my creative space this week; this time a finished project! :)

my mother in law asked me if i could make her a new handbag for work. she wanted the one i made in sewing class because it easily fits an A4 and it is quite sturdy. but i had a better idea! ever since i saw the tatanne bag on this blog i knew i had to make it one day. now finally i did! it took me a whole day to sew and i made a few errors here and there but i'm quite proud of the end result... :) thanks to a wonderful and well explained pattern, ofcourse! 

the fabrics are all ikea fabrics from the sales corner, the lining (i love the lining!) was actually the most tacky sheet i've ever seen (ruffles and all...), and it comes from the thriftstore. :) the fabrics were actually quite randomly picked, as most of my fabrics are in a big huge box in my old room at my parents place, cause there is no way i can store them in our apartment and this is what i had lying around...  but i think the combination actually works quite well! :)  

check out more creative spaces here.

(i hope my mother in law doesn't read my blog, by the way. i still have to give her the bag!! :))

once upon a time, there was a sweater. a really warm and cosy green sweater. it was hanging in a shop when suddenly a sixteen year old bought it. the sweater was really happy because it could now fulfill it's purpose: make someone nice and warm! but after some years, the teenager decided she didn't like the sweater anymore. her style had changed and chunky green sweaters just didn't fit anymore. the sweater was left alone in the closet for years and years... they were even planning on selling him on a fleamarket! he was very unhappy. until the teenager, now 23 and obsessed with anything crafty and yarn-ish, decided it was time the sweater got a new life... and a new purpose... as yarn!! 

 the sweater got chopped up and unraveled... 

...the yarn was tied into hanks, but they were kinky from years of knitted-ness... also a bit smelly and dusty...

...so the hanks were washed with some soap, and dried...

...the kinks were gone and the hanks were tied up into nice skeins... 

good for 380 grams of brand new yarn!

unraveling sweaters is actually a really nice idea to repurpose yarn. i saw the idea on pinterest first, then i found a ravelry group dedicated to the art of unraveling, where i found several tutorials and how-to's online. so i took my sweater and i started unraveling! 

it takes quite some time and patience but i think it is totally worth it. what most people do is look for sweaters in thriftstores, mostly sweaters with a quality yarn blend, so they get lots of quality yarns (cashmere, silk,...) for little money. not so stupid, eh? mine was 80%lambswool and 20%nylon. i'm planning on doing this more but i've got a huge stash of yarn i need to get through first... :)

good tutorials on unraveling here and here, by the way. if you're enthousiastic about it, don't take a random sweater and start unraveling... it can't be done with every sweater! ;)

i have all these basic t-shirts in my closet, t-shirts i only wear for gardening or cleaning. there is nothing wrong with basics, ofcourse, but basic shirt + basic cardigan + basic pants equals a pretty boring outfit, i think. so i decided it was time for a little round of "pimp-my-tee". :)

i saw this tutorial on pinterest and i wanted to do it immediately. i went to the thriftstore and i found this really ugly magenta-green-grey-ish tie that looks like it was made to match my green tshirt! i pinned it to the neckline, stitched it, and ta-dah!! a new t-shirt!

next up... a crocheted collar! i actually wanted to try out a pattern for our crafty club: we were gonna make a peter pan collar. but i found the collar way too small so i doubled all the stitches... which looked fine in the beginning but i ended up with a huge collar... too big for what i had in mind, but the perfect size for my grey tshirt! so i stitched it on the neckline, added a little button and now i have a cute peter pan collar-shirt. :) (if someone is interested in the modified stitch pattern, do let me know!)

so there you have it: two new old tshirts! yay! :)