Upcycled T-shirt Needle Case

The front of the case.

I found an old t-shirt of my daughter's that my sister had decorated during her Swarovski period. Delaney had been regularly raiding my tool drawer in pursuit of her hew love of bookmaking. Knowing she'd be going back to school after Christmas I decided to kit her out with everything she'd been using. I found some squares of felt, some buttons, embroidery thread, bits of ribbon & scraps of fabric.

Inside the case

I layered 3 pieces of felt together.
Then I made a pocket on the top from the sleeve of the t-shirt and filled it with embroidery floss.
Under the purple flap is a bone folder.
The scissors are attached with ribbon and put into a pocket made from oilcloth (the points of the scissors poked through regular cloth.)
I cut a hole for the awl & embroidered around the edge so it would be stronger.
I made a little pocket out of another bit of the t-shirt with a crystal flower and tucked in a needle-threader.
I stitched a piece of ribbon down to hold safety pins.

Back of the case

At the top is the flap that holds in the bone folder.
The paisley is just a decoration.
I used buttons to strengthen the corners where the pockets are sewn on.
And the whole thing closes with a bit of elastic that catches on a button.

She loves it. It's portable, has everything she needs in one place and everything's tied down with ribbon so she doesn't misplace it.

Upcycled Fair Isle Slippers

My son loves the throw away slippers we bring back as travel-gifts from planes & hotels. I've been trying to figure out a way to somehow adapt them to be more long-wearing and interesting looking. I've been felting wool sweaters & using them for blankets & thought I'd try making them into slippers. I used some recyled leather for the soles. I glued the sweater onto the leather then straight stitched the tops and bottoms together. I went around the edges with the same satin stitch I use when piecing together scraps. I did a row of single crochet around the top edge. I'm not happy with the way the satin stitch looks. I'm going to think of other ways to finish the edges.

Upcycled Blanket

I've been wanting a nice heavy-weight wool blanket and haven't been able to find one to buy. I thought about knitting & felting one, but only had to look at the long-unfinished Babette sitting in a sorry pile in the corner to realize that wasn't happening in this lifetime. About this time one of my daughter's friends returned a lovely striped sweater she'd borrowed & kindly machine washed & dried before returning. Not knowing any 6-month olds in need of a heavily felted sweater I tossed it on my worktable hoping for an inspirational idea to appear. I got the idea to turn it into a patchwork sweater & got to work scouring the house for outgrown or holey sweaters. I got all those felted & realized that I'd be needing a whole lot of sweaters. I hit the local thrift shops. But this being SoCal, wool sweaters were hard to come by. I turned to ebay next, and had great luck - never spending more than about $6 (with freight) for a sweater. I played around a while and came up with a wide zigzag stitch on my sewing machine that allowed me to butt two pieces together. That way the blanket would be double sided with no thick seams. I've been using it for a few months now and it's exactly what I wanted - thick, heavy & very warm.