It’s still pretty cold out here. I had this idea in the fall, and it has served us well over the winter so far. Being fundamentally a lazy person whose knitting is marginal but loves felt and likes to keep her hands toasty, this is the best, fastest, and pretty economical way for me to whip up a pair of mittens.

Find a felted sweater (or felt one yourself). The ones that are the best for mittens probably started their lives as big mens’ sweaters. What you’re looking for is a wrist cuff that fits comfortably and snug around your wrist after it has been felted. Put your hand in the wrong way in to see that it fits and that there’s enough wiggle room for your fingers. I’m using a felted alpaca sweater (sooooo soft!). Also very important: find a small helper to complete important tasks such as measuring the fabric and other random objects in the house.

Place your hand on the sweater and trace around just the top with some tailor’s chalk. This way the sides of the mittens will already be done because you are using the existing seam and side. Then cut out, about 1/2″ from your trace line.

Using a straight stitch and loose tension (and a walking foot if you’ve got one), make a seam, following just on the outside of your trace line. Then turn the mitten inside out and test for comfort. You can see that I made an adjustment for around my thumb.

Trim. No need to finish the edge! Make sure to round out the thumb to avoid getting a pointy-thumb :-) Turn inside out and ta-da! Embellish, if you wish. If you don’t, the whole project will probably take you all of ten minutes!

It’s also useful to make one pair that is really soft for a liner and make a slightly larger pair out of more dense wool felt for the outside. Then they’re extra warm even on a windy day and they dry faster after outside fun.

[Note: They're also perfect for drinking hot chocolate whilst contemplating the still very much dormant garden]

About the author: Marnie is always interested in creative, beautiful, economical and sustainable ways to fill everyday needs. Marnie is a crafter working from her home. her favourite medium is fulled wool sweaters, her favourite assistant is her beautiful daughter Safiya, and her favourite topics are sustainable living and anything having to do with good food. You can find her writing on craft, mothering, figuring things out, and her attempts to live a more sustainable life in urban Toronto at her blog: girl number twenty.

As part of our alt craft month, we will be posting links to cool ideas and inspiration as well as tutorials and articles. We are still taking tutorial and article ideas for the month so please email your ideas and stories to me at whipup[at]gmail.com.

Green kitchen has a tutorial for this kids sweater apron [and amy karol has a half cocktail apron style one from the recycled sweater]

The Natural Knitter: How to Choose, Use, and Knit Natural Fibers from Alpaca to Yak by Barbara Albright, published by Potter Craft (March 6, 2007).

For yarn lovers. A book devoted to natural fibres - wool and other animal fibres, silk, plant fibres and plant dyes. This book explains what the terms ‘natural’ and ‘organic’ really mean.

This book is filled with luscious images of yarn in all its manifestations - yarn lovers will drool over this book. The main important aspect of this book is the explanation of the various yarns, from good old wool, to camel, Alpaca and Angora, then followed by a few patterns/projects using each particular yarn - the projects are simple and stylish - lots of lovely sweaters, as well as some toys and children’s outfits. I particularly liked the meditation rug and the angora infant sweater.

It is a very readable book, I enjoyed not only reading about the yarns, but also about various yarn makers - small artisans, business owners and farmers who either produce the fibre in its raw state, who take the raw fibres and turn it into yarn and also those who use natural dyes to produce art yarns. Towards the back of the book there is a small section on spinning and dyeing fibres so you can give it a go yourself, however this is not primarily a how-to book, rather a combination of patterns, how-to’s, stories and descriptions of fibre. An excellent book if you are into using alternative and organic yarns - timeless - highly recommend.

Barbara Albright died in 2006 at age 51 from a brain tumor, leaving behind her husband and two children.

As part of our alt craft month, we will be posting links to cool ideas and inspiration as well as tutorials and articles. We are still taking tutorial and article ideas for the month so please email your ideas and stories to me at whipup[at]gmail.com.

Kristy of craftastica sent in this link to how she made this patchwork bag from fused / recycled plastic shopping bags.

Many department stores end up with bags of unsellable opened packages of nylon hosiery which they either toss away or try to donate to non-profit organizations, or if they’re lucky someone will take them off their hands. But who would do that and why would they?

Back in 2002, while in the Textile Arts Program at Capilano College in North Vancouver, BC, Katherine Soucie was working on a project learning screen printing, “we were supposed to apply different printing processes and surface design techniques. At that point in time I was really into finding and working with materials that were discarded in the [textile] industry and that no one else was printing on,” says Soucie. That led her to experiment with nylon hosiery to re-invent a strong and long-lasting material which was the beginning of her popular Polymer Series. This project won her two scholarships which allowed her to launch her business “Sans Soucie,” French for ‘without a care’.

Imagine pantyhose transformed into snag-free and long lasting form-fitting tops, skirts, and dresses. Soucie has achieved this by dyeing, cutting, and silk-screening regular grade nylon hosiery. Soucie’s hosiery garments are machine washable, more abrasion-resistant and less likely to ruin or run.

Katherine Soucie in her work garb and sweet Chauchi (having a snooze)

I visited Soucie this past November at her small work/live studio in historical Japantown in Vancouver. Katherine’s knowledge of the fashion and textile industry is impressive. What follows is part of our conversation on the textile industry, business, and on being an artist.

(more…)

At artstream, we use a lot of recycled objects as well as bonafide art materials to create with. Here is an easy reuse of the freebie foam core which most frame shops throw away. Go ask for some at your local shop. They will be happy to see you!

To make these mask/faces we sorted the bits into a few bins of small, medium and large shapes. For the actual “head” we had the children draw on a larger piece and we cut out that shape for them with adult size scissors. They glued on the features and used wooden skewers and toothpicks for hair. The foamcore board accepts the skewers easily on the edges as it comes with premade hole like formations. Paint, markers, or inks could be used to add color, as well as beads, ribbons and yarns added to the “hair”. Everything was glued on with a white glue although if you were in a hurry to finish, an adult could use hot glue. More photos of this process right here at flickr.

betz white has a lovely felted wool peas tutorial

the farmchick has a dogbed made from old clothing.

the small object has a great family tree project.

my paper crane is covering containers.

nikkishell has a great card idea - love it -

and boogaJ is doing calendars

design sponge has a paper accordion card tutorial

great scrappy scarf tutorial [via craft] at javajem

scrappy teddy ornament at poppalina (too late for christmas but what about for a children’s mobile)

ihanna has a post on how she made this lovely jeans bag.

evil mad scientist has an excellent tutorial on making this great book bag - titled Vintage Software Documentation Purse.

If you happen to have some old books that you’ve finished with (or if you haven’t, any white elephant stall/ thrift shop/ op shop/Goodwill has Plenty!) then there’s a list of links for using them as craft materials on the Bookshop Blog here. Embroidery, journals, sculpture, stash boxes and more. If you’re in the summer holidays of the southern hemisphere right now, this could be an inexpensive and entertaining holiday craft activity.

Alternatively, maybe you’d like to buy a book made into a clock. This is from recycleeh at etsy.

Treehugger highlights etsy artist flawed flock who are upcycling cards into coasters.

tutorial and pattern at make

fun post christmas activity to use up all those empty junk packets - tutorial at evil mad scientist

Christmas is a time, for many, of over spending and indulging and not thinking terribly much about being environmentally conscious. All that toy packaging and christmas wrapping, being aware of how you deal with all that can be pretty boring - but it is important. Lime has a great article on 7 ways to green your christmas. They recommend a bit of frugality this season - consider recycling gift wrap or making your own, recycling decorations and perhaps donating some of that saved money to a charity.

over at planet green (treehugger’s new venture) lots of fresh and fun ideas to green up your christmas giving - just for starters - making your own recipe book, gift baskets, dough christmas decorations, and caramel popcorn.

Speaking of TreeHugger, they recently had an article on how the NY Times has called eco friendly - the new Grinch! Apparently the NY Times quoted someone as saying the call for less excessive consumption during the holidays sounds almost un-American. and implies that going green for Christmas is divisive and preachy. Any thoughts?

[via craft] tutorial at two peas in a bucket

Buyhandmade.org is a collaboration between Etsy, Craftster, indiepublic, Craft Magazine, Interweave, Burdastyle, The Austin Craft Mafia, Design*Sponge, and The American Craft Council, nine prominent forces in the DIY and handmade worlds. Calling themselves The Handmade Consortium, they have banded together to encourage people to buy handmade this holiday season.

How to make a magazine bowl by Patricia Zapata.

October 15 - blog action day was an outstanding success, how exciting to see all those blogs with one mind on the one day - what power and pull the blogs do really have.

some stats
* 20,603 Blog Participated
* 23,327 Blog Posts (Google Blog Search)
* 14,631,038 RSS Readers

* 19 of Technorati’s Top 100 blogs participated

* The Blog Action Day story was not only featured across the blogosphere, but was also picked up across all forms of traditional media from TV stations in Greece to radio stations in Spain to newspapers in New Zealand.

* Blog Action Day was officially supported by the United Nations Environmental Programme.

Blog Action Day will be returning in 2008, bigger than ever. If you’d like to be notified by email in about August 2008 of what’s happening, just enter your details below. - to be notified by email of next years event - go to the site and sign up for the newsletter.

Picture from true nature.

Fashion week Buenos Aires. Isn´t a good idea to make a jacket with fabric yoyos?

Semana de la moda en Buenos Aires.¿No es una buena idea hacer una chaqueta con yoyos de tela?