Old Sweater to Hats Plus a Flower

These 2 hats were made from a sweater I could no longer wear.

 There was nothing wrong with the sweater, it just didn't fit anymore.

And I needed a white hat!  

I wanted to keep the buttons with one of the hats.

 So, I just placed the row of buttons on the side of my head where I wanted them to be when wearing the hat and measured by holding it tightly on my head like a hat should fit and held it till I took it off and marked it. I just so happened to be exactly half of the bottom of the sweater, so I could make 2 hats from this sweater.   I measured the length I wanted from another hat. I sewed up the seam that will be in the back with a zigzag stitch, trying not to stretch the sweater for a flatter seam. Then using a heavy thread I gathered with a running stitch and to secure the top sewed in and out several times.  I also zigzagged the edge that was tucked inside the hat. An over lock machine or serger would work if you have one.

 The second hat, made the same way till I got to the zigzag stitching on the top edge of the hat, this I stretched as I sewn to make it more ruffly. Then sewed and secured the top with heavy thread.

 At the same time I was making the hats I was making this flower so I combined them to make it a little different!

 The flower was made from 5 silk flowers I had in my stash, like the one on the left. I took the plastic parts off and only used the silk part and hot glued them together and added a vintage button to the center.

 You can do so many things with this type of flower, pin, broach, headband, necklace,

package decoration and on and on!!

Now what to do with the remaining part of the sweater!

Well anyway, this is a great project for a mother and daughter hats

with or without the flower!

Photo Personalized Greeting Cards

I like to use my photos as much as possible so some time I can find a card I can use for that purpose.

This id a finished card that I made for our daughters birthday over a year ago. I took this photo when she was about 2 years old. 

 I found this card and it reminded me of the above photo

 So I made a copy of it on photo paper and trimmed it to size

( see first pic for finished card )

Another one I did was this Thank you card,

 this one I made the photo a wallet size before printing.

Tape Measure Bracelet

I have seen and admired these tape measure bracelets for a couple of years now and finally figured out a way to make one without the toggle findings.

I used black elastic cording I had laying around and tied it in a square knot, it is hidden in the fold over of the end of the tape measure. I sewed the end and measured around my wrist, left an inch or so and cut it off. then folded and sewed down the other end.  I'm sure you could glue down the ends and use a small ponytail elastic band if you wanted to.

I then went to my button stash and found 3 that went together and sewed them on and added some glue too.

Sew Simple!