Tuff Love Bunny

A bit of Humor...

And the Tuff Love Bunny was Born!

He's not very pretty, not perfect in any way. Just like real love.

Cute isn't he? Check him out here. He would be cute in a cubicle, as an office gag gift or perhaps as a cat toy.

Yeah, he belongs in Geekery...He puts a smile on your face. ; )

Stormy Morning Neck Wrap

Some days I have so much fun! I had a bunch of remnants from my daughters sweater blanket, ribbings and squares floating around my sewing tote. I had to do something with them...so I set out to make something useful. The neck wrap is what became of the scraps. I really love this because I have tons of shirts that need a little omph, and this a wonderful way to stay warm and create a statement.

Every flower is different in its own way, I played with a bunch of different shapes and sizes and the above creation was born. This moody blue wrap can be seen and purchased at my shop Sugar Pine Boutique, I hope you come check it out! ; )

Thank you once again for stopping by, have a creative day!

Schweet Little Winter Purse

This fun little purse was made out of an old military type sweater, two old-fashion hankies, some scraps and glass beads. I had so much fun making this one. The ribbed fabric is sooo stretchy that it would be perfect for fitting in those park items, as a market tote, or possible as a crochet/knitting tote. This one's going on Etsy. So stay tuned.... ; )

Greekery__Hand-knitted Sweater Turned Tote__Yep From Greece.

This was a find. While I was out perusing I found a couple misshapen sweaters that had been hand-knit in Greece. A combination of wool and love were put into these and I had to find a way to preserve their beauty.

This one looked like a good candidate for a purse with its cool details. I went ahead and felted these pretty sweaters and set to work sizing up how much material I had. Mainly through hand-sewing, I constructed a circular bottom by using a gathering stitch on the sweaters bottom ribbing. I made the bottom stable with several pieces of plastic canvassing. The lining is a mirror of the outer purse, except I included a pocket and one of my new Sugar Pine Boutique labels. (Those were fun to make!) The handles were machine sewn, using the same lining fabric to stabilize the wool.

The purse was finished with a snap to keep all contents in. I also added a large button made from a coconut shell, wood beads in two complementary colors and a few 'glass' beads for detail.

This tote is perfect for the library, park or beach. The only dilemma now is deciding wether to keep it, or post it in my Etsy store! ; ) What do you think?

As always, thank you for stopping by. May you have a wonderfully creative day! ; )

It's A Wrap

Yesterday was a very fun and productive day. The house was mine (the children were at school), so it was just me, the dog, sewing machine and a few dozen sweaters. I had this super soft, finely knit wool, fuscia sweater dress that somone had 'thrown' out that was just dying to be something fabulous. The dress in itself was quite dowdy, but a few snips here and there gave me just enough fabric to create a fun wrap.

I had enough material to cut 4- 8"X16" pieces out, saving the ribbing for the ends. Then I stitched them short wise and length wise together to form the bulk of the wrap.  This gave me a peice that was approximately 16"X32". After looking at it for awhile, I decided it needed some more oomph, so I zig-zagged stitched varigated embrodiery floss onto the seams, made it look so much more put together and 'artsy'.

I fininished the edging with a stretched zig-zag stich to create a scalloped look. I love how it gets all frilly! ; )

Then I took a few scraps and a large 'safety-type' pin (I think it's made for this kind of thing, came off a different similar bought wrap/shawl) I set to work making the flower and leaves. I had a vintage-look button left over from another project to create the center.

Over-all I love the look.  I'm going to have to do some more hunting at the thrift store, maybe I'll find one that will suite as a gift this year! ; )

As always, thank you for stopping by Sugar Pine Boutique! ; )

Felted Hat

Well, I know it's not the worlds greatest picture to display the qualities of the hat I made, but I did have fun playing with this pic! lol!

Anyway, I took the swaggy, loose part of a brown sweater (if you can tell me what it's supposed to be called it would be great!) after felting it in the wash and fitted it to my head. Next I took some really soft cashmere/angora wool remnants from another project and mad the top, so it would close nicely.  I gathered it in the back to make it nice and slouchy.Then I took some more scraps, made the flower and leaves, sewed them all together and put a rinestone in for fun. Turned out pretty good. Generally hats don't quite fit me properly, so it was fun to make one for myself that would be passable...plus I couldn't let Ros have all the fun, lol!

Next project will be a bit more on the sweater blanket. I have enough for more than half, just waiting for the 2nd hand stores to get more in. Need some bright colors to give the blanket some pazaaz...or at least some white-ish sweaters that I could dye would do nicely too.

Thanks for stopping by! ; )

Gettin' Stitchy

I was lucky enough to get a week long visit from my parents recently, they live a good 15 hrs away, so these visits don't come often. But when they do, we all have alot of fun and sometimes get creative. Mom saw the blanket project we have been working on and agreed with me that some embrodiery would be fun.

So a trip into town was in order, since we needed a few more sweaters, we visited a 2nd hand store to find some more goodies and there we found a small embrodiery hoop that would fit the 6" squares. There we also found remnants from a few cross-stitch projects and loose sport weight yarn. Wow! we found what we needed for a fraction of the cost in the fabric/craft store!

We took all the treasures back home and Mom set to work. I'm not nearly as experienced at this as her, so I got to learn several new stitch techniques while she whipped up several flower, lettered, and applique numbers. The best one I did was the cute mom/baby turtle square.

I'm begining to think that this is going to be the coolest blanket ever. And not only because it will look neat, but because we have 3 generations of women working on it! ; )

As always, thanks for viewing. May you be inspired to get stitchy!!

Recycled Sweater Hat

As you may remember from my last post, my daughter and I are embarking on a recycled sweater blanket. While cutting up the 6" squares for said blanket, I produced a major pile of scraps. My daughter was playing with the remnants having the best time finding neat combo's for Sammy-the-Rat's hoody or perhaps for a stuffed animal, wrist-warmers, what have you.

Then in the pile she found the a cashmere sweater peice I wasn't using, put it on her head and said she'd like a hat Mommy. She picked out a few other colors, as I said there wasn't quite enought to cover her whole head.  She pieced them together a bit, wondering how different colors might look........

As we worked together on her hat, making the springy back pieces and making the curve just so, she absolutely amazed me in saying it definately needed a flower...it had to be orange and a button would be great! Ok, she's 5...

As you can see, we ended up with a great hat with springing ropes, flower and all. The absolutely amazing part....it was all her idea, I just put it together for her!

Thanks for stopping by to check out our little blog.  " )

Recycled Sweater Blanket--The beginning

Well, as the temps get cooler and I seem to get a bit craftier.....the thought occured to me that a nice blanket would go smashingly on my daughters bed. I'd seen a few felted sweater blankets out on the net and decided I probably had the ability to put one together. I found the Layers of Meaning site pretty helpful, there's other good one's out there too, I just liked how they pieced their blankets together. This is a pic of one.

Anyway, Ros and I recently went to the 2nd hand store to drop off a few items and while there, I decided to cruise through their wooly selection. I came out with about 7 sweaters, mostly grey wool blends, 1 fantastic orange Italian wool and a blue cashmere. All for about $1/sweater. (Sorry, I cut them up before photo's!) ; )

Next I decided how big to make this blanket. I decided on a 72" X 92" twin size blanket. This size allowed for 6" X 6" squares and I did get quite a few out of each sweater. Seven gave me about 75....only 105 to go...lol! Now I just need to find about 8 more sweaters for the rest of the blanket.

I think I'll line the back with a soft fleece or similar material to keep it real soft. Any ideas?

I've been playing with a few different ideas on how to make this blanket fun for Ros. I plan on finding a few sweaters with pockets and believe a few fantastic buttons would be great. (Maybe my Mom will help with embroidery ideas....) Anyhow, just a real fun project!

I'll keep you up-dated on this one, as I think it's going to take me awhile!

As always, thanks for viewing and happy creating!

Sugar Pine Boutique