Esther's Hats

My son's girlfriend Esther is a clever artisan who works with recycled materials in all her projects.
She gave me a tour this morning (I am visiting them) of her recent series of hats, and I flipped for them. She has them in her Etsy store.
Have a look!

Angry Robot

She uses reclaimed sweater yarn and felt from recycled bottles. The thread is from Goodwill.
She is serious about this aspect of her work.
The used hat stand was purchased on Ebay, and paper mache-d with torn grocery bags and a paste of flour, water, and salt. (Find some recipes for this here.)

Dogs in Galoshes

Trees in Love

Surprise Encounter

Happy Sunnyville

She has many projects in the works and they all share the same high standards of environmental respect. Add that to a quirky and compelling design sense and you have some very interesting fare coming off her needles!

Embellisher Experiment #5, Denim Shirt, Finished

This really didn't take that long, but what an easy way to dress up a denim shirt. To Marg in Calgary who commented....that Stampede sounds fun and it would be a great place to wear this! I had my cousin's cattle ranch in Wagon Mound, NM in mind, too....

The Battenburg lace has so much going on that I just embroidered simple blue backstitching along the tape, to secure it on and soften it up a little more. A little row of picot-edged lace with some pearly-beads down the front, a few loops in the eyelets there...those were the only elements I added.

So here is the back....

And here is the front. It will look just fine over a new white Tshirt...!

Embellisher Experiment #5, Denim Shirt

Wearable art is not my thing, and everyone who knows me knows that my idea of high fashion is a brand new white t-shirt from Lands End. Or green.
But who amongst us of a certain age didn't begin her embroidery career decorating denim shirts, or skirts? To me there is no more compelling "blank page", as far as clothing goes, than a denim Western shirt in a nice, washed blue.
I just happened to have one in my closet, so started thinking about how I could put my Embellisher to work on it. This is what I have so far.....

I couldn't just felt the Battenburg lace onto the denim. I needed to use a little "glue", in the form of wool roving. So I laid little wisps of it over the lace and felted away. This worked surprisingly well.

Next came the "appliqued" cotton print. This is some of the last of the indigo print from South Africa that I have been hoarding for about ten years.


Here you can see the roving being felted along the edge of the cotton.

The front so far.....

...and the back.
The roving gives a wispy look but I don't think that matters...it softens the lace.
This will be a nice background for some handwork, which will also help secure these felted elements more permanently. I have a long trip to and from having dinner with my father-in-law, sis-in-law, and niece this evening, so I hope to get some done then.

I might even wear this one day....