Of old t-shirts and prettily wrapped gifts 1

I once had bought a skinny fit t-shirt from the pound shop, which, as these things go, I am now far too self-conscious to wear. Luckily for me I found a great idea via Craftaholics Anonymous on turning old t-shirts into pom-poms so I decided to hold on to the t-shirt for later use. And I have just found a great opportunity to use it - my friend's birthday's coming up and I wanted to make her gift a little extra special, so, following the picture tutorial to a tick I managed to finish it off this way:

Now that I've tried it once I doubt I'll ever throw away another t-shirt!

The Circle Skirt

I came across a splendid pin last week and inspired by Dana I've decided to give this skirt a go. As my blog suggests the skirt is meant to come from up-cycled items and therefore today I went through the bags-worth of clothes I had lined up for the bin and fished out a black halter-neck cotton shirt which fits too loosely and a white cotton shirt which belongs to days gone by when showing off my belly button was fashionable.
I cut out the pattern, the four quarters too and baste the four pieces together in a black-white-black-white fashion. Unfortunately the only elastic I managed to find is an inch-thick one, which had to do.
After much asnipping, asewing and aknotting, to my daughter's joy (and my pride) here is the end result!

La calza della Befana

2012 blessed me and my husband with a beautiful baby girl. Knowing that she is too young to remember hasn't stopped me from wanting to give her the very best I can. So on Jan 5th I found myself wondering how I was going to manage to conjure a 'befana' stocking out of thin air in time for the Epiphany (Jan 6th). A few Google searches and head scratches later the idea was fully formed and there was nothing anyone could do to keep me from going for it head on. I would tear an old woollen sweater apart and together with the remaining scraps of material I had from our bedroom curtain the stocking would come to be. 

From the woollen sweater I used:
- the sleeves
- parts of the body

Using the bedroom curtain:
- I created the lining of the stocking

Although it was completed in time, it was filled with neither sweets nor coal... that will need to wait until 2014 :-)