craftgrrl | A crafty update (and some questions!)

I haven't posted in here for a few days, so I just thought I'd let you guys know what I've been up to.

1. I went to a Mexican restaurant on Friday and they had made salt and pepper shakers out of beer bottles. They just replaced the caps with rubber thingies with holes in them and put the salt and pepper inside the beer bottles. I thought they looked really cool and I want to make a couple. ;)

2. I know how to turn pants into a skirt, but is there any way to go the other way around? Turn a skirt into a pair of pants, I mean? I have a skirt that's an awful length for a skirt but it'd make some darling capris.

3. Still plugging away on my Harry Potter scarf, I'm up to 9 stripes and I'm very happy about it. My tension is getting really weird though. The right side of the scarf (it's in stockinette, so the knit side) looks fine but the purl side looks really....odd. Instead of the bumps (each row) being evenly spaced out, there's a group of one knit and one purl row and then a huge space and then another set of two. I'm obviously doing SOMEthing wrong but at least it looks good on the front :)

4. I made a duct tape dressmaker's dummy using instructions I found online - I think they're in the FAQ somewhere too. The dang thing still smells like duct tape and it won't stay up straight in the stand I made (still hafta fix that) but it's still pretty cool. I'll post pictures once I find some batteries for my camera.

5. I cut up one of my old t-shirts and turned it into a tank top that actually fits instead of hanging like a bag :) It's really comfy and, again, I shall post pictures when I get my camera's batteries all charged up and stuff.

6 (Gee, I've been crafty lately! This list just keeps going and going). I think I never actually posted pictures of my tieskirt I made a while back, so here is a picture of me modeling it. It turned out great. That lighting doesn't give it justice - it's much more colorful than what you see in the picture. Oh yeah, and I MSPainted over my face because you can see I'm wearing the typical Japanese schoolgirl loose socks so I figured a magical girl pose (okay, real human beings' legs CANNOT bend like theirs do o_O) would be cool. ;)

7. Does anyone have any advice for sewing beads to fabric? I want to put a heart outline onto the front of a halter top I'm making with seed beads. I assume it's as simple as poking the thread through the fabric, putting a bead on, making one stitch, putting a bead on, and so on. Am I right? Should I tie knots between each stitch so all the beads don't fall out if the thread breaks? What kind of thread should I use, anyway? And going off that question, what about making beaded tassels? I don't want to mess up and lose all my beads!

Alright, this has become long enough. Thanks everyone! You always have such great comments and ideas.