Zipper Pouch

  Lately I've been playing with clay and practicing sewing with a few projects. I found this video by Melly Sews for creating a lined zipper pouch. She does a great job explaining everything. I made this pouch to hold all my new clay tools. I don't have that many, but I wanted to keep them all together. It would do no good to add more mess to my messy craft room, so a sewing project and a bit of organizing is great for me. I'll show off some of my clay creations in another post.

   I used one of those Single Fat Quarter cotton pieces that you can get at Walmart or you can get them in bulk online at Amazon. The one I used was 18 by 21 inches, and was more than enough fabric. For the lining, I used a piece of cotton from an old bed sheet. The corners next to the zipper are a little weird, but it looks like it was done on purpose, so no biggie.

   Speaking of that old bed sheet... It was a king sized sheet and gave me lots of fabric to practice on. I made a few of these aprons, and I still have more to play with. I used the scraps from my Fat Quarter to make a small pocket. The sheet was going to end up in the trash since it had a huge hole in it, so why not upcycle?

Refashioned Beach Dress

  Do you ever go to the beach and end up buying stuff you'll never use? ..or is that just me? Well, if you haven't guessed, I bought this dress on a beach trip. I don't even remember which beach. Everything seems to look better at the beach. Maybe if you live on a beach you wouldn't think so, but I don't and in fact, it is snowing here, right now.

  I love the fabric, but I didn't really like the top part of this dress. I'm not so busty and can't pull it off, so I decided to turn it into a maxi skirt.

  First, I held the dress against me to the length I wanted it. I folded the top and cut at that point.  It came out to be 3 inches shy of what I would cut a maxi skirt for myself at, but I'm going to use part of the top as a waistband.

  After cutting, I had to make my lines a little straighter and cut one seam so I can make it smaller.

  I made it to be 4 inches smaller than my waist because the material is really stretchy. Then I sewed the band closed again to make a circle and folded in half lengthwise with right side out. I tried to hand baste a loose straight stitch, but ended up taking it out because it didn't allow the material to stretch enough to pin it to the skirt.

  I think this is the hardest part for me - putting these two pieces together. I placed the band on the outside of the skirt and evenly pinned the two together. Sewing was a pain because I had to stretch the band as I went to match up with the skirt. I guess I need more practice with that because I had a couple holes. I had to go back over to get it right.

   I think I got it right, and I'm diggin' my new skirt! I don't know what I'm gonna do with the top part. I'm past the days when I would wear it like that! Maybe I'll make some type of headpiece.

Refashion

   Ok, don't laugh at my amateur sewing job.  I am well aware that I have tons of learning to do in that department. I think it turned out way better in my mind. I should probably take a class sometime.Well, on to the project.

  I took this thrift store shirt and made some alterations. 

First I chopped off the sleeves and made the shirt a little more fitted. 

Then I added crochet, of course. This is an applique that I wrote about in another blog post. I just pinned it where I liked then hand sewed it in place. 

I carefully cut out the fabric from behind the crochet.

This shirt is for my daughter, so instead of leaving the open back, I added a contrasting color to the inside. Conveniently, I had a sample swatch of stretch cotton jersey in the exact size that I needed. Not the prettiest stitches, but they do the job. I had to make sure to stay behind the crochet so the stitches weren't visible on the other side. 

And the final piece. 

Plarn Floppy

  When I first started crocheting as an adult, my choice of materials were whatever was the cheapest or my favorite: free. I wasn't very good, and wasn't sure how long I would stay interested in this craft. I liked using plarn because it was free and I liked the idea of making something useful out of "trash". If you don't know what plarn is, it is made from plastic bags that you would get from the store. You cut them up and make them into yarn, hence the name plarn, plastic-yarn. There are lots of tutorials on how to make plarn all over YouTube.

  I was mostly making cute bags that in turn were more sturdy than just a regular plastic bag. I actually sold a few of the bags. I don't have pictures because that was way before this blog started. I graduated from plarn and now I have a huge yarn stash. It's mostly acrylic and cotton, but one day I will move on to the fancier yarns. Maybe I can say I'm an expert by then. Hmm, I'm still learning, and I'll probably still be learning then too. I like to keep an open mind. Yarn is definitely easier to work with than the plastic.

  Here is a floppy made from plarn. I used brown grocery bags from Giant. I like the specks of purple scattered throughout. It's a little small and would probably be hot, but at least it's cute. I guess I still need to work on the prototype.

Have you ever used plarn?