Do It Gorgeously: How to Make Less Toxic, Less Expensive, and More Beautiful Products (18 page)

Easy Gathered Skirt

Lola and I used to drool over the fancy skirts in a pricey kid’s boutique around the corner, until I realized how incredibly easy they were to make. The joy of making your little girl’s skirts is that she can go to the fabric store and have the fun of picking out exactly what she wants. You can always whip one up for yourself at the same time (not in the same fabric
please
!). There are directions on Frugalista for how to make the skirt for an adult. You’ll obviously need to adjust the measurements accordingly. No pattern required!

Boiled Wool Mittens

Boiled wool is just what sounds like: To create it, you take an old wool sweater and “boil” it in the hot water cycle of your washing machine. You then dry it to a crisp and voilà—a piece of boiled wool! It’s a fabulous fabric to make all kinds of things out of—purses, hats, and little mittens.

You may have ruined a sweater or two by putting it through a machine wash, so here’s an opportunity to redeem yourself. If not, check out your local thrift store for some sweaters in fun colors. Kids’ sweaters are great and you’ll be able to pick them up for pennies from a garage sale. Boiled wool mittens are perfect for very cold, snowy weather because the close weave of the knit simply won’t allow the cold in.

HOW TO

1.
Place your child’s hand on the spread-out sleeve of the sweater.

2.
Measure your child’s hands from the tip of the fingers to a couple of inches past the wrist.

3.
Cut off the sleeve of the sweater 1 inch past the measurement you made.

4.
With a marker, draw around your child’s hand, leaving 1 inch around the fingers and ½ inch around the thumb.

5.
Cut out the mittens with sharp scissors.

6.
Place the right sides of the mittens together and, using a backstitch (see “Frugalista”), sew a seam all around the edges, ¼ inch away from the raw edges.

7.
Make a small snip in the wool between the thumb and first finger to avoid wrinkling (be very careful that you don’t snip your stitches).

8.
Turn the mittens the right way out and customize with little buttons or a bow made from an odd bit of ribbon.

Patchwork Comforter Cover

This is my daughter’s favorite comforter cover. It is enormously pleasurable to put together, as you can use up all kinds of little scraps of fabric. You can also use some of your own or your child’s worn-out clothes. I once had a skirt that was made of adorable fabric, but it looked a bit Pollyannaish on me, so it got cut up into dozens of squares and became part of my daughter’s cover.