LauPre

Quick Cashmere Knee Sock Recon

A while ago I thrifted this Cashmere hoodie that was so soft and warm and a lovely grey. Sadly, it was a little small and had a few holes along some of the seams, but I knew it would be great for a recon project. This morning my chilly toes were just calling out for some toasty socks and it clicked, I need some cashmere knee socks!

I snipped off the sleeves and cut some roughly foot shaped pieces from the hood to make the bottom of the sock.  The end of the sleeve with the cuff would become the top of the sock.

I lined up the heel of my foot tracing with the seam on the sleeve.  The wider toe part of the bottom lined up with the higher part of the sleeve that used to be the top of the shoulder.

Just a quick stitch around, attaching the bottom piece to the sleeve. Repeated for the other sleeve.

Sweet! Cashmere socks for under $5 and in less than 10 minutes.

The seams along the bottom are very subtle.

Needlework: Crewel Maneki Neko Sewing

I like to embroider from time to time.   I don’t think I’m too skilled at it, but it’s good practice for making nice, even stitches for those times when I have to take needle in hand. I recently came across a thrifting treasure of old crewel wool, so after checking a stack of books out of the library and trying out a bunch of stitches I decided to try to finish a crewel project. This is a design that I actually drew up myself of the Maneki Neko holding a sewing needle and thread.  His little tail wraps around a cute little pin cushion.  cute, right?

Want to look a little closer?

red stitching in ears

Neko’s pincushion and french knot pins

Neko’s thread.  I used some lovely green yarn for this and couched it down with some of the crewel wool.

The entire piece measures about 8 inches wide, and I think I’ll stitch this onto one of my reusable shopping totes so I can carry it around with me.  I enjoyed this project, so I think I’m going to try and so some more crewel embroidery from now on.

Sparkle Vinyl Sneak Peek

They are all hand cut from large sheets of sparkley Naugahyde. The details take forever to cut, I think I need to get myself some new scissors to make it a little easier. These are all eventually going to be part of larger projects on Etsy.