Fast Summer

Summer seems to be going awfully fast, just as it always does. So we're extending the Craft Challenge another month to give us all (including me) time to complete our projects. Just as a reminder, the topic is Tee Shirt Rehab. We'll meet back here in early September to recap.

Meanwhile, the Sew-op is having a tag sale on August 1st from 4-6 (same as First Friday) and August 2nd from 10-2. There will be sewing machines, fabric, knitting needles, yarn and notions available at a great price. All proceeds support the sew-op workroom and classes.

And for a fast project, try making the little guy above. He doesn't exactly fit with the theme of reuse since his body is a new car washing mit from the dollar store, but he's awfully cute and an easy project for a child to make. The tutorial is an oldie but goodie at Darling Petunia. Our hedgie was made by my daughter and is going to our favorite two-year-old who is moving away.

Happy Summer!

July's Craft Challenge: Tee Shirt Rehab

Welcome to second UV Craft Challenge. We are inspired by Just Crafty Enough's Iron Craft challenges to create our own. Here at Upper Valley Fiber Crafts we host a quarterly challenge for anyone to join in. Sometimes there will be a theme and sometimes there will be a specific craft. We'll post our own interpretations of the challenge here at the blog and at the end of the month we'll have a round-up for you to show off your project.

Summer is here and school is finally out. It's probably safe to swap your wintery woolens for summery tees. Each season I inevitably find that time in storage has not been kind to at least one tee. Maybe a grease stain magically appeared, or a tear, or it's too worn to be worn. Or maybe it's just too boring. A quick Google search or glance at Pinterest will show you oodles of ideas for making a tee shirt wearable again.

For this month's challenge I'd like you to choose a tee shirt to rehab and turn it into something wearable or usable by the end of the month. There are four categories of techniques you can use to transform your tee.

• Alterations (make the tee shirt fit better or differently) 
• Decorations (embelishments) 
• Repurpose as a different garment 
• Repurpose as a different object 

Here are some ideas to get you started:

Alterations

Take an oversized shirt and alter it for style and fit.

Or change the neckline.

Decorations

You could use this fabric dot patch technique or paint to strategically cover stains or mended holes. Many dots make the design look intentional.

Or copy a high-end tee. There's also an opportunity here to hide stains and mends.

Repurpose: New Garment

Like a cute headband.

Or a ruffled scarf.

Here's a cute toddler dress.

Repurpose: New Object

Make a cozy for your morning cup of tea.

Make a functional and decorative bowl.
Or make useful shopping bags.

Be sure to check out my Tee Shirt Rehab Pinterest page as well. I have many great ideas pinned that contain dead-end links but the pinned picture contains enough info to give you an idea and get you started.

We'll be posting our own ideas for this challenge. Post a comment if you will be following this challenge. I can't wait to see what you come up with.

P.S. This was once offered as a Sew-op workshop but garnered little interest. Reply in the comments if you'd like to attend a live class on this topic.

UV Craft Challenge 1: Fiddleheads Round-up

First, a little housekeeping. Summer is coming and to keep things easiest we've decided to limit the challenges to once a quarter. They will still run a full month and the next one will be in July with the topic to be announced in June. Feel free to comment with your ideas for future challenges.

Best I know, Rebecca and I were the only crafters this challenge. Both of us felt it was a great experience. I love how this encouraged me to be creative and flow with how things happened. I not only made a table runner, I also found enough fabric for a table cloth. Rebecca came up with two wonderful and very different projects for the challenge.

If you created a fiddlehead project, or if you find time for a later project on this theme, please post in the comments. I still hope to play with my plastic bag idea and post those results so maybe I'll do a final round-up at the end of the quarter. Keep watch for the topic for July's UV Craft Challenge sometime in June.

UV Craft Challenge 1: Fiddleheads Craft

This has been an interesting project for me with a few twists and changes.

My first thought was to play with plastic packaging in place of rope in a sort of coiled coaster or trivet. And I still want to do that. But, after two weekends in a row of watching house guests slide serving dishes across our old (family heirloom) dining room table I decided a table runner was in order. Something cute, with good coverage, and knowing my family as I do, insulated. I'll still use trivets under hot serving dishes but I'll rest easier knowing there's a little extra protection. So I was leaning in the direction of something quilted.

I also wanted this project to use up as much stash fabric as possible and after some digging came up with this. It's like a very heavy linen with a tight weave and a nice fringe at the selvage.

Turns out, the fabric piece is large enough to be a tablecloth on it's own with plenty of fabric leftover to create my table runner. I think ideally this would be best with the fabric grain running the length of the table, but my extra fabric is on the end and it doesn't matter for this project. And the fabric is a bit too stiff for a quilting project. So I'll go with just a single layer of fabric and save a quilted runner for another day.

I ended up buying the fabric for the fiddlehead design because I didn't like what I had on hand.

I got a little carried away cutting out circles. (I see many circle projects in my future!)

The biggest challenge for me was the layout. I went back and forth between colors and sizes, symetrical and non-symetrical layouts until, after much fiddling (heh), I ended up with the layout below. The purple was nice but ended up looking too Easter-ish. The blue and yellow add interest while staying in the green family.

But how does this have anything to do with fiddleheads you ask? Like this.

I used a double-sided, fusible interfacing called Wonder-Under to attach my circles. First I ironed the interfacing to my circles. Then I cut them into spirals. Those are double cut to allow the base to show through. And then I ironed them to my fabric. My final step will be to fringe the sides of the entire runner. Or perhaps just run a stabilizing seam down both sides and see what happens.

UV Craft Challenge 1

photo credit: LexnGer via photopin cc

Welcome to the UV Craft Challenge. We were inspired by Just Crafty Enough's Iron Craft challenges to create our own. Here at Upper Valley Fiber Crafts we'll be hosting a monthly challenge for anyone to join in. Sometimes there will be a theme and sometimes there will be a specific craft. We'll post our own interpretations of the challenge here at the blog and at the end of the month we'll have a round-up for you to show off your project.

So let's get started! April's UV Craft Challenge theme is fiddleheads. Fiddlehead ferns are a big Upper Valley tradition. One of the first signs of spring is seeing fiddleheads in the grocery stores and on restaurant menus. I'm not a fan of eating them, but I like the classic spiral shape and the fresh green color.

The spiral shape of a fiddlehead is an easy place to start for inspiration. Here's a coiled coaster project from Two Shades of Pink. And here's one made from denim scraps. Here's a pillow cover with spirals made from tee shirts.

The Koru is a Maori symbol inspired by the spiral of the New Zealand Silverback fern.

Here's a beautiful mitten pattern from Hello Yarn called the Fiddlehead.

I can't find the original image on the blog, but here is a pin of a stunning quilt with fiddleheads. I could see an embroidery piece being inspired by this.

We'll be posting our own ideas for this challenge. Post a comment if you will be following this challenge. I can't wait to see what you come up with.