A weekend of craftiness

Do you ever get the urge to craft, but not the things that you should be crafting? That's how I was this weekend. I usually spend my weekdays working on shoes, then taking the weekend off for family time. This week I enjoyed a long weekend since Friday was my birthday, offering me the justification I needed to take the day off and leaving a few pairs of shoes unfinished. Saturday I went thrifting for the first time in quite a while, with my main goal being to find as many nice wool sweaters as I could to use in some Christmas crafts I've been thinking about. I came home with a few and immediately had to try out this tutorial from Alli at One Pearl Button. (This is Alli's set, made using a lovely cabled cashmere sweater.)

I whipped up two sets (using wool sweaters instead of cashmere- no luck finding any at the stores) and they turned out pretty great! I had to do some trial and error in getting the sizing right, but eventually they looked dang cute. The ones I made are going to be gifts, so I can't really show them to you quite yet- but you really should give this a try. SUCH a great idea!!

Another tutorial I had to try was this one from Betz White for a Pomander. Isn't hers to die for??


Below is the (almost) final result of my first attempt. It turned out pretty huge (about 5" in diameter I think), but I still kind of love it. I need to go get some pearly pins for the centers of my rosettes, then I think it'll look a little better. I definitely need to beef up my wool sweater stash, though. I love how Betz's looks with 5 or 6 different colors of rosettes that are all cohesive and interesting. For my center I wadded up some polyester fiberfill into something of a ball, then used a long 1" wide strip of ribbed knit scrap to wrap it. This gave me a nice round shape and didn't weigh a lot. The final result does weigh a lot, though (lots of felt rosettes will do that), so instead of hanging it on my tree like I'd planned, this one will have to go on a doorknob or something like that instead. I'll definitely be making more, though. Won't you give it a try, too? I mean, who doesn't love a no-sew craft project that can be given to just about anyone as a gift, or kept to decorate your own house?!

Hmmm, I wonder if you could somehow make the center scented, using potpourri or lavender or something... ?