Week 37: sewing with my grandmother's linens

Boy, do I feel like an idiot. I wrote my post on Sunday morning on my lap top. The only problem is that my Mr. Linky information is bookmarked on my computer upstairs. So I saved my project with the intent to run upstairs and reopen it on my bedroom computer so that I could add Mr. Linky and I completely zoned out! I realized tonight what happened. I'm so sorry! Here is my post for week 37:

It's no secret that I make aprons. But lately I've grown tired of the same old design that I've been using. Truth be told, my sewing skills are rather intermediate and although I can follow a relatively straight forward pattern, I enjoy winging it and making my very own creation. Still, I would love to take some more classes on some advance techniques. There is something so soothing about the feel of fabric in my hands and the rhythm of the sewing machine. I intend to one day have an extra room where my machine can be kept out all the time instead of lugging it from the dining room closet. And my little stash of fabrics will be displayed and organized on open shelves. So it's no surprise that fabric, which is crammed in to dining room drawers, gets forgotten and neglected. Until this week. I had a little lightning flash of an idea to pull out the dozens of old linen napkins that once belonged to my grandmother and find a way to incorporate them in to an apron.

I love the result! For this project I selected some over sized white linen monogrammed napkins (2 to be exact) and sewed them together leaving a little "kick pleat" poking out at the bottom of the apron. The linen napkins serve as a lining underneath the gorgeous robin's egg blue fabric with birds, flowers and butterflies. I love this so much I almost wish it were a skirt. It has a fun flirty farm girl feel to it and the white cotton poking out from the bottom gives the apron a real sentimental feel. In addition, I decided not to sew the napkin lining all around. Instead I attached the top layer and the napkins at the waistband only giving it a nice smooth feel.




I'm so inspired that I'll be making another one later today with some bright lemon yellow fabric and more linen napkins with lace edging.

What did you do this week?

Week 12: Blooming Beer Cans

With Spring finally here, my beer cans are blooming! This week, I made big funky flower pins out of beer cans. My original idea for this project was found in a craft book that Breen bought me recently. In that book were dragonflies made out of beer cans that were poking out of flower pots. I was all set to make those dragonflies but somehow I stumbled across “soda can flower pins” and they made me smile so much that I just had to make a few of those instead. I had a bag of empty beer cans that Breen’s nephews saved for me when we saw them on Easter.

These flowers were so incredibly easy to make. I would give you the step by step instructions here but I think the easiest thing to do is to GO OVER HERE where the steps are clearly laid out with photos. I can tell you that aluminum is super light weight and cuts easily with regular scissors. I had fun using the beads and wire which added great details to my flowers. I read reviews where some people were concerned about the flowers being sharp but I can assure you that I haven’t found it to be a problem at all. However, I did buy an awesome can of green tea from the Japanese store but realized that it was made from steel and way too hard to cut and I do think that the steel would have been VERY sharp. When I make more of these flower pins, I’m going to use aluminum cans only. There could be so many possibilities for these flowers using all sorts of colorful soda and beer cans with different color beads. Do you remember the Adirondack Alcohol Inks that I used on a previous tile project? Well those inks work on aluminum too. What a great and stylish way to recycle!

Here were the flowers before they became flowers:

Here’s a peek at what the flower looks like before the beads and wire were added:

Here they are happily pinned to my jean jacket:



Check out the detail of the “pistons” made out of the wire:


Don't forget to go over to The Painted House to see what I did this week for The Farmers Market and the Find. You won't be disappointed!

Also our dear fellow participant, Carrie over at Kablooey, is on vacation this week but is going to try to get her project posted. Go over here to check :)

What did you do this week?