upcycling

*Friend Becci made some lovely items, felting old sweaters.
*I tripped my little self (and child/ren) into every thrift store in my 3-town shopping area (when passing by) in search of wool. Good times.
*Self found 43 wool items to hot wash and dry and felt. Self is not exaggerating the number, but it is not quite as crazy as it sounds because of winter-end 1/2 price and $1 and $3/bag sorts of thrifty clearance sales (go find them)
*Okay, that is still crazy.
*Much fun because they really do felt and feel rather nice until
*there was static and lint and piles of wool everywhere and it took me a whole movie to cut up 2 red blazers (so many Sag Harbor size 10s out there!), even without picking seams, just slicing, and I felt a little bit sick about that large pile.

Tomorrow, I'll just buy some more bins.

Anyway.
I do have a couple of wool projects in the works, but am feeling very cheery about the poppies we made from the polyester linings of all of those wool suit parts.
One sentence tutorial: Cut random-sized and margined circles from a couple of tones of red lining fabric, melt the edges a bit over a candle flame, stack them in alternating shades and decreasing sizes, then stitch them with a fine needle, black thread, and a pile of seed beads.
Lovely hair clips.

We were all (Friday morning group crafting grows!) loving them on felted rings. Big bling has never been lighter and softer. Even Audrey wore hers (mine!) for hours, because she couldn't even feel it.Everyone who has come to my house this weekend made a couple, too.Next-door neighbor's purple variety. So many options in Valerie's upcycle pile!