Men's sweater to baby sweatsuit

Since highschool, I have had a love and fascination with clothing reconstruction. I often tweak little thinks (nothing really drastic) on clothes I buy, to make them fit better or improve the look. So when I saw an idea on the web to make kids pants out of T-shirts, I thought of this old sweater I had in my sewing drawer that BJ didn't want any more. I thought it was just the thing to use. After I made the pants, I saw what remained of the sweater and thought I could easily turn it into a mini-sweater for baby! The neck was a problem- way too big for a small head, so I added the button with an interesting result.

 

 

 

 

I love recycling!

Placemat bag

So, I'm a little bit in love with bags of all sorts. I buy bags, and I make bags. I have bags full of bags. It's kind of an addiction. Probably not healthy. But they make me happy! Here is a bag I made a while back. Actually, I probably made at least 5 or 6 similarly designed bags, but was not smart enough to take pictures of them before I gave them away. I heard a couple years ago that you could make a cute purse out of a placemat, and I was intrigued. I'm sure there is a pattern on the web, but it didn't occur to me to look at the time I started making them, so I just kind of winged it, with some interesting results at first. Eventually I found something that worked and looked good to me. This bag went to one of my nieces for her birthday.

PS- I just googled "placemat purses" and came up with a bunch of pictures and tutorials. So there you have it. If you want to make one, do a search! (I could post my own instructions, but why reinvent the wheel?)

Baby Legs

A recent trend of the last few years have been "Baby Legs". They cover your baby's legs (obviously), keeping them warm and protecting their knees while crawling, and are especially handy if you like to keep your baby in onesies and not have to deal with snapping pants up every time you change their diaper. You can order them on the internet for about $12 a pair or... make your own! I bought a pack of 3 tube socks for $4.00ish from Target and so each pair cost me less than $1.50, and 10-20 minutes each (because I didn't want to follow the directions, and I ended up sewing things backwards like 3 times. Silly me.) You could probably do it for cheaper if you found a sale. Also, the socks I bought were no ordinary tube socks- they were womens above- the- knee socks (don't tell G), so they will fit him for a long time.

Here is the tutorial I looked at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/babyhopes/sets/72157594274454468/

Quilted doorstop

I found a tutorial on one of my favorite craft blogs for a nine-patch doorstop. At first I didn't consider making it because it seemed like something I would never use... but then I recalled how for the last 8 months we have been using bags of random junk as a doorstop for our bedroom door, because it swings wide open and we like to keep it open a crack so we can hear the baby. So I decided to make one. I looked at the pattern and instructions and decided I would make my own version, because I didn't feel like following a pattern. So I used scraps from BJ's quilt, and from an old pair of jeans (you can get so much mileage out of a pair of jeans- don't throw old ones away!) and came up with my own pattern based on the one I found. The pattern looks great, with a zipper on the bottom that you can open to let out the filler beans or whatever so you can wash it. I like the idea, but didn't have the right size of zipper, so instead, I made an opening with kind of a flap on the top that buttoned shut, and I put in ziplock bags full of dry beans as filler. I also made the handle longer so it could hang on the doorknob if we wanted, and I tied it (instead of machine quilting it) to make it all matchy-matchy with BJ's quilt. I won't bore you with the rest of the details (although if you are really interested, I will give more detailed info on how I made it) but I had fun making it up. I love making useful things! Here is the link to the original design: http://www.ohfransson.com/oh_fransson/2007/10/my-first-tutori.html