Felted Sweater Bag

This year I am focused on dedicating more time to making things in my life, and I hope to share at least one project that I have made each month. Last month I shared cards that I enjoy making. This month I would like to share a felted sweater bag that I recently made.

I have been seeing some very cute project bags for my knitting, like this one on Etsy (because I'm a nerd), but I have held myself back from clicking purchase because I can't justify buying what I know I can make myself. Then inspiration hit me when I was rooting around my closet for some birthday presents that I bought for my daughter (months ago and then hid so well I couldn't find them - anyone else do that?) and found a pile of old wool sweaters that I had felted to make a sweater bag like this one.

A few years ago I made fingerless gloves from the sleeves of one of the felted wool sweaters, so I decided to use the rest of the same sweater to make my first felted bag.


Felted Sweater Bag Steps:

• Felt the wool sweater before using it. To do this, wash using warm water, then dry in the dryer. Some people repeat this process but I found once was enough. As I usually wash my clothes using cold water, I had to wait until I needed to do a warm wash before I could do this, and I didn't want to wait for another warm wash to do this again. After doing this once the sweater was significantly smaller with a nice matted felt. 

The sleeves have already been removed to make
fingerless gloves.

• Mark what will become the handles from the shoulder to below the arm pit and around the neckline, and cut. Keep the sleeves for another project, such as the fingerless gloves that I made. 

• Fold the cut piece in half in the opposite direction, so that the holes where the arms would be are now visible as the handles of the bag.

• Turn the bag inside out and sew along the bottom of the sweater. To be fancy and create clean edges, sew across the seam about one inch from the edge to create a triangle shape, then cut off the edge and turn the bag right side out. 

• You now have a new project bag. Enjoy!

Pollinator Possibilities: Mason Bees

With all of the doom and gloom surrounding honey bees and the threat to our food system, I was surprised and delighted to learn about a North American native bee, mason bees.  There are dedicated people who help and nurture mason bees year after year. In fact, I learned about them this year during a biweekly gardening session with a local chef and gardening advocate at my school. I was inspired by what I learned to attempt to nurture mason bees in my own backyard this year.

So why mason bees? What is so special about them?

Mason bees are solitary, do not live in hives, and have no worker bees or queen bees.  As such they have a very unique life cycle. In March and April, when temperatures begin to warm up and the trees begin to flower, the males begin to emerge from their cocoons. They wait nearby until the females emerge, then mate and die. The females then spend the rest of their time collecting pollen and nectar, which they use to make little pollen beds for the eggs they lay. They will create their nests in narrow holes or tubes. Once they have laid an egg, they block the tube with mud (hence “mason” bees) and prepare another pollen bed for another egg, then create another mud wall. The first eggs laid in a hole or tube are female, and the eggs laid closer to the opening of the hole are male. Isn’t that amazing that they can choose whether to lay a male or female egg? When the female has laid all her eggs she too dies, at the end of spring or early summer.

Through the summer the eggs hatch into larvae, which eat the pollen and nectar beds. The larvae develop into pupae, which in turn spin a cocoon to develop into bees. Over the winter the bees hiberate inside their cocoons, waiting until the temperature warms up enough for them to emerge, thereby starting the whole cycle again.

The first thing that sold me on mason bees is that they do not sting.  In fact, you may have seen a mason bee without realizing it as they appear more like a fly than a bee. 

Mason bee cocoons: the two larger ones are female.

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{this moment}

{this moment} - Inspired by Amanda Soule at SouleMama. 

"A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments."

Green Confession Time

Now that my youngest daughter is toilet trained I have a green confession to make: I used disposable diapers on my daughters.

My middle daughter wearing a
one size pocket diaper.

I love cloth diapers and used them with all three daughters. I bought my first set of prefold diapers before my oldest daughter was born, almost nine years ago. This was a bit of a challenge at the time because the only store where I could buy cloth diapering supplies was in the only baby boutique I knew of in the city. This was before we were inundated baby boutiques and I remember people wondering about spending money in an overpriced baby store when I could just shop at Babys 'R Us. It was the same store where I bought my first sling, and some people were surprised I would spend $50 on "a piece of cloth".

My cloth diapering stash is quite large. I have several dozen prefold diapers, half a dozen or so diaper covers, perhaps a dozen one-size pocket diapers, micro fleece and hemp inserts, a dozen or so cloth training pants, Snappi diaper fasteners, two diaper bag wet bags and several laundry bags for soiled diapers. There were the occasional times (like traveling) when I used disposable diapers when they were infants and toddlers, but my older two daughters were largely exclusively cloth diapered.

But with each one there reached a point when I started using Pull-Ups along with the cloth training pants. My oldest was out of diapers fairly quickly so this stage was quite brief. With my middle daughter, however, it felt like toilet training took forever (actually it did - she wasn't out of diapers and training pants until three and a half years old).

Enter my youngest daughter.

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{this moment}

{this moment} - Inspired by Amanda Soule at SouleMama. 

"A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments."

Knitting Is Good For you

Make things you can wear!

My grandmother taught me how to knit when I was young, although not as young as she was when she learned. In England at the time they taught all girls how to knit when they were five years old, and it was a lifetime passion for her. I like how knitting (among other crafts) links me to my mother and my grandmother, and other women through the ages. Over the years my love affair with knitting has waxed and waned, depending on the ages of my kids and the time I could devote to it, but I always end up coming back to it. I am by no means an expert; I would call myself an advanced beginner as I have never made myself a substantial piece of clothing like a sweater.

Over the past decade knitting has gone through a bit of a surge in popularity, with young people, including men, and even celebrities openly engaging in the fibre arts. It goes along with the resurgence of homespun pursuits of do-it-yourselfers and hipsters. Everything old is new again.

Knitting isn't just for girls anymore.

As my grandmother did with me, I am attempting to pass along my love of knitting to the next generation. I gave my daughters yarn and needles for presents two Christmases ago, and every so often they will sit down with me and knit a few rows. I am also sponsoring a knitting club at my school, teaching interested grade five, six and seven students how to knit basic projects like scarves and soft toys. I am pleased that there are even a handful of boys in the club.

So why bother teaching people how to knit when cheap clothing is everywhere? Yarn is expensive and knitting is time consuming. It is easier, and less expensive to just go and buy something machine made.

I believe that knitting is healthy for people, the community and the environment for the following reasons:

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Card Making Fun

True to my nature as an all or nothing sort of person, I have been a bad blogger recently because life and other activities have been taking my focus away. My obsession over the past couple of weeks, in between getting over a lingering cold that decided to set up shop in my chest and throat, has been making cards. I have been making cards for at least ten years now, thanks to some friends and fellow teachers who got me hooked. One of those friends is now a Stamping Up rep and she keeps us well stocked and up on the latest card trends.

This year my one little word is make because I value homemade things. I hope to do a post per month on the latest things I'm making and enjoying, so for January I thought I would post a selection of cards that I've made recently. 

Making cards isn't particularly green, given that I buy new card stock paper, embellishments, inks, pens, glue and various adhesives. I could use more recycled paper and upcycled materials from around my home. However, I use as much of the paper and paper scraps as I can. I believe that making and giving my own cards has a personal touch, which is important to me. 

Most of these cards were inspired by ideas found on Pinterest, where I virtually hang out quite a bit. I get inspired by all of the creative people out there and it get my juices flowing to make. If you hang out on Pinterest you may have seen some of these ideas. A link to my card board is here.

I love the blended sunset colour of this silhouette card using
the bird builder punch from Stamping Up.

I love the owl punch, also from Stamping Up, because
of the multitude of ideas you can make with it.

This is for my middle daughter's birthday.

This minion card is made using the owl punch
(see above). I haven't added a sentiment yet.

This is for my youngest daughter's birthday.

It's always good to have girly cards ready in this house.

Another card using the owl punch (see above).

I'm obsessed with the Keep Calm memes, so this stamp set
was a must for my collection. 

I've knitted little heart thank you cards for people
who donate yarn to my knitting club. The pattern
can be found here.

I always forget to make cards for men so here are two
attempts at more masculine cards.