off on a tangent

Hipstamatically presented.  (Thanks, Kristin , for the challenge).

 

Seeing as I work from a home office, my tea breaks are very important. An excuse to stand up and walk downstairs! And distraction!  We all have our little routines; mine is strong coffee from 6 am till noon, after that it's tea all the way, baby. In the winter, my house is chilly and my office even chillier, so it's not just the mental break but the warmup, and making it last till I get to the bottom of the mug.  Which is how I found myself googling : "tea mug cozies". I realized how insane it is for someone with yarn, felted sweaters and just plain old stuff around to be even thinking about buying a tea mug cozy, so I got busy.

 

That's right, my tea mug has Barbara Walter waterskiing on it. Ugly! But it has fabulous volume, a nice big handle, and sentimental value. It was an audience souvenir when I took my mom & my aunt to see The View, (VIP seats) a rare outing for them together in the city they grew up in.

 

Here they are, holding their mug boxes post taping.2009.

  

But back to my little project. Not exactly brain surgery. I cut a length of sleeve from a felted old black sweater, measured from the cuff up. I cut it open by the seam, and blanket stitched around the three raw sides.

 

I hit the button tin to make a loop & button closure, measured to give my mug some negative ease. (yes, I did just say that). Then I  left it on a table with the tin of tangled crewel thread. Whenever I passed by, I stitched a little. I attribute this to meeting Jenny Hart last year. She gave me a serious jones to rediscover my embroidery licks. 

 

With a lot of wonk, it all came back. Daisy stitch ! Running backstitch ! Split stitch !

Of course none of this is necessary, strictly speaking, you could just cut a piece of felted sweater, add a closure and walla.  But that would not make tea break any fun, would it?

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As much as Jenny Hart inspires me with her embroidery, and Kristin with her use of color and design,  Crispina ffrench inspires me to think about the possibilities with recycled sweaters. She's selling some awesome kits to make mittens out of recycled sweaters. More sophisticated than mine,(scroll to the bottom of that linked post if you want to see 'em) which I'm still loving.

 I sort of wish I wasn't off on a sweater knitting binge right now, because look at this tutorial to make a chipmunk  out of a recycled spare glove. Bobo would just explode if I made him one . Wool ! Squirrel !!

But who wants to clean up exploded bulldog, anyway?