100th-ish post giveaway and tutorial

Back in June I participated in a "Craft Room" swap organised by Cass. 

Regular readers may remember the upcycled wool scarflettes I made for my swap partners.

 

I was totally thrilled with how they turned out, but even better then that, I have really loved using and wearing the one I made for myself. 

I absolutely wore it to death over winter and got so many compliments every time I went out with it on!

I took photo's as I was making them, fully intending on posting a tutorial back in July.......................... but for some reason because I'm really slack, I didn't get around to it. 

And now that Spring has sprung here in sunny Sydney, posting a tutorial for a woollen scarf seemed such a ridiculous thing to do. 

Great timing if you're reading this from somewhere in the Northern Hemishpere though!

But I really, really wanted to share this with you guys and so I formulated a cunning plan.

Last Saturday I whipped up a springtime version - this time making  it reversible. 

I used some linen and some woven cotton off-cuts I had in my stash to keep within the recycled theme of this project and also in keeping with my current "use what you've got" kick. 

I have to say I love it equally as much as the winter version! 

I'm one of those people who gets goose bumps on a summer's day if there is a gentle breeze blowing, so I can see that this scarflette will be on high rotation in my spring/summer wardrobe. 

So in celebration of warmer weather, cooler weather, 100 blog posts and life in general, I'm going to give away one Upcycled Scarflette, made by me! 

If you are the giveaway winner you get to choose whether you want a Winter or Spring version and I will make it for you.

The rules of the giveaway are:

blog about my giveaway and tutorial and once you've done that leave a comment on this post with a link to your blog to let me know you've done it.

For an extra entry in the giveaway become a follower of my blog and  leave a seperate comment saying you've become a follower.

I'm going away next weekend so I'll keep the giveaway open until Friday 8th October and I will announce the winner over the following weekend.

Good luck! 

If you're not the lucky giveaway winner, or if you're really keen and just can't wait to get yourself an Upcycled Scarflette, you can go right ahead and make yourself one with the following tutorial.

Upcycled Scarflette

What you will need:

• 
  
  1 woollen jumper in good condition
• 
  
  1 polar fleece jumper in good condition
• 
  
  buttons in contrasting/co-ordinating colours to your taste
• 
  
  all the usual sewing paraphernalia eg. pins, scissors, sewing machine etc.

Now, set yourself aside roughly half an hour - that's all the time this little beauty will take you to whip up!

Here we go.



1. Lay your jumper flat and using either a rotary cutter or scissors, cut the jumper through both layers straight across under the sleeves.  Discard the portion with the sleeves.

2. Make another cut through both thicknesses of jumper 7 inches below the first cut. 

 3. Now you have a tubular piece of woollen fabric.  Cut one of the seams off so you can open up the tube to make one long piece of fabric.  Cut this piece so you have a rectangle measuring 7" by 26".

4. Repeat these 3 steps with the polar fleece jumper.

 5. Lay your two pieces of fabric one on top of the other, right sides together and pin.

 6. Using a straight stitch, sew all around the edges, using a 1/4 inch seam allowance. 

Make sure you leave a few inches open at one end for turning.

7. Turn the scarflette right way out, pin opening closed and stitch around all four sides of the scarflette to give a nice finished edge and also to close the opening you left for turning.

8.  Now to decide which way your scarflette is going to wrap around your neck, look at where the seam in the woollen side is.  Wrap it around your neck in such a way so that this seam will be hidden by the top layer of the scarflette.  The button hole should be made in this top layer and that will become your top left corner.  Refer to photo above! 

9. Next up, choose a button which you will use for actually keeping your scarflette closed (as opposed to any number of other buttons just stitched on to decorate your snazzy new scarflette). 

Now, using your button hole foot, make a button hole in the top left hand corner about an inch in from each edge. 

As you can see in the picture, on my scarf I stitched the button hole parallel to the long edges. 

DON'T do this.  Stitch the button hole parallel to the short edge and your scarf will stay closed alot better. 

Mine is still absolutely wearable but it will sit alot nicer with the button hole the other way.

  

10. Wrap the scarflette around your neck and mark where your button needs to be stitched on.

11. Stitch on button/s as desired. 

With some of the scarflettes I made little crochet flowers which I then stitched into place using a co-ordinating self covered button.  Just make sure that if you do this, you make a big enough button hole to accomodate the flower.

I can't remember what pattern I used for the flowers but just click on over to Ravelry - there are hundreds of patterns to choose from. 

You're done.  Easy peasy!

Now.  If you want to make yourself an Upcycled Scarflette suitable for warmer weather, just substitute the wool and fleece for some lovely light weight woven cotton and/or linen!

If you make an Upcycled Scarflette and post about it, drop me a line.  I'd love to see your version of the Upcycled Scarflette!