Yoolies!

What great suggestions--"ulies" from Carol, "chirts" and "hugs" from Holly W. I LOVE these ideas! When I got Carol's note last night, suggesting "u-lies" because they're U-shaped in front, my mind got to thinking about that, about how this is something *you* design for what suits you. When Jeanie started hers, she asked me about measurements, and I told her you don't measure--you put on the shirt and look at it and figure out where you want it to hit on you. Longer in front because you want to cover your chest? Shorter in back so it won't wad up when you sit down? It's up to you--because it's a Yoolie!

OK, so my brain gets kind of lame late at night, but it likes this. It's all happy about Yoolies this morning.

To recap:  we started with this idea:

And then I did bunch, which you've already seen. And you saw Jeanie's:

And now here's Carol's:

She wrote about it on her blog, here, and you can go and salivate over her fabulous thrift store finds that are waiting in the wings for their turn. Lucky woman! I have been having the WORST thrift store luck lately--absolutely nothing that will work for me. I almost bought an ugly striped henley, out of desperation, never mind that it was too dark to dye. Yikes! That's desperate. The good news is that I dyed yesterday and have four reallyreallyreally cool ones ready to go--two green, one pink, one brilliant orange. I got one that's a 70/30 silk/cotton blend, very drapey and weird, and I can't wait to see what will happen with it. I overdyed it--it was kind of a sage/celery color, and I dyed it in (duh) chartreuse. Right now I'm working on a dress--it was an ankle-length cotton knit, black, long-sleeved, with a gathered waist. Eddie Bauer, so you know the knit was luscious. I'm making a Yoolie out of it. No in-process photos because it looks hideous--there are other reasons I hardly ever wear black, and they all have four legs and lots and lots of hair. Although not as much as they did yesterday because a lot of it is on this dress. I need to buy stock in lint rollers. . . .

OK--so what's new here. Remember that ugly green sweater?

You know I couldn't wear it like that. So I added some wool felted (wool-blend felt that I over-fulled in the wash) appliques. They're kind of orange-y red, but kind of faded, too. Something I wouldn't use for anything else, probably, but that went with this weird green color.

No, no--it's off to the side. I swear.

Then there's the most recently-finished one. I bought two HUGE ugly argyle sweaters at the Texas-Sized Garage Sale for, I think, less than $1 each. Cotton, and obviously sweaters, so I could practice on knits without cutting into something I, you know, actually liked. Jeanie had sent me some photos of things that were open in the front and had asymmetrical closures--really cool stuff--and I'd thought to try this. What I didn't think about was the diamonds on the front: anything asymmetrical was going to make those look even wonkier than they already are. So I tried out a couple things but nixed them and went with a snap closure. What's really cool is that I wouldn't have ever thought of this on my own, but I was trying to see how the sweater was going to drape, and so I put it on Alex, and it kind of fell this way, with the two inside edges facing each other, like they were asking for a snap. Cool. This isn't ever going to be my favorite yoolie, but it's OK. It was a pain to work with, though--it was thick enough to be bulky, and it wanted to ravel, and it was slick enough that I had to lick my fingers constantly to roll the edge. So while I have an identical one in navy blue, I don't know if I'm even going to bother with it.

 I wouldn't wear this shirt underneath--these yoolies need a better-fitting undershirt.

OK--now it's your turn! If you're riffing on this idea, we'd LOVELOVELOVE to see. Take some photos, write up a blog post, send me the link and tell me I can snag the photos, and I'll share here and link to your post. The more info you provide about how you did it and what motivated the tweaks and what you'll do differently the next time (because you know you want to make more than one), the happier we'll be.

I can't WAIT to see~~get in there and get busy, my little chickadees!
XO