I threaded up some big embroidery needles with embroidery floss, and gave him some sweater scraps to use as patches (why yes, I do have a bag of old sweaters in my closet just for the purpose of things like this!) I showed him what to do, and did a few stitches to get him started, and he did great! Here’s a poor cell phone photo of him in action..

I think the patches actually add a great deal of interest to the original snake. He’s also re-named the snake “Patches”. One of the eye buttons had broken, too, so we replaced the buttons with some eyes I’d gotten from the lovely Colleen at Some Art Fabric (who has actually made a sweater snake in the past!). I’m loving Snake 2.0! Here’s the how-to on how to make the snake, if you’d like one yourself!
He loves his snake, and he loves that he did it himself (with a bit of help from mom here and there).

Joanne, at Ready, Set, Craft!, asked me to do a guest post on her blog today (and she’s done a great one for Dabbled previously–the flower pinata!), so I figured I’d return the favor! So pop on over there and see how to make a business card holder (or mini-wallet) from recycled sweater material!

I had a scrap piece of sweater fabric, which had a lovely beading design, that was left over from the original Ele-purse from way back in 2007… and it was just waiting to have something done with it.  As per usual with my sewing related tutorials, this is a great project for beginning sewers!

Go to the Tutorial!

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My son has a favorite t-shirt that was getting a tad small… he wore it layered with a long sleeve shirt to a party the other day, which gave me the idea to make a long sleeved, slightly larger shirt out of it for him to wear this winter and spring.*

I forgot to take a “before” pic, but you’ve seen t-shirts and long sleeve shirts before, so just imagine them, hehe.

So, Here’s how I did it.

Materials:
1 long sleeve (LS) shirt (can be just outgrown, so the sleeves are a little short)
1 short sleeve (SS) t-shirt (still fitting around the body, but short)

For my long sleeve shirt, I used a red waffle weave shirt that he refuses to wear because it has buttons at the neck and they bug him. Weirdo. Another neat twist might be to use a buttondown for the long sleeves.

Here’s some visual instructions for those who like pictures, see below the pic for more details! (Click to see large):

(get the illustration from flickr)

Sleeves:
Cut the sleeves off the long sleeve shirt.
Trim and re-sew the sleeve if necessary so that it fits inside the SS shirt sleeve.
Turn wrong side out and slide the cutoff sleeve over the hem of the SS shirt.
Pin, and sew it on**.

Bottom:
Cut about 3 inches off the bottom of your long sleeve shirt, all the way around so you have a big loop of cloth.
Turn both wrong side out. Slide the loop around the bottom of your SS Shirt hem. If it’s too big, hem the loop smaller and cut off the excess.
Pin the loop to the SS Shirt, overlapping the hem, and sew around the bottom to attach.

With a black t-shirt and black thread, even messy stitching doesn’t really show up, so take the color of the shirt into account if you’re a novice.

As you can see, he thinks its totally stylin’!

*This idea is not original to me – I’ve seen it done around the web — if you have other examples, post them in the comments!

**My child is 4, and his sleeves are so small to try to sew. But I came in through the neck of the shirt and crunched everything up under my sewing machine… Just guide carefully with your fingers and go slow so you don’t end up sewing the sleeve together. You could also hand stitch if it’s easier.