Aqua Sweater Refashion

I wasn't feeling the tight neck, so I decided to loosen it up a bit. I got this sweater at the Goodwill Outlet in St. Louis where everything (literally, everything) is 79 cents per pound, except glass and books, which are 39 cents per pound. I estimate the cost of this sweater at about 12 cents. 

I cut off the neck conservatively to account for the stretching.  

I turned it inside out and folded over the edge twice so that the raw edges were not visible. 

I took it over to my machine and sewed it down with matching thread, but I left the presser foot on the machine raised so it didn't stretch out the neck even more. 

Later I frolicked. 

Then I frolicked more. 

Then I wrestled my phone away from Gabby. 

My awesome photographer Gabby! 

Red Maple Tree Propagation DIY

I have no idea if this will work. I also make no claims to be a horticulture expert by any means, but I have a little plot out back and I figured I would give it a shot. I ordered two apple trees from the Arbor Day Foundation and my purchase of "any amount" earned me a free Red Maple tree along with the two apples. I planted them all near the same area and I noticed these little sprigs coming off the base, right at the mulch of my tree, and I thought I might clip them and try to root them.

I used a regular kitchen knife to cut them from the tree and bring them into the house. I left a longish stem on for the first cut, but later made a more precise cut with very sharp scissors. Excuse the weird light effects and awfully chipped fingernail polish. The rooting gel I used is the brand Rootech, I don't know anything about them or the quality of different ones, but we will see how well this one works, but you can use anything. For the growth medium I used rockwool cubes and soaked them for a few hours beforehand in a gallon of water at pH level 6 and with one milliliter of Superthrive. You should be able to find all this stuff in your local garden supply store for about $10, but you can root a lot of clippings for that price.

After I had the clippings in cubes I put them into a ziplock bag and sprayed the inside of the bag with a little of the water from earlier and zipped it up trying to squeeze out as much air without hurting the plants and unzipping a small corner and blowing air full of CO2 into the bag to give the babies a better chance. I am gonna leave it in a sunny window for about a week and then check on the roots and see how they are doing. When I see that the cubes are not as wet in a few days I will add a little water to the bag and spray the foliage and bag again. We'll see how this works!

Update: I left these in there for about a month and checked on them about once and week and there were never any roots sprouting from the stems so it was unfortunately a fail :(

$2 Floral Dress Refashion

In the spirit of spring I decided it would be a good time to have some more dresses, but I refuse to pay retail prices for clothes, so I headed down to the Salvation Army to see what I could roundup. I purchased this sad dress for $2 and I knew it had potential. It was originally $4, but blue tags were half off, so I knew it was meant to be. 

Ignore my sad fingernail polish. 

These are the parts that didn't make the cut. Among the lost bits are the collar(?), or whatever its called, the shoulder pads and about 10 inches of length. 

After a few hours at a sewing machine and a little creativity with the sleeves and a little bit of lowering of the neckline, this is what was left.  Also, ignore all the junk in my room. 

The sleeves are just folded and sewn over to make a kinda flowey-flappy sleeve. 

The buttons are winners. I couldn't get rid of those. 

Long Hair, Don't Care

I cut off my hair in April of 2011 after an unfortunate latex paint incident, but now it has grown back and it is turning into quite a challenge. I decided to try and straighten it for the first time since December of 2012. It was a 5 hour process from combing to washing, blow drying and straightening. I must say it turned out quite well.

Below you can see my DIY hands free blow dryer. It worked great!

Never Fail Quail Cap

I started this cap a few days ago and it is a free patten by Lauren Martin on Ravelry. I have adjusted it a bit to make it more slouchy, so instead of 72 sts around I have added another section of the cable pattern by increasing the count to 90 and I have also added another half repeat of the 12 round pattern to make it longer. 

Finished! I think it turned out great!

Ombre Tank DIY

I made this tank for my beau for his 22nd birthday and it turned out great. It was really easy ande cheap to make. I bought the shirt on Amazon for $7 with free shipping and the RIT dye cost about $3, depending on the dye you choose it may say to add salt if you are dyeing cotton but read your directions carefully and do what you think is best for the look you are going for. All you have to do is make a dye bath of the shade you want in the middle of the shirt and dip almost all of the shirt in quickly and leave the top 1/4 out and let the rest sit until you have a shade you like and slowly pull the shirt out to get darker shades. Once you get to the parts you want to be the darkest, you should mix more dye in a small cup with water and take the shirt out completely and mix in the dye from the cup to achieve the darkest shades. Once it is as dark as you like you should rinse it out until the water runs clear and hang to dry. These pics are after the first wash, but it didn't fade a lot even after the wash.

Cabled Goodness Beret

Yet again I have caved and made another beret. I used Caron Simply Soft Blue Mint and this pattern courtesy of Ravelry. 

Fish Scale Lace Knitted Tam

I have been working on this hat and that like shows it as a work in progress. I have finished and if I do say so myself, it is magnificent. 

Earring Madness!!

I am trying my hand at making earrings with my trusty supply of buttons and my glue gun in my artillery. I also tried to make some very small fabric flowers, didn't work out too well, I will have to keep practicing.