Friday, November 20, 2009

Yarn Caddy!

A few weeks ago Jackie, Liz and I took a day trip to Portland and hit some fantastic vintage retro thrift shops in the Hawthorne District.
Such a fun day.
I scored this amazing yarn caddy!

My Great Aunt Toot has one and she taught me to knit, so of course as soon as I saw it, I fell in love with it!
But NOT the fabric. The design and colors were fine, but gak, filthy.
Note the loverly stained-sateen lining with pockets!
There was no way to remove the fabric to wash it, not without taking the frame apart, so I cut it off!
I selected some delicious fabrics from my fabric stash.
For the outside, a Kaffe Fassett beauty with my favorite colors... called Cloisonne.
For the inside, a chartreuse and purple cotton I immersion dyed a few years ago in canning jars. hmmm... that was a lot of fun to dye I should do that again and SOON.

Anyway... the fabrics love one another.
The original caddy only had pockets on one side of the lining, I decided to put them on both sides.
So I did some sketches and math-ing in my Manifesto...
and cut the fabrics, and sewed it all up.
I decided to make the attaching edges with velcro so I can take it off and wash it if I choose.

Of course I have the constant help of the studio queen Ezmaralda and her flunky Rufus.
Here they are to my left while I assembled the new fabric...
Money shot of Rufus.
He is at that goofy-kitten stage where his legs are too long and his head too small...(he's about 7-8 mos. old)
Finished!

Here is Ezmaralda inspecting it (peeking through) while I took photos of the inside. See the awesome pockets?
Rufus took his turn as inspector...
and got in to test it's strength. SO helpful.
So now I can just grab my caddy and GO! (as demonstrated by Eve).
Watch out world!

6 comments:

pdxknitterati/MicheleLB said...

Well done! I love the new fabric, so pretty.

Jackie Wood said...

Love that fabric, still trying to figure out what to do with mine!

Turtle said...

that came out gorgeous! i found one at the goodwill but it needed a lot of tlc on the wood so, still hunting!

Ricë said...

fab job!

Sorka said...

WOW I just picked up the EXACT same yarn caddy at a yard sale!

Jill said...

I am very inspired by your fabric replacement. I found one of these at a garage sale this summer and could not figure out how to get the fabric off. Thanks for your great photos.