Monday, March 2, 2009

First flower and a little light crafting

Here is the first outdoor flower of the year (in our garden, anyway). Pardon the focus issues - I took the picture with my iPhone.

It's a dwarf daffodil, although it looks more like a yellow snowdrop in this picture. The regular daffs are very nearly open and the tulips have started popping up through the dirt. WOOT!

I have some crafting to report. I bought a very cute, cream cable-knit turtleneck sweater from J.Crew, about 5 years ago. And had washed it in woolite a few times. Not a problem.

For some reason, I decided a few weeks ago to wash it in woolite using the cold, delicates cycle in the washing machine. BAD idea. The sweater didn't shrink as much as if I'd put it in the dryer, but it was definitely too small. And it was a little short to begin with. Result: unwearable.

It doesn't look so bad in this picture, but the pillow form is pretty small. And my torso is kind of long. And my muffin-top does NOT benefit from short sweaters.

So, before:

And, after!
The button is wooden, which I really like, and since my sewing machine (kick-ass antique Singer Featherweight) doesn't do zig-zag, there's no buttonhole. It's all just sewn together. I can clip the threads and re-sew the button if I need to (hand) wash the sweater-pillow.

3 comments:

E. said...

adorable!!!! so crafty!

Anonymous said...

aren't you crafty!
Looks great.

Frances Leigh said...

ooo I think the pillow looks great! Contact me when you are ready to wash it and I'll give you some tips! It's really not the temperature of the water that will do it, so much as it is the "agitation" that makes wool felt. I can tell you how to VERY gently clean it...
If only you'd asked me when it was still a sweater! (but then you wouldn't have that cool pillow!)