Summer thinking

 I was laying in bed dreaming of summer days earlier in the week (when there was a hint of sun, unlike today's heavy rain) and was running through my summer wardrobe plans. I had decided I needed to get back into skirts. I have not worn anything but jeans for 18 months (?). 

Thinking through the existing clothes I have a Mother of the groom dress (7 years old) and a date nice dress (2 years old).  And this cotton dress I made about 8 years ago and probably not worn more than a dozen times. No other skirts at all.

I love the material but the collar never really set well and felt uncomfortable. I have taken into my sewing room and decided that it has to earn its keep or its a waste of space!

I took off the collar and reused most of the facings to reform the V neck line. I had to re cut one facing (from the discarded collar) . 

I have sewn a line of top stitching in yellow outside the black tacks.

I fiddled about for a while wondering if it was too far down. I really hate being older and having a wrinkly front (Known in our house as the Deidre Barlow look after a certain soap character's neckline) and I have cut a "fill" or modesty piece. Not put in yet. I am going to wear and see how I feel.

Meanwhile the dress is in the laundry basket for a quick re fresh ready for the season. When it stops raining as indoor drying is not my thing - all washing has to go out even for just an hour or two.

Another tasks ticked off the what shall I do with my lockdown day list and another day when cleaning behind the kitchen stove is avoided.

Gloves

I have been thinking about gloves. I hate the thin disposable ones (shudder, too many genealogical exam thoughts!) and by the time I am half way round the local small supermarket my hands are all sweaty. Then you have got to peel them off and dispose of them properly. Far too many plastic gloves being seen littering the UK.

 But am I ready for  bare hands when out and about? (If I ever leave the house). Then using that gel stuff that is making hands all dry and painful till you get home for another lot of hand washing.

Back in the 1950s my (daft) mother thought it was really posh, and necessary, for us to wear gloves when going out on a Sunday outing. (You can imagine my rebellious 1960s years!) But before running her down was she right?

We were elegant and protected.  Well a bit. Like face coverings in cotton its not going to stop the deadly virus completely. Would still need to wash them after each use and your hands all the time but you may feel better.


Thinking about it there are still patterns out there to make thin cotton gloves and these days we have nice light stretchy fabric. I could reuse all those baby gros and things my grandchildren have given me for recycling.


You can even still buy pairs of 1940/50s gloves on various sites like Etsy.  These were £17!


Hang on. I think there is a pair of my mothers posh cotton gloves around somewhere with her pearls (fake). To the attic!!!!

Paper towels and rags?

Yesterday found myself tearing off yet another paper towel and thinking that roll is fast disappearing at over a £1 a time.  A few minutes later I was at it again.

Why not use a rag? I know why. Because what's left in the rag bag needs to be cut up to smaller bits and the scissors are.... somewhere. So today I went to the "cupboard of doom" and took out part of an old double duvet, some washed out pyjamas and emptied the rag bag of the other big bits and standing in the very sunny conservatory for 20 minutes converted it all to usable squares.

Win Win all round for not too much effort! I have some cleaning tasks today that can be done at no cost of sponges and paper towels and later on my husband can top up the bag in the shed kept there for woodworking oils and other messy tasks.

(And that is a space created in the cupboard of doom for more stuff that needs to move on too when we get to spring cleaning).

The paper towels can be on hand today to mop up the left over sauces from the commercial brands of lasagne sauces. The tomato is a complete pain for staining if a drop even looks at the wooden kitchen counter top, the tablecloth and the white ceramic sink!  May have been a good offer at the supermarket and a quick dinner make while we are both still down with the flu but the fall out is a pain.

Some inventive re or up cycling

I am always on the look out for re cycling or up cycling where ever we go. So on holiday in Funcal (Maderia) last week I spotted 3 interesting "art" ideas.

Firstly the giant fish made of collected rubbish. It was well done and the nature of the materials really fitted the shape and colours needed in the sculpture. The eye for example was a yellow building site safety hat. What was strange was seeing it along side one of the 13 cruise ships in and out of the harbour that week. This was a "small" one. Monstrous things. Having been brought up around Southampton in the good old days when ships looked like ships (original QE and QM for example) I find these blocks of flats afloat an affront. One cruise ship was plastered with its green credentials as it was run on natural gas! 

Along one of the narrow roads (read alleyway in UK terms) there was blank wall hung with giant bunting. What a good idea! Fabric bunting would have been too small, faded quickly in the sun and not had the same effect. These were odd bits of ply board painted and hung along a painted line.  We have a blank wooden fence which is worse for wear and I am thinking it would cheer our summer view up a lot to do this!

Outside an art gallery some painted tins had been wired up to take plants. They were nice big tins (saw them in supermarket for peaches) They looked great. Or was it the fact the wall was brightly painted too?

Full of flu since returning(thanks to delayed flight with terrible air quality/cross country crowded trains) and despite some nice sunshine outside my outlook is grey, grey, grey....

Jealous?

Just had a week in the island of Madeira where we strolled in T shirts and open toed sandals and admired the growing conditions. It is their winter and they have fresh crops of potatoes and cabbages. Oh so jealous of the growing conditions! But not of the growing on hillsides where every patch is cultivated and you would be standing at the bottom gardening above your head often!

Gold star for recycling old tyres into steps!

I can see that there are some advantages to living on the flat lands of East Anglia!

Fence painting

While it is still so dry and warm here I thought I would do a bit of fence maintenance and whack some fencing "stuff" on the sunny side of the house garden fences. We have had the big container for about 2 years and hardly used it as it is a task we try to avoid!

first bit leading into next door's garden took about 2 hours. Looks OK. bit boring. 

While we were out yesterday we saw this on a garden gate.

It may be to stop the seagulls sitting on the posts (and the consequence) but it looked like fun. I have some plywood I had in mind for a similar project so I may copy to stop the sparrows sitting all along here. 

Fabric boxes

I have been spending some of these cold afternoons learning how to make fabric boxes and working on altering the design from SheCanSew blog I started off with.   The stripy one has iron on stiff interfacing, on the ends there are "slots" to fasten the folded in ends together and is finished by zigzagging on all the edges. 

Doing in it with two fat quarters and especially purchased stiff interfacing and all the cotton for the edges made it quite expensive.  I was really looking for an easy way to use up stash and recycled materials to make cheap storage  solutions.  I had a look on You Tube for more ideas too.

The box on the left I made the same size overall, but started by putting the right sides together and stitching all round before turning and quilting.  That meant cutting into the piece to make the flaps and making turned in edges which was a fiddle as much as making the slots.  When I folded it up occurred to me that I could put a button on the inside flap and then made buttonholes through the other two.  

My third attempt was to use a very stiff denim material and face it with a poly-cotton fabric. It stands up well on its own and does not need extra quilting. I tried out using ties to fasten the ends of the box. It seems to work quite well. 

I am going to road test these fabric boxes before publishing a pattern.

Recycling Christmas jumpers

Adult son left a hideous extra large maroon Christmas jumper here 3 years ago.   The front is now  incorporated in my latest rag rug and the back and sleeves are now an elephant.

Used the inside of the jumper as it was more fluffy and cuddly. The feet and back of the ears are an old striped muslin from one of the baby grandchildren, the flowers are scraps of felt blanket stitched on with 2 strands of embroidery thread, and the tail is plaited bits of felt. The scarf was on old bit of double ply wool knitted in rows of 12 garter stitches.

Stuffed with a bit 1 inch thick foam to make it stiff and lots of an old pillow.

The pattern I have used before was off the internet and is quite easy to work out but next time I am going to make the front legs just a shade longer. (xoxograndma.blogspot for pattern).

Cost nothing and kept me occupied for quite a few evenings with the embroidery!

Hopefully one of the little ones will take it home later!

Slightly screwiff?

I attacked my second hand material stash the other day and cleared a lot of stuff out the other day and cut a lot into strips to make one of my rag rugs. Plenty of choice but a first there was a lot maroon sweatshirts.

I wanted a smallish square to go under my sewing table to keep my feet warm but something went a bit wrong when I stitched the plaits together. Probably not paying attention as I was watching TV at the time.

More of a parallelogram.  I will have to square it up a bit somehow.  My gardening fleece has just  broken its zip so I am thinking of using it to make a fringe or binding. I will turn the fleece inside out as the outside has paint splats and is faded.  I have recently found quite a few things are better used inside out - often the colour is better and smoother surface.

At the end I felt I had recycled 80% of the old clothes that were not even suitable for charity shop donation. I still ended up with a pile of bits (collars, seams, etc). .  I was watching one of the programmes about pollution and rubbish heaps the other day and they showed a 1970s dump with clothes that were still whole and recognizable. Apparently modern fabrics don't break down?   Back in the old days there would be a man with a cart, the "shoddy man",  who gave my old Granny a few shillings for bags of rags.  But in those days it would have been wool or cotton fabric - not polyester etc.

Upcycling play equipment

I have been fascinated all summer by the afternoon TV programme Find it, fix it, flog it about upcycling stuff  as the presenters do the work themselves and often very cheaply.  I was taken with the idea of using spray paint on all sorts of surfaces (including plastic?) which I had previously thought was not possible and difficult.  So when we got our hands on some free but faded children's play equipment I thought this is worth a try out.

I brought a "rattle can"  for £4 in Wilco and had a go at an old scooter first which was faded red and yellow with odd stickers. I wrapped the wheels and handle bars in newspaper fastened with masking tape.  Three light goes at spraying later, leaving it to dry in the sun and it looked quite good. Should I have done the purple front "forks" on the front wheel?

I have some red and blue tape from husband's shed that can be added if grandchildren want to make "go faster stripes" later.

The swing will be a much bigger job but I feel much more confident.  Husband will welcome this as he thinks the pink is a bit out of synch with his sophisticated garden designs (Ha Ha).

Upcycling rugby shirts for 2/3year olds

My son sent a box of grandson's 2/3 year old clothes for me to play with in my sewing room. Quite  a few rugby shirts like this.

He really loved this style and wore these shirts a lot so they were very washed out and some stains!

I choose two in slightly different red and blue strips and turned them into quite a large stuffed elephant. You can get quite a bit of material out of these shirts as they had long sleeves!

Pattern from the internet, stuffing is a mostly an old pillow innards and some left over batting for the trunk and feet.

I shall have to offer to do the same for the other son's two if they want to save memories.

Plastic bags

Have you heard the proposals charge for these goes up to 10 p next year and even small retailers have to charge?

My main shopping is delivered by a large supermarket without bags (they add 40p on for bags if you tick that box) but they insist on putting frozen and household stuff like washing powder in bags anyway.  I always think it is unnecessary as those things are well packaged and super tight lids etc.

I am sometimes reminded of days of yore  (late 1950s) when the local grocer would wrap my mother's purchase of toilet rolls in newspaper!

Meanwhile I am back in my sewing cabin planning more tote bags for my occasional shopping trips and to sell on Folksy.

Three boxes of tissues later...

Finally seeing the back of our flu after working our way through 3 boxes of man sized tissues and all the odd ones tucked in bags and pockets.  Together we managed to cut the front and garden lawns today which are now mostly nice and green after 20 mm of rain and lower temperatures ! But had to have a long lay down with our books at afternoon tea break.  Veg garden and field will have to hang on a few more days before we can do any serious work.

The flowers on this bush produce a deep red berry on the ends of springy arching branches. The blackbirds are desperate to get them and lurch up and down and tumble in and out.

What else is happening here?  Tomato crop is producing well. We have been unsuccessful at selling surplus at the gate this year as the main road in the village has been closed for road works for 7 weeks and everyone is going round the other way!  So lots of tomato soup this week to help with our sore throats. Sweetcorn is ripening now and providing some nice quick lunches.

In my sewing cabin I have been going through a box of 2-3 year old toddler clothes left by one of my sons for recycling. Here are two polo shirts, a pair of pyjamas and some shorts.  What to make?

I cut the clothes along seams to give as much flat material as possible.  Did not need the shorts. A shopping bag is tried first, using the rocket theme to reflect the print material.

The back is a patchwork of left over rectangles. Avoiding the hole in the left knee of the trousers and using any logos which had cheery messages.

Lined with some new calico curtain lining.  The polo shirt material proved quite thin when cut into so I used some old cotton fabric from some summer trousers under the applique rocket and under the patchwork.  (I must try to get some cheap fusible backing material for these projects.) So the bag is quite soft and padded.  I was going to use the old collars to make handles but they are quite narrow and would not quite fit round any strengthening cord I had available.  So used some straps from an abandoned apron for handles.

They also left a lot of odd baby socks.

If you cut down back and sole you get quite a lot to work with and the heels and toes make good ears and noses for SOCK MONSTER PUPPETS!

Wigwam or Tepee?

Last year I made the grandkids 3 hobby horses on broomsticks for the summer holidays. This year I made them a wigwam. My son called it a tepee.  My 4 year old grandkids  called it a tent and had no idea of a cultural background. Wild west or "Cowboy and Indian" films obviously not on CBBC or Tiny Pop or these other channels??

It was made of 4 of my husbands best giant thick bamboo poles (not needed as we were only going for one row of runner beans this year) and four cloth triangles. I used one half of a white king sized duvet and a long length of thin black cotton dress material (donated free to me) from my stash. No great loss as it was so thin it was no good for dresses and I had already had 3 blouses out of it.  So cost nothing except a few afternoons puzzling out the mechanics.  Secured at top with string in a hem and made a door way by splitting one triangle and putting a facing on it with odd ribbons sewn in to fasten up.  I did sew heavy washers into the corners thinking I could use the wire hoops from the veg netting to pin the sides but the ground was too hard and this was last piece of green grass in the garden.  So I made a hem in the excess material round the bases and threaded in some old roofing battens from the scrap/fire wood pile on three sides which held it out nicely as long as it was not too windy. Old bed covers for sitting on  and stretching out to provide a play patio.

It went down very well, as you can see the giant lego stuff was out here and not all over lounge floor to trip up Granddad. Teddy spent time in the tent and often came flying out. It was a good shady place to send one fractious girl with a digital device who was tired, hot and wanted to watch a cartoon when we were all having a cup of tea and chatting and did not want to go indoors.  Not strong enough for the 18 month old of substantial proportions to practice his standing up skills though.

On reflection how I may improve it next year I did think I would keep an eye out for those kids duvets in the charity shops with the garish characters and it may be something they relate to. I think the kids would like that and it would thicken the sides up a bit. I would also fasten the triangle seams to the poles on the insides it was a pain re lining it up each time it got a bit out of line.

They are all gone to the west Country to annoy their other grand parents now. Poles returned to garden stash, string rewound in the shed, wigwam rolled up and stashed. Hobby horses stacked in corner.  Left the bunting up tied to the bushes and fences for a while.  Bit like after Christmas when you take down the tree.

Come back next summer!  But please get out of nappies - my bin has a stench all of its own and it is not collected for another week!!

Replacements for those plastic bags wining!

I was reading a sewing blog (So Sew Easy) today (2/7/18)  which said
On my recent trip to Tanzania, I fell in love with the country.  I will share a post about that trip and the fabrics I brought back with me.  One thing I noticed is the lack of plastic bags on the roads, in fact, I was amazed to see a relatively clean country.  The reason: the government has completely prohibited the importation and use of plastic bags in the country.  

Wow, I thought that is good news,  when did they do that?  Apparently, in  November 2006 according to a BBC article (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/6135886.stm).   The article is a bit disparaging, so I am please the government stuck to its strategy So, come on UK, we can do it too!!!

By the way if you are like me into making fabric bags there is a free pattern and tutorial today on the So Sew Easy site.  In fact, I sold my second tote bag on Folksy today too!!!  So I may retire to my sewing cabin later and try out this pattern too!

Up grading dinning room chairs

About a year ago I covered the beige boring and slightly grubby seat pads on the 4 dinning room chairs with a bright striped curtaining materials. After a year of use they were very grubby again.

Did it again this week, but strips now go across!  The material was still in my stash and the only other cost was the last of the staples in the box.  My visiting son had to help this time as the stapler is a bit too stiff for my poor wrists now. If we need to do it again I think I would invest in a electric powered one!

Son has a set of chairs with similar needs and went home with plans to recover his now he had practiced with me. He is planning to use leather.

While the chairs were upside down I saw that they were manufactured in 2004.  They are still very firm and in good state especially as we brought them in 2010 second hand from a nice cottage buried deep in the Malvern Hills. I remember loading them in the car involved a long walk down a narrow path, up some steps, up the hill to a lay by.  We wondered why they were so cheap, probably no one else would collect them!

Fields of gold

We went out this weekend  and enjoyed the surrounding fields of fully blooming daffodils which are being grown on by the bulb producers. Forget the yellow of rape crops this is far more golden. We have not seen many flowers being picked round here at present which is usually done when the flowers are still closed and green -  those fields must be somewhere else this year. That is OK as we get to see acres of blooms.

At the garden centre there were lovely beds of hyacinths - wish computers had scent capturing!

There was a super bug hotel in among the sales areas.

We spent quite a long time mooching around the re cycling/vintage shop. We want some wooden seed trays to make display boxes for the walls at home. They had a stack but want £4 each.

I hesitate because they were not well made and we have some pallet wood behind the shed.  I am sure we could......

My purchase of the day was a six pack of celery. We use quite a lot but have not had great success with them so far.  The instructions on these are to put in a square and put black polythene barrier round them to blanch.  They look unhappy here as my husband just dropped them!  I have since potted them on and they are coming on nicely.

Pirates and mini jumpers

I've got a sore throat. No cold or flu. Just been playing pirates with my grandson.  All that "Arr"  "we be bad pirates stealing the treasure" growling while hiding glass bead treasure in pirate caves made from the firewood stack plays havoc with the vocal chords (and knees).

The grandson goes to a posh private pre-school in London and they have a parent and child project every month on objects that start with the phonic letter they are studying. My son and his wife have been very keen to be the best parents in the class and have made planets, towers, and all sorts.  Its J when they go back after the Easter holidays. What to do? Any suggestions Grandma?

We checked the dictionary for what started with J. I mentioned that I once organised a Xmas fund raiser for Save the Children in the office where I knitted mini Xmas jumpers in the form of brooches.  I volunteered to make one. But when I checked the web site the ideas had moved on to bunting of mini jumpers! https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/mini-christmas-jumper-bunting

Bunting they cried - the teacher loves bunting! Somehow I ended up knitting 5 mini jumpers!!  Grandson choose the colours from some left over wools (avoiding any Xmas colours and we lost the snowflakes etc off the design) and he insisted on the order of hanging them and he did the decorating of  the recycled gift box for them to travel in.

Every time I sat down a voice cried "Knit, Grandma, Knit!"

There was a suggestion about including letters on the jumpers. My skills are not up to that!

Quick project

Too cold for gardening, no DIY projects to start, no cooking plans so I went out to my hobby cabin to tidy and find something to do.  As I refolded my stash of fabric I found a carrier with material cut out for a tote bag from a piece of curtaining 3 houses back; I had put this by for some time.

I was just preparing the handles when I saw a scrap of fleece jacket material on the bench; leftover from the rag rug making. Thinking about how uncomfortable thin fabric handles can be I fiddled around until I had achieved a nice soft lining for them.  I added a smooth silky lining to the bag too from my stash of plain nylon/rayon fabrics someone had given me.

The really nice button I added to make a fastening was brought some years ago on Bristol street market and was economic support project.

At the time I was working on unemployment projects in a near by county and thought we should be doing something similar.

This is a pretty bag, I may use it to give a Christmas gift.

60p cushion

I had a terrible time with the numbing at the dentists this week, I could hardly see straight for about half an hour. So I went for a wander round the shops (trying not to dribble) to calm myself before trying to catch a bus home. (some buses were just not turning up - the 20 min between buses turned into nothing for 50 mins and then 3 bus loads tried to get on).

In the local fabric shop I could not find any thing to suit my fish pattern project but I found a piece of material in the bargain bin.  My husband has an oversize cushion on the settee, leftover from eldest son's settee about 8 years ago, which was nearly worn through.  The fabric square was 60p, the zip was from my stash of recycled bits and the backing fabric was left over from another project.

I put the zip in first as the fabric could be kept flat, left a couple of inches unzipped while I then went round the seams. Half an hour at most and the cushion was back on the settee looking bright and breezy.