls of yarn.  For a great video tutorial on how to make continuous tee shirt yarn, view this youtube video.  My intentions had been to crochet a rug (which I made a small one and gave to my little cousin), flowers, place mats and whatever else I could think of.  Eventually I ran out of steam and put it away.  Well I found the giant box of yarn and leftover tee shirts while setting up my craft room and was inspired all over again.  This time the girls got into the box and were so excited by all of the giant yarn that they too had grand ideas for it all.  I recently taught them how to weave on a homemade weaving loom and so they asked if they could weave with it.  This reminded me of a skill I possessed but had long since forgotten I knew it: finger knitting! The pulled tee shirt yarn, shown in the tie dye blue and brown balls would be the perfect size for them and would make something quickly (since they are easily bored by projects that take more than one sitting to complete).

This is the finger knit scarf that I made, it took me less than 10 minutes.

So, I found this video to remind myself of how to start the knitting and showed it to the girls and we got started.  They loved it!  They made some of all different colors as scarfs for their various stuffed animals.  When they got bored of that, they taped the long strands of yarn from wall to wall in their rooms and pretended they were giant spider webs.  Hey, I say whatever gets their imagination going, and it was funny to see their rooms covered in the yarn. 

While they were busy finger knitting, I decided to take some of the tee shirts that I had not yet cut up and made strips of about a yard and created this awesome braided tee shirt rug.  Here is a decent tutorial video I found on youtube that will show you the process.  The only thing I did differently was instead of sewing the strips together when I needed to add more yarn, which was time consuming, I used the slit-cut and knot method as shown by option # 2 in this video.  Any of the methods work, it is just a matter of preference.  I found this to be the quickest way, and I didn't mind the knot showing in my rug.  So far I have used 3 large size tee shirts (for the 3 different colors in the braid) cut in 1" strips and it has made a 20" round rug.  I did start the rug as an oval shape with about a 4" start length however the rug has rounded out completely as it grew in size.  My only complaint about using the oval shape in the beginning is that about half way through, the rug started to buckle a little.  I think because the tee shirt material is stretchy, as I add more, it will flatten out or be able to be stretched out.  I am guessing that if I had started with a round pattern, this would not have been an issue.  I would like to get 3 more tee shirts to at least double the size of the rug.  At $1/tee shirt from Goodwill, you can't beat the price and it has been fun and quick! Excuse the blurry picture again.  This one is being made out of two flat bedsheets with 1" strips.  Although using larger strips would have made it go faster, I liked the look of the smaller braided strips.  I have used up an entire spool of thread on this one which is why I stopped.  It currently measures at 20x23.  I used a 7" start strip on this one which seems to have kept the oval shape a little better but I suspect by the time I am finished, it too will round out.  I have also experienced some buckling in this one, but less of it.  There is no stretch to the bed sheet material so it will not stretch out.  I did see in one youtube video where someone had sewn a bath towel to the bottom of it.  I wonder if I were to find a stiffer/thicker material like this for the bottom that this might help flatten out the buckling as well.  

There are several things I liked about using the bedsheet.  The fabric frayed a lot as I was cutting and braiding it (which was a pain in the process) but has a beautiful subtle texture that I really like once finished.  The material is flatter and since I only used two colors that were very similar, the braids blend more and I love the texture that combination created.  I would say I went through about 3/4 of the sheet material and would like to also make this rug much larger.  I may need another sheet to finish it. 

Having cut up the tee shirts, the only part I didn't use were the hems and the sleeves, which I'd saved. One of the girls had complained that she lost Ken's shirt and I thought about all the barbie clothes I'd been handed down as a kid and fondly remember that someone had meticulously sewn some of the clothes.  I didn't have a pattern and not even knowing if it would work, I quickly laid the dolls down on the sleeves of the tee shirts, traced them onto the fabric with a marker and sewed then cut out the shape.  They took me all of 5 minutes (hence the sloppy lines and ill fit) but the girls were ecstatic and asked me to make more of them.  Going forward, I would definitely find a pattern and spend more time to perfect them, but it made the girls happy and that was all that mattered.  They couldn't wait to show their daddy when he got home from work.

I don't remember Ken looking this creepy when I was a kid.  I liked him better when his hair was plastic and his joints didn't bend.

I don't think there is much creepier than a Monster High doll.  They have giant heads, long torsos, huge butts and all of their joints come apart.  Super creepy!

As you can see, this Monster High doll is missing several body parts...they kept popping off when I tried to put the clothes on them.  Ew.  Either way, just tracing the bodies directly onto the fabric worked pretty well when the body parts would stay on hah!

Blueberry Ice Cream

Although the candy cane ice cream is by far our favorite, the blueberry ice cream (which I'd never seen made before) was really good also.  We don't normally buy blueberries, they are a bit sour for me, but the kids begged me and they were on sale, buy one get one free, so we got them, and then no one ate them.  Since I have this awesome, brand new ice cream maker and I couldn't let the blueberries go to waste, I thought, why not turn it into ice cream.  I did a search on the internet and came across a recipe from the same person who posted the candy cane ice cream!  I knew it would be really good and I was not disappointed.  The only thing I did different was after blending.  Because I used a smoothie blender which purposely has a dull blade to keep the the smoothie thicker, it did not chop up the skins of the blueberries.  I used a very small strainer and pushed the mix through the strainer and as you can see it got out most, but not all of the skins.  I was okay with this, I think it added to the flavor and the visual effect.  And even more beautiful was the amazing purple color the ice cream turned from the blueberries.

Candy Cane Peppermint Ice Cream

For Christmas we got an awesome cuisinart ice cream maker and we have been making ice cream like it was going out of style.   So far we've made vanilla, chocolate custard, strawberry kiwi sorbet from fresh fruit, and candy cane Peppermint Ice Cream which is by far our favorite.  We had so many left over candy canes and usually they get thrown out, but not this year!  I found this recipe and was really drawn in by her beautiful photos.   The ice cream turned out just like store bought only better.  It was incredibly rich and sweet and we loved how the candy canes turned the ice cream pink!   Here is the Recipe. Although my photos aren't nearly as awesome as the recipe 's,  I thought maybe you'd want photos of the process and final result. 

DIY Wedding Flowers

The actual bouquet

I was not one of those brides who spent 


Her whole life planning every detail of her wedding with one exception; the flowers.  Through high school and part of college, I worked in a flower shop and my favorite job was to deliver and set up the wedding flowers.  It was always so exciting to be a small part of such an important event and I knew that was the one thing I was going to do for myself, if nothing else.

I started out by googling wedding flowers and kept a pinterest folder of flowers I loved. I probably had hundreds of photos. I chose the color scheme for my entire wedding based on the availability of flowers for the time of year I was getting married (October). I searched for flower combinations in the colors I loved and came up with a large list of flowers options. Next, I researched availability and pricing. I looked for companies that sold wholesale. By keeping the flowers the same across the board from bouquets to center pieces to boutineres, you can save a lot of money by ordering in bulk. If you are really feeling adventurous and want to save even more money, do like I did and order a themed mix.  The mixes come in a large variety usually by color or season. They don't tell your every single flower (growers choice) but I called a week ahead and asked what and how many of each I would be receiving so I could plan ahead. You can also get a good idea of what variety of flowers might be in it by asking what they are sending out now.  

This was how the flowers arrived from the grower, FED-EX. COSTCO was the wholesaler.



Finding a reputable wholesaler can be tricky. Ask your local florists for the name of their wholesaler, ask your florist how much they would charge to order and and store them or even deliver them for you. Check with wholesale stores such as costco, Sams club or BJ's.   You need a membership to shop here but some will give temporary passes. I went through Costco and had a family member with a membership order them for me online. I found they had the best variety and a great price. 

Flowers rehydrating after I unpacked, trimmed and de-leafed them. This was a fall mixed bulk pack.



You will want to order no less than three weeks out, some places need a month or more. The flowers were delivered to my house directly from the grower 4 days in advance of the wedding.  Because the flowers arrive tightly packed in a box with no water, and the heads are usually still closed, this gives them time to open up and rehydrate. I bought five $5 five gallon buckets from the hardware store and dumped the food packets that come with the flowers along with the water. Cut the stems at an angle several inches from the bottom of the stems. Pull off all the leaves to reduce bulk in the vase or bouquet handles. I stored the flowers buckets in the garage since it was fall it was the perfect cool place not too hot or cold. Whatever you do, don't put them in the regular refrigerator unless you turn the temp way up to 65 or 70. I learned the hard way when we went to walk down the aisle, all of the boutineres were wilted so we had to go without.
When it came time to transport, we dumped most of the water and loaded the buckets in the back of someone's SUV and did all of the arrangements in the kitchen of the venue. The night before the wedding, I put together all of the arrangements and set them out on the tables. I also made the cake topper and corsages and boutineres the day before. The day of all I had to do was wrap and trim the stems on the bouquets, cut and suspend the carnations.  It rained so instead of hanging the carnations from the gazebo, we hung them in the window overlooking the lake behind the head table.  They were beautiful!

Another thing I did that I was so greatful I had thought of it, I went to the grocery store and picked out a $10 or $15 bouquet that had similar flowers, shapes and sizes as what I was having in my actual bouquet and spent several hours practicing making bouquets and then finally a centerpiece.  Since it had been so long since I had worked in the flower shop, I was quite rusty.  The practice was great because I could take it apart and put it back together as many times as I needed to get it right.  That way, on the day of the wedding, I was not stressing about my flowers not turning out right, because I already had figured out exactly how many stems of what I was going to need and how they would fit together.  Also, during practice, it didn't matter if I accident broke a stem or messed up the ribbon because it was just practice. Shown below is a photo of the practice bouquet.  Also on the day of, make your toss bouquet first as a warm up so if you mess it up, it doesn't matter because it is only getting destroyed anyway!  Last piece of advice, have a second person there to help you.  That way as you are working on the bouquets, they can hold them as you add flowers and can turn the bouquets so you don't have to worry about dropping or smushing them.

I hope you enjoy making your bouquet as much as I did.  Don't stress out, it is supposed to a fun and wonderfully satisfying personal touch that you have for your special day!

My hanging flower/gazebo inspiration

My practice at hanging flowers for the gazebo- they are hung from fishline in a doorway

Bouquet practice from $15 grocery store flowers

The actual bouquet

Forrest Gump Jenny Costume

UPDATE:1/1/2014 so its been a really long while since I've worked on my blog so I think I will start by updating this one...to make a long story short Forrest shocked the heck out of Jenny and proposed at the party, down on one knee with his two sweet children and asked me to marry him!  364 days later we were married!  So here

are photos from the actual proposal which happened to be the only pictures I got of the costume.  There is a video floating around somewhere I will try to post also if I can find it!

Oct 2012: So for a 1960's Halloween party we were invited to, Steven and I decided it would be fun to be Jenny and Forrest from Forrest Gump.  I had to get creative, but overall I am very thrilled with the results!


 
The look I was going for...

First I started on the fur coat.  Unfortunately the fabric store I went to had limited resources so I had to get crafty.  They didn't have enough of the brown color, and the pink had more fabric but not enough to do sleeves like in the picture.  However, as was common to the 1960's time,they did wear vests (which she also has on in the mall water scene) so I sewed this:

My amazing boyfriend went home to visit his parents and came back with an actual brown vest from the 1960's that his stepmom wore!  What an awesome surprise!  Now my outfit is perfect.

Next I worked on the dress.  I was going to sew one but without a pattern I quickly realized that wasn't going to work.  I gave up on the Jenny idea and decided to go to Good Will to find a 60's dress of some sort when I found the absolute perfect dress!  It was the right style and shape and even had pretty embroidary.  The only obvious problem was the dress was a dark forest green and I needed it to be white.  I bought it anyway figuring I could try to bleach it.  (This picture below was the only picture I took and this was about halfway through the process, it was actually several shades darker).

Bleaching wasn't so easy.  I googled instructions for the washer, put a cup of bleach in the washer with water on the soak cycle, 2 rounds of 20 minutes each did absolutely nothing.  I took it out and put it in a bucket and poured 3-4 cups of bleach which barely dropped it a shade in an hour.  Finally I got frustrated and dumped the entire gallon into the water which in the next hour dropped it slightly lighter and made it streaky.  At this point I gave up and just left it in the bucket overnight fully expecting it to be in shreds in the morning, but I didn't care, I didn't want to deal with it anymore.  Thought I wasn't going to have a costume...and then I woke up the next morning and it had worked!  I couldn't believe it, it was white!  And even more miraculously, the embroidered design down the sleeves didn't bleach so it left this beautiful stitching.  My biggest regret was not taking a before photo to compare.  Basically the color you see in the background tile was the color before, and here you can see it clearly worked!  I am so excited, I get to be Jenny after all!

  

  

1960's Disco Kid Costume (Simplicity 3680A)

This is what it is supposed to look like.

Each year my family has a themed Halloween party that we call the Octoberfest, or O-fest for short.  This year's theme was the 1960s.  I thought it would be fun and easy to make the girls costumes.  I went to Hobby Lobby and waited in line for a long time and ended up getting some awesome advice from the older women standing in line who were in highschool during the 1960's.  I felt great walking away from there, they assured me that I picked an easy pattern.

This is what I have so far :(

Well aside from starting out sewing the sleeves completely backwards (they are counter intuitive) and having to take them completely apart and re-doing them, the instructions leave out the part about how to connect the bodice to the skirt...well at least they do not show pictures of it.  I also think the measurements for the skirt portion are too small, it does not look like there is any possible way my child is going to fit through that tiny skirt hole, none the less once it has elastic in it.  I think am going to have to cut it quite a bit shorter in order to make the waist fit.  I think I am going to have to wing the directions...as I have no clue where to go from here, and I have a whole other one to make today!

To be continued...

Ok so here we are about a week later and I've got them finished.  I decided to just wing it and start sewing together.  I sort of pleated things. The girls and I really like how it all turned out...

 

Bleached Recycled T-Shirt Covered Recipe Book

Ugly old Photo Binder

 

Pretty New Binder

 


I have this really ugly photo book that I got for free that I have been using as a recipe book.  I write my recipes on index cards and put them in the sleeves.  I have been thinking about recovering it with fabric but don't have any scraps at the moment.  I do however have this old t-shirt that I accidently ruined with superglue that would look awesome with a bleach treatment.  I have never done the bleach treatments before so here is the tutorial.  Did a few things right and a few wrong.  Only way to learn!
 Supplies:
-Cheap paintbrushes (you don't mind if they get ruined)
-book
-old t-shirt
-bleach (I had general cleaner with bleach in it and it worked just as well as plain bleach.  I figured this out by accident, ruined a favorite skirt while cleaning)
-Glue (I used spray glue, modge podge works just as well)
-exacto knives ( used multiple tips that allowed me to get the curves better)
-contact paper
-pattern (optional, printed from online)
-Piece of scrap cardboard

I printed a clipart from online and put it on the clipboard with a piece of contact paper over top.  I used the exacto knives to cut out the clipart from the contact paper. 

Recipes on index cards in the recipe book.  The open book fits on the tee shirt.  I put a piece of cardboard between the layers of the t-shirt so it didn't leak through and make a mess.

To see exactly where to put the images on the t-shirt, I cut pieces of paper the same size as the front cover, binding and back cover.

And laid them out on the t-shirt

I then stuck the contact paper to the t-shirt where the pages were, leaving the binding paper in place as a reference.

 

Here is where things stopped working as I expected.  I used paintbrushes to brush on the bleach...and it bled quite a bit under the contact paper (as you can see from the design on the left).  To compensate, for the design on the right, I used a brush that was much smaller than the cut out area to allow for some bleeding.  I then peeled off the contact paper and hand painted a few flowers in the gaps.  It took about 5-10 minutes for the bleach to fully change the color.  I intended to leave it on for 20 minutes to be sure it set and then this happened....

Before.

After.  The bleach ate the brushes.  It was only a matter of time before it ate into the t-shirt too.

I Washed and dried the tshirt by itself.  I opened the book and laid it across the images.  Traced with a marker, leaving one inch extra on each side and cut it out.

I Rolled the image and press flat with my hands, making sure to get out all of the wrinkles.  Sprayed the front of the book with the spray glue.  Placed the roll on the book making sure to leave an inch around all edges.  Unrolled a little at a time making sure to pull taught to keep any wrinkles from forming.  It takes a little bit for the glue to set so if there is a wrinkle, you should be able to pull the fabric back up and press out the wrinkle with your hands.  Do this for the binding and the back of the book, being careful when spraying not to get glue inside the book. 

When I was done covering the outside of the book, I left an inch of fabric around each edge.  I Used modge podge and a brush, put glue on the book around the edges and press the fabric down flat.  I was not too concerned with flat edges so I didnt cut the fabric very straight (I don't have that kind of patience).  I left it open for the glue to dry. 

Front

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