The sun was attempting to come through the fog as I sit down to write this. The shadows are rather interesting.
REMODEL: supplies needed: a sweatshirt and 1″ matching grograin ribbon twice the length of the front of the shirt
This is a very basic sweatshirt remodel. I often wear an open sweatshirt as a jacket and when I find them a pullover like this for $3.oo, I am sure to buy some.
The first thing to do is find the center front. Pin the shoulders together and then the bottom side seam. Make sure the underarm seams match as well. Take and fold it so the center front is nearest you and pin up the front.
Open the shirt and draw a chalk line using a ruler between the pins, after the pins are removed, connect the line.
At the sewing machine, sew about 1/8th inch down each side of the line. This is your cutting line and the stitching reinforces the shirt so it doesn’t ravel. 
Put something between the front and back of the shirt so it doesn’t accidentally get cut all the way through. Cut through the chalk line.
Measure the grograin ribbon leaving a half an inch both top and bottom to turn under. 
Sew the grograin ribbon to the front side of the shirt with a 1/4″ seam. Turn the top 1/2″ and the bottom 1/2″ up toward you so it will be inside when you turn the ribbon Do this to both sides. You may need stiletto or orange stick to get it started as it is rather thick.
Turn this to the inside of the shirt. Roll the shirt under so the shirt fabric is on the roll. From the back side, sew 1/4″ from the open side of the ribbon, top to bottom.
Now you have a very plain jacket and another time we will go into how you might want to decorate it with embroidery, applique, lace, ribbons, different necklines, etc. There are Just so many ways to have fun with this shirt. You can many and they will all look different.
Have fun playing with different ideas.
After a lovely afternoon walk in the park today with our youngest daughter and her husband, we came back home to reality this evening.
Do you have piles like this of mail that must be addressed?
Or a magazine pile like this including seed catalogs that you want to look at?
In January, I thought I would just make a list of what I wanted to accomplish this month. It didn’t work for me. I wasted time because it seemed like there was still plenty of month left. Here I am now on the last week and know that I could have done more if I had scheduled it.
The sun was attempting to come through the fog as I sit down to write this. The shadows are rather interesting.
The first thing to do is find the center front. Pin the shoulders together and then the bottom side seam. Make sure the underarm seams match as well. Take and fold it so the center front is nearest you and pin up the front.
Put something between the front and back of the shirt so it doesn’t accidentally get cut all the way through. Cut through the chalk line.
Measure the grograin ribbon leaving a half an inch both top and bottom to turn under. 
Sew the grograin ribbon to the front side of the shirt with a 1/4″ seam. Turn the top 1/2″ and the bottom 1/2″ up toward you so it will be inside when you turn the ribbon Do this to both sides. You may need stiletto or orange stick to get it started as it is rather thick.
I did get 3 more blocks finished two days ago, two yesterday. and finished the last two today. These last two were definitely more time-consuming. I see the 4th block still needs a handle, which will be hand appliqued on.
The blue and white quilt is from the book “Designs Modern Blossoms, which has embroidery designs as well as patterns. They are exceptionally easy to make with variations that make it your own.
These fellows on the “Winter Bench Pillow” are just plain cute. The pattern has instructions to make the long pillow and the designer is making seasonal patterns so that one can use it all year long.
I thought you might enjoy seeing what the chickens are up to. Most of the chickens use the boxes in the hen house, but since the chickens are free to roam, some have decided the front porch, behind the mini waterfall is a great hiding place. I don’t know if they will be happy here when we have the pump replaced. But for now, it looks like they are happy.
