restyled and upcycled gifties

One of my oldest, dearest friends became a mom again.  She and her hubs adopted a son and I am so thrilled for her and her little family.  As the time was getting nearer, I started making things for her little guy.



Don't you love how when you are making something for someone you love, they are in your thoughts the whole time you are working?  It was almost like the old days when we actually lived close to each other.

I made her some of my favorite things.  The best burp cloths ever.


I recieved a bunch of these before I had the twins and they were astounding!  I'll do a post with a tutorial--super duper simple, but how I loved them.



The back of this little quilt is an XL shirt that was free and didn't fit anyone.  Really, I just didn't want to drag the kids to the fabric store.  (That's how I get a lot of creative ideas: from being overwhelmed/lazy:  how can I get what I want without leaving the house?  Then I scavenge. ) I like how you can tell it's a shirt on the back of the quilt, how fun is that.  (Can you tell I'm a crappy seamstress from these pictures?  But I don't let that stop me.  No, because quilts are used to stay warm or keep a baby off the floor, so who cares if the seams are straight?  Not me.)

I did a onsie like the ones here because you can never have enough onsies.  And hats.  Hats are just cute.  Although I found out that these hats are to darn big for the tiny little guy. 

That brown one is upcycled/restyled from an old sweater.  I googled how to do it and I could not believe how simple it was.  The hardest part was the first cut of the sweater.  Does that happen to you?  That hesitation...am I SURE I won't wear this again?  What if I mess it up? JUST CUT IT ALREADY! 

Speaking of restyle, I thought I'd post a picture of this crazy little number:



Hey, I'm not complaining.  I love a girl who's not afraid of a little color (or a lot of color).  We get spoiled rotten with the best hand-me-downs.  She had several cute striped long-sleeved shirts that she never wore and I couldn't figure out why.  So I added some yummies and they became her favorites!  I used old clothes and fabric scraps and made a simple fox. 



Much bettah.  Isn't it freeing when your clothes help express who you are?

I think she likes it;)

restyled: a tutorial

I wanted to show you how I made a cute baby bonnet style beanie from an old baby sweater that was stained pretty badly.

Here is the sweater before...kind of.  (I had already used parts of it for another project.)  I like the ruffly edge and thought it would be cute around a sweet little face.



I folded it in half , inside out, with the seams matching up together.  The seams make a good edge: they won't unravel when you cut the sweater.  Since this was a tiny sweater, I went all the way up to the the arm hole seam and sewed a straight line from the seam to the fold of the sweater, making a right angle with the seams in the sweater and my sewing.



Then I cut it out and turned it right-side-out.  I made a pom pom and cut some strands of yarn to make ties.  (If you don't know how to make a pom pom, they are super simple.  Just google "pom pom tutorial" and I'm sure plenty of instruction will be right at your fingertips.)



I just used a crochet hook to grab the yarn and work it through.







I used six strands of yarn; doubled makes four strands in each bunch when you braid it.



I wanted to embroider something simple + happy...



attach the pom pom and voila!



I tried it on one of the smallest heads in my house before sending it to my new niece.  Yes, it's a little too tiny, but it was still satisfying to get the idea of how it will frame that sweet new face...



xo
Britt