Cashmere Bunny Remake tutorial, just in time for Easter crafting!

Well, perhaps you’ve been looking at my Facebook page, and you see I’ve been crafting my husbands old sweaters into little bunnies for my nieces and daughters.  I’ve promised you I’d make a tutorial, so here you go!  I will warn you – I am a very ad hoc person – I don’t measure, I live for the moment of making and also I love the freedom to alter things as I go.  If you decide to use this tute and blog about it, I’d love a little link love.  And if you want to sell something you’ve made using my tutorial, more power to  you!  Just please give me a little credit when you do and link to my blog, thanks!

Okay!

Take an old sweater, this one is wool/cashmere blend

Cut off the arm of the sweater

Cut that in two

Use the widest part first, this is the bottom of the bunny and sew with a zig zag or serger.

Turn inside out

Stuff!

Then, take an elastic band, and cinch it to about 3/4 of the body of your stuffie.

Keep the rubber band on and use it to hold the shape while you sew around the top of the band.  This will separate the bottom of your bunny from the head.

Take off your rubber band, and you have a bottom!

Make a leg or two, I do this by going about 2 inches up the seam of the bottom, stitching straight up, and then pulling one stitch from the top to the bottom, and then anchoring it with a couple of stitches.

Next, sew up the face.  I invert the top, so that half of it is inside where the head will be.

Sew that up, and then sew a little across the inside, making a little triangle in the top (see above).  You may want to adjust how much you sew up, for the size of your bunnies face.

Turn right side out, and stuff!
For the ears, cut out two pieces of sweater, single thickness.  Select a fabric for the inside, I used a pink canvas weight.

Make the liner of the ear almost as big as the sweater ear.

Pin the sweater part so it overlaps.  There is bulk here, but it gives the ears shape and tone.

Gather stitches at the bottom, and attach ears to the top of the head.

Sew the ears on each side of the bunny head, make sure to tuck the ears inside the head.  I didn’t worry about seams and such since this is a recycle bunny after all and not meant to be fussy.

Here is  where you have to get creative and go with your senses – I sort of tuck and stitch the shape of the face, you sort of have to feel it out for yourself.

And lastly?  Button eyes and applique nose, and heart on the belly.  Also, no arms.  Why?  Because frankly I like the bunny better without the arms.  You can see the bunnies on my Facebook page.  But if you neeeeed arms, just stuff some sweater parts and sew them on.

I didn’t take pics of this bc this bunny isn’t finished yet and I’m going away for a few days but didn’t want to leave folks waiting for their bunny tute.

Voila!  Finished!
If you have questions or feedback, I would love to hear it!

Peace,

Liz

New things

Sometimes new things are great things.  I like to work with old things, but sometimes new is good too.  Like my “main” sewing machine.  It’s newish.  And thanks to Mimi Kirchner, I now have a fantastic extension table for it that will make all my sewing problems melt like butter on a hot stove……what – I can fantasize can’t I?

Look  at this baby.  She’s clean, she’s clear and she will give me so much more room to work with!

AND there is a built in ruler – okay I don’t use rulers but what if I all of a sudden need one?  It’s right there!!!

But there is NO WAY my studio will stay this clean.  Ever.  That was clean for like a minute and then I made something.  Now it is back to pit status.

Also I should mention that I bought this for myself, as a present from my husband, he had no idea but was very happy with the purchase all in all – less swearing from me in my studio at night.

Project 14 finished!

Project number 14 was given to me by my mother, Paula.  My mother loves, loves, loves clothes and bags – especially really big bags.
She gave me a linen skirt to work with, the wrong size but really beautiful fabric, black linen with some silver grommet details.  For some reason I cannot find the photos of the skirt before I took it apart, which makes this a less dramatic reveal, so I apologize for that.

Basically I turned the skirt into a bag, like this one from Akiko Mano’s book,Linen, Wool, Cotton: 25 Simple Projects to Sew with Natural Fabrics, a fantastic book with beautiful photos and wonderful, simple projects.

My mother loved this bag and we were going to make it together the next time she comes up for a visit.  The skirt was a perfect candidate for a remake into a bag.  I used the hemline as handles and used some of the remnants to make flower details.  Also you may notice a bit of wool plaid, that was from a skirt that belonged to my grandmother, and the colors make a nice complement to all the black linen.

The color black and black linen is super difficult to photograph, I’ve been struggling with just the right way to take a photo.  The bag is unstructured, so that proved to be a problem making it look as nice in a photograph as it does in person.  It’s a pretty cool looking bag and I think my mother will like it. Adding that bit of my grandmothers’  skirt to it puts  a sentimental touch on things, which will make it even more special.

Next up Project 15 – details soon!

My favorite blogs

Over at Sew Mama Sew they are asking us bloggers and sewers to reflect upon the last year and asked us to pick a question from this post

http://sewmamasew.com/blog2/?p=14668

Since I’m more of an ad hoc seamstress I thought I would answer an easy question (I know, lazy cheater) -

What were some of your favorite blogs?

Katy Elliott

From her blog “A journal about new england life, decorating inspiration, andrenovating a 260-year-old house in Marblehead, Massachusetts”. Beautiful photos, very New England, and a good, sometimes a bit scary look at what goes into remodeling a vintage home.

Mimi Kirchner

http://mimikirchner.com/blog/

Love her blog, her dolls, her craftsmanship and approachable attitude.

Sew Mama Sew

Amazing fabric selection, great patterns and excellent resource for sewers of ALL levels.  Addicting, I must warn  you.

The Long Thread

Clean design that is cheerful and reachable, and has great tutorials.  Ellen’s blog is one of my fave’s.

Bleubirdvintage

I honestly don’t know what exactly it is about this blog that I like specifically, but I’m going to say it’s the hipster vibe that draws me in.  And the family aspect, there is a great sense of family here that isn’t traditional, but warm.

Purl Soho

Um….you may not want to go here if you are trying to save money bc everything is AMAZING.  Srsly.  Hide your wallet.

http://www.newdressaday.com/

It’s a new dress every day – made from an old dress.  Magic tricks with a sewing machine, presto!

http://yankeeexposure.blogspot.com/

Okay, I’m married to a southern guy and my BFF is southern so I love this. A Yankee living the Southern life, touches of sarcasm and appreciation laced with humor.

Kooks Ginger Boy

My pal Jane over at http://cardiekooksgingerboy.wordpress.com/ a lovely blog and a great friend.

http://dizzylittlekingdom.blogspot.com/

My friend Dee’s blog, she’s generous, hilarious and opinionated!

http://littleyellowbirds.blogspot.com/

Joetta’s blog has, oh my god, so many wonderful fiber art finds!  and opinions, and insight into the process.  If you are looking for some real art check her blog out, you won’t be disappointed, I go there when I want to feel a bit smarter than I am

http://www.mrxstitch.com/

For all you embroidery junkies – I can’t believe you don’t know about this blog, get on over there, quick!!!!

http://resurrectionfern.typepad.com/resurrection_fern/

So simple, so beautiful, the photography is amazing and the imagery is unmatched, I look forward to her posts most of all!  And there are snails, wearing sweaters, I’m not kidding.

Yankee Crafty Bitch

Do I need to elaborate?  Okay fine.  Awesome Yankee Bitches who cook, sew, and share.

http://theweezistore.blogspot.com/

Camp is cool and Weezi is the queen!  She’s based out of Canada and has an adorable online store where you can buy ELVIS shower caps.  Nuf’ said!

How to’s from Sew Mama Sew

Sew Mama Sew has a fantastic store, and blog, which I utilize often and have contributed to as well for a tute or two.  Today they posted a link to a slew of fantastic crafts to make yourself.

The Ultimate Handmade Holiday Master List 2010

Project number 4, complete!

So for Sue’s project she sent me some of her daughters baby clothes, you may see this on my previous post.

Baby clothes are awesome, they are cute and small and have great colors, and are usually cotton.  I looked at them and thought I wouldn’t have enough material for a whole blanket of squares but that yo’s yo’s would be perfect.  Not familiar with the history of the yo yo quilt?  You can read up on it here and see some great pictures too, http://www.museums.state.ak.us/QuiltExhibit/quiltspdf/YoYo.pdf.

Here are some pictures of the yo yo’s in progress.

Although baby clothes are small I found that I ended up with a LOT of material, but I wanted to focus in on the frog element.  My friend Sue loves frogs and her daughters clothes had some adorable applique of them on the clothes, so I cut them out and re-appliqued them to a quilt, here it is!

This is the front, I put it on Eloise’s crib to show the scale, it’s a great baby blanket size, about 34″x34″.

And here is the back

I thought that frogs and lily pads go hand in hand and that also lily pads look a lot like hearts, so it made a nice reference to love.

Some details of the frogs and I used the yo yo’s as accent pieces, although my original idea was to do a whole bunch of them in a more traditional way, but this was more appropriate and well, fun!

I really love the colors, they are very soothing and the frog and snail graphics are adorable, and even though the fabrics I used weren’t from the same line, they all had a similar feel to them and it worked out great in the end.  But I wasn’t done yet as I had a lot of material left over, and I was playing with what I’d had left…so meet FrankenFrog.

I made him from a sleeve, a foot and some scraps from the quilt I made for Sue.  He’s stuffed w/barley so she can put him in the microwave (2 mins) or freezer to make a compress for boo boos.  Or you can use FrankenFrog for bean bag toss, or whatever, he’s pretty much my favorite thing ever…even more than the quilt, maybe.

Look at what’s still left over though, and as I go through it I find even more cool things to make from the scraps (but I’m stopping now, because I really need to move on to the next project!), look at this adorable yellow ruffle, with the yo yo’s wouldn’t that make the cutest headband?

….but alas I haven’t the time left to make anything else, so this will all go back to Sue if she wants and perhaps in the future there could be more things to make.