Make It Mondays! Scrappy Scarf Tutorial

From this......

...to this........

in a few simple hours!

Use your small (even teensy) recycled lambswool, angora, alpaca, mohair and cashmere soft scraps to make this yummi-liscious infinity scarf. Great for yourself or for a beautiful Valentine's Day gift. Outta the landfill and into someone's heart. :)

Materials Needed:

Recycled natural fiber scraps
Yarn
Large eyed needle

Steps:

1. Thread your large eye needle with a complimentary colored thin yarn (or embroidery floss.)

2. Overlap your scraps and start sewing them together with a running stitch on your threaded yarn. I also call this the "inchworm" stitch...just up and down.

3. As you sew, pull your yarn a bit tight so that the fiber scraps scrunch up. This will add a lot of texture to your scarf.

4. I encourage you to leave the pointy edges off to the side of the scarf as you sew. In other words, don't make a perfect line. This is also a way to use odd shaped scraps...scraps aren't too narrow to use unless you can't stitch through it!

5. Don't be afraid to use all different colors. One of the neat things about recycled wool/other natural fibers is that all colors seem to go together well! When you wear this scarf with different outfits, it will highlight the different colors in your scarf!

6. Continue sewing until your length is long enough to loop around your neck three to four times.

When you're happy with the length, stitch the beginning to the end, making an "infinity loop."

7. Out of a larger scrap or two, freehand cut a flower, sew a button through the middle of the flower, and secure it to one part of your scarf. This step is optional but adds a lot of pizzazz to your scarf. :)

Like this tutorial? Then please "like" our Facebook page Everything But The Oink and subscribe to this blog. Bloggers like to feel the love! ;)

EnJOY!

p.s. Thanks to Reyna for taking our class yesterday and agreeing to model her completed creation!

Make It Mondays! Tutorial: Five Minute Project--Wrist Warmers

We had snow this weekend. Lots of snow. Here at the beach, we had four inches and "in town" they had six inches. We're expecting up to ten additional inches early this week. For those of you in the Midwest and East Coast, that's not much. But for us wimpy Pacific Northwest islanders, it's a major event. :)

Our housing isn't built for severe winter weather either. So, I've been chilly in my rustic beach cabin and made these 5 minute project cashmere (okay, I'm spoiled) wrist warmers to help keep me warm. What I like about them is that when I HAVE to take a craft creation break and wash dishes, I can easily push them up my sleeves.

Because these are made with recycled fibers (wool, cashmere, angora.....), the ends will not unravel, so they are not sewn. However, they can be blanket stitched, embroidered, or further embellished at a later date.

SUPPLIES:
The upper sleeve pieces of any recycled/felted sweater
scissors
(Yep, that's it!)

Sleeves are one of my treasured parts of any recycled sweater. The lower sleeve section (with the cuff) works for fingerless gloves, coffee cup sleeves and many more projects. However, when I use this lower sleeve section, I always have the section from half way between the wrist up to the elbow. This piece works PERFECTLY for this project. It's already in a tube, so no sewing is required. It's loose enough to fit on your lower arm over any long sleeve clothing you are wearing, yet snug enough to keep your wrists warm.

Simply cut two arm "tube sections" 5" to 6" long (based on your preferences) straight across, and voila! You are now the proud owner of a pair of comfy wrist warmers. (They would also work as ankle warmers too. :)

EnJOY!

Make It Mondays! Tutorial: How to Felt Natural Fiber Sweaters..aka Washing Machine Felting 411

You've come across awesome felted wool sweater projects on the Internet, but aren't quite sure how to felt the sweaters? No more fears...this Make It Mondays tutorial will have you working with your very own felted "material" in just a few hours. :)

Items Needed:
A sweater of at least 60 to 65% natural fibers (wool, lambswool, angora, cashmere, alpaca)
An old pillowcase
A large rubberband
Liquid laundry soap

1. I like to felt several sweaters at once to save water, energy, and time. It works best if you load the washing machine with sweaters of similar fiber content. For example, today I am felting all cashmere/cashmere blend sweaters.

2. Place each sweater in it's own pillowcase. If you ever find the zippered ones, those are awesome. Otherwise, after placing each sweater in it's own pillowcase, fasten the pillowcase securely (two or three wraps) with a large rubber band. Your washing machine, your family members and everyone else except the washing machine repair person will thank you for using the pillowcase tip. Otherwise you may plug up your machine with fiber lint and lint from different sweaters will stick to other sweaters! This is a special concern with those lovely, but fuzzy angora/angora blend sweaters.

3. Pour your normal amount of liquid laundry detergent into the bottom of the washing machine and then load your pillowcases of sweaters. Set your machine on max water level and on HOT, HOT (or hot, and then the warmest rinse setting you have available.) LEAVE THE LID OF THE WASHING MACHINE OPEN.

4.Start your machine for the longest agitation cycle available. The reason you have left the lid open is that so your machine will stop after the agitation cycle. It is human nature to get busy "doing something else" and forget to reset the agitation.

5. After your machine stops, check how well your sweaters are felting. My general rule of thumb, from years of experience, is as follows: Coarse/rough wools will only require one agitation cycle while finer/more delicate fibers and blends will take two to three total agitation cycles. If your sweaters are felted nicely, then close the lid and let your washing machine finish it's entire cycle. If they are NOT felted yet, simply restart the beginning of the agitation cycle again, leaving the lid open until you're sure everything is felted nicely.
(Don't fret over this too much when you are just beginning to learn how to machine wet felt. If it is under felted, you can repeat the entire process.)

6. After the machine cycle is totally completed (spin and all), remove your sweaters from their pillowcases and determine if they need further felting. If they're felted well, then hang over your shower rod to dry. If you hold it up to a light and can still see lots of light through the knit, then consider placing the sweaters back into their pillowcases and into the dryer, checking frequently so that you don't over felt. (If you do over felt, these pieces will work well for rugs, oven mitts, etc.)

If you choose not to use the pillowcases in the dryer (for example, if you are just drying one sweater by itself), then be sure and empty the lint filter frequently. You don't want a lint fire! Don't throw away the lint....this is all from the sweater fibers and makes the best stuffing for stuffed animals, pin cushions, and other such projects.

Many people believe/state that you can ONLY felt 100% wool sweaters. Simply. Not. True. While it may take longer to felt blends of >60%, they usually felt up very nicely. :)

Now, the fun begins. After your sweaters are dry, you can begin to deconstruct the sweaters. Don't laugh, but I usually don't plan a project for a particular sweater until this point...the sweater will usually "talk to me" and a project idea will form. You can cut up the sweaters as if they are fabric, because they are! No unraveling, just delicious, recycled natural fiber fabrics.

EnJOY and have fun!

p.s. Please consider supporting my fiber art public art project at: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/526090211/everything-but-the-oink-ecofriendly-public-art-pro

**Sweaters may be substituted with other natural fiber garments. When using woven suit blazers, skirts, and other such items, I find it is best to cut out the lining first and then wash/felt the article of clothing. Sometimes I will even deconstruct these items, cut the woven wool into pieces and THEN wash/felt them. I have found that these woven clothing pieces felt much tighter/smaller, but they work well for stuffed animals, pillows and other pieced projects.

Feel free to repost this tutorial as long as you give credit back to Everything But The Oink with a link to this blog.

Nuno and Cobweb Felted Scarves

In between new recycled wool creations (check out our Etsy and/or FB pages to see Owl Babies, Alien and Monster Buddies and Mini-Mouse), I've been experimenting with nuno felt and cobweb felt scarves.

I love our hand dyed alpaca and an awesome ramboullet-silk blend (from Crystal Creek Farms) for the cobweb felt. Both art forms are perfect for incorporating little "treasures" of other fibers, yarns and threads. :)

Also getting excited about our first Fiber Friends 4H group meeting in early December. More on that project to follow.....

From Farm to Yarn-Youth Fiber Arts Class

We are volunteer teaching a fiber arts class each week to youth at a local school. The students have learned about the various fiber animals, learned to identify their fibers by touch, have learned to "leg spin" and are now using KoolAid to dye fiber for them to drop spindle next week.

Who is the ceramic alpaca supervising the completed project? That's Phidippides (named after one of Adrianna's alpacas), whom Adrianna made in pottery class as a bobblehead. He's our new blog mascot.

Why the gloves and masks? Even KoolAid has non-natural particles in it and we want to protect these young people's lungs! :)

EnJOY!

Wool Rosettes Class a Success...and SeaGlass Handspun

A busy, fun weekend! We had our inaugural Everything but the Oink class...how to make wool rosettes. These are great for hair ties, headbands, brooches, gift wrapping embellishment and more. Everyone in the class went home with three completed projects and supplies to make more at home. Some vintage button shopping took place too. :)

Adrianna left for Bozeman today on a recruiting visit for college. So, I spent the day on the spinning wheel, creating SeaGlass handspun from alpaca roving Adrianna and I had dyed a while back. Often we have a "dye day" and then the completed roving waits for inspiration...or an inspired buyer. :) Please message us if you'd like to purchase roving or handspun yarn. Tomorrow will be a tutorial on dying your own commercial yarns (or better yet, recycled wool embroidery or tapestry threads) for use with your recycled wool projects. These hand dyed yarns/threads add a truly organic feel to your project, making it extra special!

Several have asked if our yarns are for sale. We have an Etsy shop (spinayarn or royalalpacas) with proceeds funding our Merry Mittens Project and fiber arts education for youth. We never charge for classes for youth in fiber arts, just for adults. :)

A Glimpse at Projects in Progress....and Completed!

I truly feel like a little bit of me is knit or stitched into each project. Adrianna and I spend a minimum of 15 hours on EACH item, and most items have 20 to 30 hours of handwork. Since these hours are invested over multiple days, it's almost like having a baby born each time a project is completed. (LOL...without the pain of childbirth, but the pride and love of a new creation.) Fellow fiber arts enthusiasts will know what I'm trying to say. :)

Sometimes we transition from one project to another, then back again. I treasure the time spent with Adrianna, choosing the "just right" yarn and buttons, and our chats as we stitch by the fire in the evenings.

We made our first fingerless gloves this past week and have just listed them on our Etsy shop. We also finished up two cashmere scarves. Oh...My...Goodness! The incredible softness and luxury of these scarves. Adrianna said she would just "pet" it all day.

Now on to leg warmers. I'm starting this afternoon on a yummy blue lambswool pair. I believe I'll start with some handstitching embellishment with handspun, hand dyed yarn....

Merry Christmas from the Beach Cabin

With the children at their father's house in Canada for Christmas weekend, it has been a time of rest and reflection for me. I feel so blessed to live in this wonderful beach cabin. Yes, really...the view is from my fiber studio window!

After more than a year of not being able to spin fiber (due to my autoimmune arthritis), I oiled up the wheel and spent some lovely time spinning today! The baby blue yarn is from Adrianna's 4H alpaca, which we hand dyed last year. After being made into a 2-ply yarn, it will be luxurious embellishment for a button bag. Maybe a diaper bag for a baby boy?

I'm not totally alone today. Dream, our 6 1/2 year-old "Lassie" collie, is busy supervising (between naps) from her favorite perch on the loveseat.

In between spinning and working on the latest button bag, I've also spent some time organizing more buttons. Aren't they pretty? Within a week, I hope to have DIY button bags posted on Etsy. The DIY kits will include the felted wool sweater purse, ready to be embellished with handspun and/or handdyed yarn (included), instructions, and of course....buttons!

Hope and prayers for a wonderful, relaxing Christmas for all of you. And, please remember to recycle from your holiday celebrations!