Mother's day tea towel from a linen dress

One of the things I love about living here in Beacon, NY is the fact that I can always count on our Main Street shops for something unique and lovely when I need to find a gift for someone dear. 


A couple of weeks ago, my hubby and I were wandering around Main Street looking for some inspiration for a mother's day gift for my mother-in-law, Lisa. As usual, we ended up in our favorite shop, Clay, Wood and Cotton (aka CWAC):

CWAC is an adorable shop with a range of beautiful handmade items. At shop-owner Kristy's suggestion, we decided to give Lisa a "tea-time" themed gift this year, starting with this sweet cup and saucer from Virginia Piazza pottery: 

Next, we stopped by the Alps Sweet Shop...

...because what's tea-time without some truffles?

Final stop was the Beacon Natural Market...

...for the tea. We thought some organic Yogi Tea would be nice.


Then we headed home so I could whip up a nice tea towel to tie everything together. I wanted the towel to coordinate with Lisa's new cup and saucer so I raided my craft stash, looking for something in the green or blue family. I've had a very light blue linen dress from J. Crew in my craft stash for quite awhile. I used to love wearing this dress, but it doesn't fit me right anymore:

I harvested some fabric from the skirt, and stitched Lisa's name on it:

I sewed a band of cotton fabric (which you may recognize from earlier projects, here and here) to the bottom, and here's the result:

Enjoy your cuppa, Lisa!

Upcycled, embroidered cardigan sweater

I've had this Ann Taylor LOFT 3/4-sleeve cotton cardigan for at least eight years. It's really nothing special, but it just seems to go with everything, so I've gotten a lot of use out of it. Here's a shot of it out on the town one night on vacation back in 2006:

You can imagine my disappointment when it recently finally started to show its age...

...and even began unraveling a bit on the back:

But I'm not ready to part with this old girl, so I decided that with a little repair-work, and some pretty embroidery, I could breathe new life into it.


For a while I was stuck trying to figure out what to embroider, and that's when Amy over at Early Bird Special posted the Lovely Lotus Free Embroidery Pattern!

This is exactly what I was waiting for! 


My first step was to print out the lotus flower pattern, which I then traced onto some Sulky Solvy water soluble stabilizer. (I seriously love working with that stuff; you can read one of my other posts about it here.)


Here's how it looked when the stabilizer was pinned onto the sweater:

And then I basted the stabilizer on, and I stitched! The lotus flower looked like this before I washed the stabilizer away:

(It might not be apparent in these photos, but I used some metallic DMC thread on the middle petal of the lotus flower. DMC 3849, Light Effects Aquamarine Blue, to be exact. It's such a pretty look, but damn! Could metallic floss be any more annoying to work with?)


 ANYways, here's how it came out on the front of the cardigan:

I really liked the little swirly parts of the pattern too, but I decided to stitch them on the sleeves:

And remember that ratty part on the back of the sweater? I did a little pseudo-darning to stabilize the holey sections (pseudo-darning because I have no idea how to darn properly). After that, I sewed some ribbon along the edge that matched the embroidery (this might be my favorite part):

And here's the final product:

Voila! Maybe I'll be able to squeeze another eight years out of it now!


Next up: Lisa's embroidered mother's day tea towel!