Yo-Yos Galore!

December 27th and still no lace.  My time to work on this sweater is getting down to the wire, since my dear friend's birthday is December 29th... I've searched in all of the usual suspect areas and ruled out the main floor.  That leaves - gulp - upstairs.   If worse comes to worse, I can push delivery to our New Year's Eve party, but how tacky would that be? 

In the meantime, I have to share the yo-yo inspiration that our Kelly sent last night. 

Have you ever seen a more beautiful burst of color on a pillow?  I love how she has the whole gamut of chakra colors swirling together.  Here's a close-up that gives you a much better detail of how the yo-yos were made.  My lace rosette pictures can't show this kind of definition.  She says that she mainly used batik fabric and varied the yoyo sizes.

Here's my favorite part of her note:

• I was thinking that jokingly my comment on your blog was to say that yo-yos are still cool but in reality I think the message is that I'm an old lady doing old lady crafts  (from the 80's). Oh well, it's still fun.

Thank you, Kelly!!!  Long live the yo-yo!

Cardi with Yellow Roses

I found some stunning yellow lace at the fabric store, so soft -- none of that nasty scratchy stuff.  Seriously, this stuff was so pretty that the woman in front of me in the cutting line gasped and asked me what I was going to make with such beautiful lace. 

Because I am a huge fan of short cuts and not much of a seamstress, this is my first time doing a sweater refashion using fabric and not something with prefinished edges.  It helped a lot that I cheated by using an existing cardigan -- no slits up the middle this time.  I was very worried about leaving raw edges on a gift, so I decided to try manufactured bias tape (I've always made my own for my other sweater projects).  I can't count how many Pinterest tutorials and YouTube videos I viewed to try to figure out the best way to use the tape to finish the sleeves and hide the raw ends of the lace.  Suffice it to say, I dreamed about how it would work three-dimensionally for two nights before I tried my hand at it.

Ugh.

So I sliced the sleeves off and created a HUGE mess.  The finished ends were sooooo thick. 

After fighting with it all night, I remembered the sweater that I made for my Dear Mother-in-Law and the yo-yo rosettes.  Turns out, soft yellow lace makes very pretty, soft yellow rosettes.  I spent the rest of the wee hours hand turning tiny rosettes and tacking them over the monstrously thick hem.  I'm hoping they hid it okay, or at least made it look like I finished the sleeves like that on purpose.

I may have to give some stronger consideration for Dear Daughter #1's idea of calling my blog "Frequent Failures"... Because I'm a shortcut gal, I am doomed to learn by my mistakes!
.

Button Button...

The sweater refashion for my Mom proved to be challenging on a couple of fronts.  If only I hadn't fallen in love with that roll of button fringe at the craft store...

But, I did and here it is:

The sweater was one of my Kohl's bargains, beautiful, soft neutral just waiting to be slit up the front.  Sadly, if I'd anticipated the button trim, I would have used a heavier weight sweater. Once I had the trim around the bottom, I was facing some MAJOR sagging with the front.  I tried finishing the front with a super wide piece of lace folded over, then hand sewed a selection of vintage buttons that my girls' Momo gave me years ago. 

My motto has always been "if some is good, more is better".  In this case, it created a more = heavier effect, and I doubted it would hang on my mother properly. 

So being terrified of adding actual buttonholes to the button sweater, I whined about my lumpy creation to my dear friend Vicki: 

 

 

So, Vicki came up with the great idea of using a big, fancy focal hook.  I raided Dear Daughter #2's bathroom and found an elastic loop from her ponytail collection.  Without even leaving her an IOU, I figure-8'd it and sewed a button in the middle.  I had to steal a big focal button from the sweater and replace it with a different one, but since I'd already stolen the hair tie, I was feeling pretty emboldened.  Then I tacked one side down, leaving the other to loop a button.  Button sweater now has functionality...and without buttonholes.  I'm hoping this picture will show the revised clasp:

 

Merry Christmas, Mom!!!

 

Tale of the Lost Lace...

'Twas the day after the Christmas and...  there's a lot to be said for feeling grateful and abundant.  Our Christmas celebration was intimate -- just my husband, two daughters and I -- but we spent most of the day on the phone, thankful to have loved ones to wish a merry Christmas.  The house isn't even in too bad of shape.  We managed to keep the majority of the mess concentrated to the "Christmas Tree Room" (aka the "Grandma Room" the other 11 months of the year), but there is plenty I could and should be doing besides starting a blog right now.

We've finally reclaimed our home from Dear Daughter #1's show choir party, though some strange remnants remain, tucked strategically in corners that everyone but me sees.  We have a guest coming for dinner tonight (Dear Daughter #1's bf), and I should be planning for our New Year's Eve party next week. 

So why am I wasting time worrying about lost lace?

It started with my great idea to refashion sweaters and give them as Christmas gifts.  I have had a couple of successes (or at least a couple that didn't make what my daughter calls my "frequent failure club"), so decided instead of making jewelry, my usual gift go-to, I'd acquired enough experience to create something gift-able to five loved ones.  Three have been delivered, the fourth is in the closet awaiting my friend's December 29th birthday, and the fifth... well, that is a problem.  Fortunately, her birthday is also on December 29th, so I have three days to get this done.  With or without the lace that I'd carefully picked out, left in the piano room, scooped up from my daughter when we were cleaning for the party, and put away where surely I'd never forget it.

Sadly, writing about it has not triggered where I actually put it.  Maybe if I rest on my laurels a bit and show how I refurbished the other four sweaters...

I love to use scarves.  A trip to the Fall Craft Show was very, very fruitful this year:

The best thing about the craft show scarves is that there is a woman who comes twice a year selling the lacey scarves that are actually two different kinds of cloth with extra lace embellishment.  I asked for her card so I could call her for more, but she didn't have one.  Hopefully, I'll see her again in the Spring.  I've folded the gray scarf to try to show you what I mean about the two different kinds of cloth with the lace.  They make beautiful sleeves without itchy lace actually against your wrists.

Of course, Licorice saw that I had the camera, so here he is. 

Plus, I should probably explain the wayward addition of the shirt.  My Dear Mother-in-Law was creating wine bags out of shirt sleeves this summer and save the remaining vesty part for me to use as trimming.  It was one of those broomstick-type shirts from the 90s, so you can imagine how cool the wine bags she made from the sleeves looked.  However... how to use the "vestiges"? 

Or should I say, "Challenge accepted"...

As you can see, I hadn't pressed the front part where I covered slitting the sweater open (I think I recently read that this is a "placket", but I'm not really sure).  The rosettes trim are important because of who I gave the sweater to.  My Dear Mother-in-Law and her sister used to make fabric yo-yo's in the 80's... gazillions of them from what I'm told.  So this is my homage to the vestiges of a blouse and yoyo's.  I didn't like how the centers of the yoyo's looked, and covered them by sewing glass beads from my stash.  I guess I just can't get away from my jewelry go-to.