Going "Green!" . .Why not? . .. I'm Irish after all . .

Recycle . . . Oh Yeah . . I'm jumping on the recycle bandwagon and having a jolly old time doing it! There is so much out there and so many ideas! I'm sure if you think hard enough you could find a way to recycle just about anything! I love garage saleing . . flea marketing . . but where do you get your fix in the winter time? . . At your local thrift store! One of these Saturdays real soon, I plan on hitting all of them within a 20 mile radius of my house . . already got a friend signed up to go with me . . we are making a day of it . . with lunch in between.

My project for this blog entry is a sweatshirt . . this is my third one that I have "re-designed". This is one of the sweatshirts that are offered at Walgreens for 3 for $10! I was lucky to find this style (straight bottom and sleeves . . no ribbing) there isn't much work involved with this style.

First I cut the front of the sweatshirt right down the middle . . I decided I would like to make the front edges and around the neck, scalloped.

2. I got out my trusty old tracing roller and paper (I love this stuff . . have been using it for years . . I use it to trace patterns that have the multiple sizes on them)and made a line one inch from the edge all the way around. I chose one inch so I was sure I had enough material to cover the scallop.

3. I chose a scallop design on my sewing machine, put stabilizer in the back side and proceeded to sew my scallops all along the edge. After doing this, I'm not real crazy with the way the collar turned out. It is a bit flimsy . . I think if I do this again, I will just go straight up the front and leave the collar that was on the sweatshirt.

I used the line that I made from the tracing roller as my guide for the foot. I lined this up with the left edge of the scalloping so that it would be even all the way around.

4. After sewing the scalloping, I tore off the tear away stabilizer and cut as close as I could without cutting the threads around the scallops from my sweatshirt with embroidery scissors. These have a rounded tip and make cutting the scallop so much easier. If by chance you do cut into the threading, you can dap some liquid fabric glue on the spot, that will hold the threads so they won't raveling.

5. My sweatshirt still looked a bit plain so I chose an embroidery design to put on the shirt.

My finished sweatshirt . . now I have another "jacket" that is suitable enough to wear to work!

Now . .off to the thrift stores . . looking for a wine rack to keep my yarn in!