It’s not all wine and finished projects in these parts. Trust me there are plenty of half done–half assedly done–things shoved in various corners of my studio. This afghan is not destined for one of those corners (I hope). It is actually coming along quite nicely.  I fell in love with this vintage afghan that Miss Rachel from Smile and Wave picked up at her local thrift. I had been looking around for crochet patterns I could use to make a blanket for my son, but nothing seemed right until that blue number popped up. A commenter on pinterest pointed me to a pattern on ravelry called the Vintage Fan Ripple Stitch Pattern, which turned out to be exactly the same as the original afghan. I went out and bought a bunch of yarn the next day.

I liked all the blues in Rachel’s blanket, so I stuck with that and threw some gray in for good measure. Ravelry came to the rescue again when I ran out of the light blue yarn I was using. The heathered light blue was by Berroco Vintage, which I had in my stash, and when I went back to my local yarn store for more they were all out. After a look on the interwebs, I discovered Berroco didn’t even make that colorway anymore. Luckily there was someone on ravelry who had two skeins of it for sale! I don’t know why the two rows of light blues look different in the photo–trust me they are not. Oh also there are more nerdy crochet details on ravelry. 

The other half done project is not coming along as nicely. The first time I made the Wiksten Tank it was nice, but it was a smidge small.  So I cut a medium this time. Well turns out the first one wasn’t small, it was just that the material I used didn’t have any give to it. The medium is too big everywhere and if I try to take the sides in, the wide set straps make me look, umm, beefy.  I can’t shove it in the corner because this fabric was expensive as hell. So here’s my plan: I’m going to cut this tank apart, cut the small from it (a little lower down), and then add a band of color to the bottom. What do you think? I picked up some navy linen that I think will work. I’m hoping it won’t look hackneyed.

Last winter we went on an amazing trip to Kauai. When we went the kids were 5, almost 4, and 1 at the time. They remember some things, but not too much. We try to tell stories about it and look at pictures from when we were there, because I’m guessing we won’t be back for a long while. That’s where these pillows come in.

Kauai is a teeny island with one main road that goes almost all the way around the island. When you are driving one way the ocean is on your side and when you turn around and drive the other way the mountains are on your side. Most directions include one or the other to help you find your way. The Hawaiian for this is mauka and makai:

– Mauka (mow-kah) means on the mountain side of the road.

– Makai (mah-kigh) means on the ocean side of the road.

The big kids each had their side of the car (the baby was in the middle). That mean one kid was mauka and the other makai. They would have argument about which was better and rub it in if they got the good side. Of course once we turned around and went home, the other one would rub it in. Some days the mountains were the favorite and other days it was the sea.

I’m not super big on souvenirs (except we got a hula girl of course), so I made the pillows, hoping it would help the kids hold on to  a bit of Kauai. The mountain is a simple green triangle. And yes it has snow, shut up it looks good. My first idea for the ocean pillow was to make it look like this, but when I sewed it up, it looked like a blue santa hat. I was working on these pillow right after I made this potholder and I was getting into the polka dot as neutral thing–as you can tell with the ocean pillow. I really love how it turned out: the day side, the night side, and polka dots all over the damn place.

and the winner is…Avital, who said:

I’ve got a roll of tyvek that my construction working husband brought me home from the garbage pile at a construction site, and I need to make some things with it. I was a little daunted by its whiteness, and it actually never occurred to me to try painting it. duh. I am not to clever sometimes. I make a lot of things out of felted wool sweaters and old t-shirts, and thanks to Maya’s inspiration I rescued a stack of coffee sacks a while back and have been making buckets from her pattern and then branched out into other things with burlap , and it has been great fun. I’d really like to win a copy of this book, so fingers crossed!

Get that tyvek out! Avital, if you’d send me your deets I can forward them on to Wiley Craft (elsiemarleyblog@gmail.com)! Thanks to everyone who entered. Please do check out the book, it really is a good one.

 THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED

Reinvention: Sewing with Rescued Materials is a beautiful new book by Maya Donenfeld . You are probably familiar with Maya’s blog, MayaMade, where she writes about parenting and making with the seasons. Years ago, Maya sent the craft blog world into a sewing frenzy when she came out with the burlap bucket pattern and for good reason: it is simple, beautiful, useful, and recycled.  So too is every project in her new book.

Each chapter in the book is dedicated to a specific material: linen, burlap, jersey, wool, denim, tyvek, and vintage. The projects are, yes, made from recycled materials, but they don’t scream, “I’m recycled!” like say, a pop top vest would. They all subscribe to the same natural aesthetic, even the most seemingly unnatural of materials, tyvek.  When my copy of the book came I was immediately draw to this chapter, because I’ve always loved tyvek, oddly enough, and I was excited to see someone else out there did too!

I chose to make the color block zippered pouch, but after painting a bit of tyvek I was less than thrilled.  I used a silver metallic acrylic paint that ended up looking a sad gray and the blue was nice, but it brought out the texture of the tyvek more than I wanted. It is actually a nice effect, sort of like a faux leather, but it wasn’t what I was after.

Maya suggests painting the tyvek or simply drawing on it with a permanent marker, which of course makes sense as tyvek is as much like paper as it is like fabric. I picked up my ultra fine point Sharpie and went to town. The leather-like effect I got with the painted tyvek made me want to use some actual leather. A few snips from a vintage, buttery leather jacket and I had the makings for a fine recycled zip pouch.

I didn’t use the exact dimensions she specifies for the pouch, but the patterns in this book are meant more as guidelines. Maya even says, “…ultimately the size, shape, and color of each rescued piece informs the final outcome. If you listen carefully, the fabric will tell you what it wants to be.”  This tyvek envelope told me to draw a geometric pattern on it, then sew it to some leather and attach an aqua zipper. Sewing the tyvek was easy, just like sewing paper, so use an old needle in your machine. It was my first time sewing with leather and that was simple too. My machine didn’t know what was going on when I tried to sew the tyvek to the leather, and I had to help it along quite a bit.

Maya also suggests leaving a bit of the original printing exposed, “..so that its reinvention efforts are not forgotten.” I think this quote sums up the book nicely. You get to make all these wonderful pouches and hampers and poofs from old materials, but hidden in these newly sewn things are little reminders of what they once were.

The lovely people at Wiley Craft have offered a copy of Reinvention to one of my readers. Please leave a comment telling me about your favorite recycled material to be entered in the drawing. The giveaway will close Wednesday May 9th at noon central. I’m sorry but this giveaway is only open to US residents. Please follow along with the rest of the tour to see more of this lovely book!

I’m guessing instagram friday is a thing. Seems to fit with the lazy blogger friday vibe. Here is a bit from my week:

I am elsiemarley on instagram or webstagram, if you want to follow along online. Happy Weekend!