Coping with Crochet

I stayed busy in December.  I was a Crafty Mama, in fact.  I was not a Bloggin' Mama.  The next few posts will probably feature little crafty thingies whipped up between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Hmmm...maybe next year I can just re-post those posts if I get overly December-busy and unable to put words or pictures to blog...

First up, Coping with Crochet! 

I use crochet to cope with waiting time when reading would take too much concentration - like at Gymnastics practice!  

I love making a Super Star Baby Afghan.   Mikey showed me how:  Super Star Baby Afghan.  I wish I'd found his videos back when I first started reteaching myself to crochet.  He shows so clearly what he is doing.  Of course, some of my confusion may have stemmed from misunderstood terminology.  Did you know that USA crochet and UK crochet have different definitions for "single crochet" and "double crochet"? Live and learn...

The first one I made is hot pink, blue, and green,  all Caron Simply Soft yarn.   

 

 

The second, one made for a new great-nephew, is white, blue and green, also Caron Simply Soft yarn.  You can make these any size - just keep going round and round and round until you think it's big enough or you run out of yarn.  I made both these car-seat baby-lap-blanket size.   

They were so much fun!  As I worked on them at Gymnastics, piano lessons, Science club, they always attract attention - they are just so cute!  Seeing these pictures makes me want to get another one started - maybe I'll use this week's Hobby Lobby coupon for another skein of yarn.

Recycled T-shirts party

This post was 2 months in the making - she has been 11 for a while!

Being a child of the 70's and a sewist (there's a reason we don't call ourselves "sewers"), I have always loved recycling denim.  But these days the hottest recycled clothing trend has got to be recycling and up-cycling T-shirts. 

This year for Earthgirl's 11th birthday party, we jumped into the fun with a T-shirt recycling party.  She grabbed the idea from the September/October 2011 issue of American Girls magazine.  You can find recycled T-shirt ideas from all over the internet.  Take a look here and here,  for example.  I found bunches and bunches of ideas for the future - for example, I'd love to make one (or 15!) of these recycled T necklace/scarves.

Now if one is inviting 14 girls over, and 2 of your projects take a T-shirt apiece, you gotta have lots of Ts!  Our big crafts, requiring a T-shirt apiece per girl, were the fringed scarf and the big T-shirt bag. We invited the girls to bring Ts with them, but knew we wanted to provide plenty.

For several weeks ahead, Earthgirl and I hit a couple of local thrift stores, one which exists to support a local church's international missions; the other to support Hospice.  We like spending our $$ where they do some good works, too!   We snapped up Ts at an average price of about 40 cents.  We looked for colors we liked, designs we thought would look good on a bag, and the right sizes to make bags and scarves (bags can be any size, but a XXL makes a humongous bag, whereas a sturdy size small or child-size makes a nice bag, and our scarves worked best with child-sized, soft, lightweight Ts).

Recycled T-shirt Scarves:
For our scarves, the girls cut off the hem and cut across under the sleeves, leaving a wide tube of fabric.  They fringe-cut both sides, then pulled on the fringes to make them curl up. 

The best-looking scarves had really skinny fringe - but the trick is to cut it skinny enough, but not so skinny that it tears when you stretch it.  This red scarf had the prettiest fringing of all the scarves.

 

The result is a fringy cowl-type scarf.  If you use a T as big or bigger than your own size, the cowl can be doubled.  If you use a little preschooler-size T, you get a once-around-your-neck scarf.

And then, of course, you cannot resist playing with the leftovers.  Lots of braided headbands, bracelets, anklets appeared!

 

The scarves also double as hula skirts.

Recycled T-shirt Bags:
Our big T-bags were made simply - cut out the sleeves and along the neckline, leaving something that looks like a tank top.  Check to see that it fits over your shoulder.  Good.  Now, if you want a plain-bottom bag, turn the T inside out, and sew up the bottom.  The cutest bags were sewn with a curve.  If you want a fringe-bottom bag, cut off the T's hem, and sew up the bottom, leaving a 2-3" seam.  Trim the seam in to a fringe. Pull the fringes to make them curl, and you're done! 

In all the excitement, I did not snap 1 picture of any girl with a bag.  This one is taken weeks later.

 

Magic Mason Jar

{edited to add:  now I have tried this and it works great!  I just run the blender on low speed, because somehow those whirring blades and the glass make me kind of nervous.}

I don't have a Magic Bullet or other single-serving-type blender.  But I do have a ca. 1984 Hamilton Beach blender and a selection of Mason jars. actually, I think mine are mostly Ball canning jars.  According to Real Simple I can use my jars on the actual blender! 

This would maybe save a step of clean-up, so I think I will try it soon.  Of course, I will have to think through the entry/exit - I turn the blender upside down?  That save-a-step clean-up may turn into a well-the-whole-kitchen-needed-cleaning-up-anyway scenario!  Whatdya think?

The old blender layered up with ingredients for Russian Tea

More of 17 - Big Summer Project

My BIG project for this summer was to paint most of our pulled-together-from-here-there-and-hand-me-down bedroom furniture the same color - a warm, distressed black was my plan.  I never listed this project on a published blog post, but it is one of the 17 projects - OK, it was one of maybe 35 projects swirling around in my head. 

After
Once I started painting, I realized I did not get before pics of everything, so I'll just have to describe the "befores" for the most part.


I don't have "befores" for the 2 little chests, but the one on the left was an unfinished piece originally planned for Earthgirl's room.  She now has a bigger chest of drawers (one my parents started housekeeping with over 50 years ago!), because she is a T-shirt clothes horse.  The chest on the right used to be in Nanny's sewing room.  It originated in the 70s, maybe even the 60s, and sported a home finish of reddish-brown stain, maybe oak?


The "before" headboard was a pickled-look finish veneer headboard.  My Mama picked it up at a second-hand store for her guest house, and I traded my brass headboard for it.  (The very plain very 1980s brass headboard, purchased when a store was closing,  was always supposed to be for just a little while, but we slept against it for about 17 years.) 

See what I mean about the furniture being second-hand-and-hand-me-down?

Headboard before:

The shelf is part of a 3-piece entertainment center, a Sauder piece, in a similar pickled look to the headboard.  The entertainment center was our family Christmas gift around 1995.  We put it together ourselves. 

The headboard, the 2 chests of drawers, the cedar chest, and the bookshelf are painted with Annie Sloan chalk paint, in Graphite, then distressed and waxed with both dark and clear wax. The inside color of the shelves is Chateau.  All the new drawer and door knobs came from Hobby Lobby, and are a purposely eclectic mix.

This chest started as an old, plain, not valuable cedar chest from Nanny's closet.  Daddy says he thinks the FFA boys made it in shop and sold it as a fundraiser, maybe back in the 60s?

Cedar chest before:

The doodad on front of the cedar chest also came from Hobby Lobby.

It add a little something, doesn't it?

Ahhh...Honey, we're home!

More of 17 - Buffing the Buffet

Christmas 2005

My buffet is the bottom portion of a hutch handed down from my mother-in-law. They had it made about 45 years ago, when they lived in a nice old house with hardly any storage space. 

We've had it for 6 years.  When we first hauled it home, we thought we'd paint or refinish it immediately, but once we put it in place, it looked OK, and we decided to live with it for awhile as is.  Or as was?

I took these pics back then to show Mom how good it looked with the reindeer she gave me.  Isn't he elegant?  Since the hutch really had some beat-upped-ness to it, I usually kept some kind of cover on top.

Christmas 2005

But finally the time has come to make it my own, now that I have some cool Annie Sloan chalk paint that can be painted right over almost anything without stripping or priming!

I painted the buffet inside and out  in Chateau Grey, a soft gray-green. ( I also painted the back in some leftover dark gray latex so that all the outer wood would be sealed.  ("wood would," clever, huh?) I painted inside, too, because the hutch had lived for a few years in the basement where some flooding has occurred, and it still had a bit of that mustiness that would not go away.  It's gone now!

 We have 2 pieces of furniture from the sixties that have 60s-type wood paneling used as a backing and drawer sides.  I guess it just made for good wood scraps.

Then the real fun began.  I clear-waxed it, then dark-waxed and wiped off, waited overnight, then buffed until my shoulders hurt.  I rewaxed the top just for some extra protection. 

And here is my "new" buffet.

More of the 17 - Birds

I've been painting away - a chest, a buffet, a chair, but the finished, buffed, and photographed projects are the little starter projects.

I decorate with birds all over the house.  I think there may be a bird or birds in every room. 

After I painted my first blue frame (see 1-2 posts down), I had this nervous paintbrush wanting to spread the pretty Annie Sloan Provence color paint...and I had these 4 birds.  They have always travelled as two pairs.  Sometimes one pair has been on the back porch while the other pair fluttered on a bookshelf.  Most recently, one pair perches at my bedside while the other pair makes its home in my bathroom on the way too big "plant shelf." 

 

Before birds:

A pair of birds in blue?...happiness!

After birds:  the one on left is finished, while the one on right only had paint, and is still waiting for a coat of clear wax, then dark wax, then a rub-off and buff.

The finish, both color and texture remind me a bit of McCoy pottery. 

First of 17

OK, maybe I did not really get 17 projects done this summer, but I did accomplish a few crafty, sewy, cook-y, painty things. Actually, by the time I toss in some sewing for friends, I may have more than 17 projects.  Here are a couple of the 17-ers:

A Red Front Door!

This was our Independence Day weekend project. I have hesitated to paint the door a color (it was white) because of the glass insert with internal white blinds.  I thought it might look funny.  But we went for it, and I am glad.  I can hardly wait for Christmas and the hanging of a bright Christmasy green and red wreath!

By the way, this door with the miniblind inserts was here when we bought the house.  At first, I did not care for it - not my decorating style.  But this type door is very easy to live with.  I can let light in, just as much as I want, and the blinds stay clean.

...and a patriotic wreath!

I got the idea from Landee See Landee Do.  I didn't like mine as well as hers, and when I looked back, I realized she had some solid color ribbon and paper, too, and it broke up the business of the patterns.  But I did not want to take anything apart, and now the little fireworks wreath is growing on me.

more to come...

Ouch! Ouch! Blueberry!

Sorry...no pretty picture...

Growing up on the farm, we always made jam, jelly, and preserves during the summer.  Blackberries, plums, figs, pears, peaches, and even  watermelon rinds processed their way through the kitchen into jars and jars of homemade treats.  I never remember working with blueberries, though.  In fact, I'm not sure if I ever tasted a fresh blueberry until I was grown.  (I think Mama planted a couple of blueberry bushes once, but if I remember correctly, they came to a sad end before yielding fruit).  Now I find blueberries readily available, and love eating them on cereal, with yogurt, on salads, and in cobblers.

Today for the very first time I made blueberry jam using this recipe for blueberry jam from A Few Shortcuts.  This recipe made 3 half-pints and almost 1 other pint, and it was REALLY, REALLY easy.  (When I used this recipe, just to remind myself, I checked out general canning procedures at "Canning-the Musical" on Southern Plate.)  Now we just have to see if one of the jars refuse to seal.  That's the one we claim for home.  The others can be gifts. 

Yummmmmm. I'm sipping some iced tea to sooth my tongue, 'cause it was SO-ooo good that I burnt my tongue but good tasting it.

Here would be just the place to insert a picture of the little stash of jam, but my camera is AWOL.  I know it 's at the bottom of one of my bags and bins of craft supplies and flotsam left over from gymnastics camp crafts, part 2, which I have not blogged about at the Sm'Arties blog because, well, no pictures.  When I last saw camera, we were at the gym, the camera had escaped its little pouch, and was spotted with Mod Podge and a little paint. 

More on the Wall

an update on my April 1 post

The scrapbook paper wall art, mounted on 12"x12" canvases (I trimmed the paper to about 11.5" square), with blue, green, and charcoal ink smeared around the edges

I need to put that pillow cover on the sewing list - it's still just folded on with 1 safety pin.

--and the girls have taken over the TP roll art!

Here is some of that wall art I was talking about

Making TP roll art is addictive!  

I cut and glued this little piece together in about 15 minutes during the tornado warnings last week.

Spray paint with a little "Hammered" and clear coat, and we are ready to hang.

Pretty good little doodad, huh?

I picked this little metal and canvas piece at Hobby Lobby's 90%-off section. The frame was scratched up.  The sentiment was OK (not my fave...), but the green giraffe-skin background was probably the whole reason it never went home with anyone.

I used a brown acid-free marker to fix the metal frame, painted the canvas black, stencilled on my own sentiment, rubbed a little brown over it to age it, sprayed the canvas part with acrylic clear coat, and hung it up.

 -and you can see the faux metal doodad through the open door.

17 More Projects - Part 3: More wall art

Project ideas are really stacking up in my head.  It would be so much fun to take a week off, just stay home and do fun projects. 

I have an impressive stash of scrapbook paper, thanks to a store closure about 2 years ago. I'd prefer the store to have stayed in business : (  When it's time to make a card or do an album layout, I have the goods, and some of my prettiest papers I bought for pennies.  {At the same store closing I picked up 2 reams of nice-quality 11"x17" plain white paper for $3 total, and Earthgirl, her friends, and all the Sm'Arties have been drawing, coloring, painting, and writing on it for almost 2 years here, here, here. }

I've already done a couple of pieces of scrapbook paper art, hung in the multipurpose room (office, craft, school, home theater), but I want to add some to my bedroom.

The 2 papers in the multipurpose room, mounted on 12' vinyl tiles, Mod-podged.

Scrapbook paper auditioning for the roll of wall art.  Here are the 3 finalists.  The floral fabric is auditioning for the role of pillow cover.  I think it is a shoe-in. And imagine that headboard painted black and distressed...

Here are some places with cool ideas:

Frugal life Project's Wall Art - my original inspiration

Sew Can Do's wall art - another good use of pretty paper

Here's some more from sealed with a Kiss

and more from 31diy: easy peasy wall Art, using frames...

...which reminds me of my friend Science Geek's decor, and here .  She gave me 2 pieces for Christmas:

I love the sentiment on this one.  I love that she gave it to me. She's making the story of my life, too.

...and just when you think you've seen all the cool stuff your wall could take, I run across somethings like this pinwheel art.  ...which reminds me of this recycled magazine gift bow from How About Orange that I intend to make one day.  I've got plenty of magazines...

17 more projects, part 2

I'd like to have some curlicue doodads above a few of my pictures, but don't want to spend much money on it. Well, I don't want to spend ANY money.

Here is a picture hung in my dining room with a metal curlicue doodad over it.  (Were you wondering what the definition of "curlicue doodad" was?)  These little toppers help the look of a rectangular picture hung under a vaulted ceiling.  Like I said, I don't want to spend much on these, so I am looking at some ideas. 

I just found out that curlicue is spelled with a "c" rather than a "q" - curlique.  Thank you, Mr. Spelczek.

I picked up one little piece of metalwork from the 90%-off section at Hobby Lobby - my kinda price tag!  The catch is that an end is broken off.  I think I can recreate the end with a craft stick, Mod Podge papier mache and Rustoleum's hammered-look spray paint.

That will take care of one little picture.  But I want to take care of a BIG picture, so I am looking at some DIY inspiration - a real trash-to-treasures story:

Something like this project from Suzy's sitcom.  Pretty cool, huh?

Or How-To Gal's version.  Her fabric wall art here is simple, and the variety is unlimited. I might have to make one of these, too.
OK, it turns out there are TP roll rescuers all over - I like those wreaths. 

But now THIS TP roll art is just outrageous! - and fascinating!  The tree is delicate and lovely, but the faces are a little creepy, though still fascinating.

Filter out a few good ideas

This treasure trove of ideas comes from an email forwarded from my good friend.  I thought they were too good not to share.  Just this morning I took a few coffee filters and the trusty ol' Windex and took care of the front door and part of the sliding glass door (the part the kitty paws repeatedly to say, "Here I am!  Let me in!"  Since I still have about 100 left over from a now-defunct coffeepot, I have plenty of opportunity to try out some of these ideas. Pretty good suggestions! Better than paper towels and a lot less expensive...   Coffee filters .... Who knew! And you can buy 1,000 at the Dollar Tree for almost nothing even the large ones.  1. Cover bowls or dishes when cooking in the microwave. Coffee filters make excellent covers.    2. Clean windows, mirrors, and chrome... Coffee filters are lint-free so they'll leave windows sparkling. 3.  Protect China by separating your good dishes with a coffee filter between each dish. 4.  Protect a cast-iron skillet. Place a coffee filter in the skillet to absorb moisture and prevent rust. 5.  Apply shoe polish. Ball up a lint-free coffee filter.   6.  Recycle frying oil. After frying, strain oil through a sieve lined with a coffee filter 7.  Weigh chopped foods. Place chopped ingredients in a coffee filter on a kitchen scale.  8. Hold tacos. Coffee filters make convenient wrappers for messy foods.  9.  Stop the soil from leaking out of a plant pot. Line a plant pot with a coffee filter to prevent the soil from going through the drainage holes.  10.  Prevent a Popsicle from dripping. Poke one or two holes as needed in a coffee filter. 11.  Do you think we used expensive strips to wax eyebrows?  Use strips of coffee filters. 12.  Put a few in a plate and put your fried bacon, French fries, chicken fingers, etc on them. It soaks out all the grease..   13.  Keep in the bathroom. They make great "razor nick fixers." 14.   As a sewing backing. Use a filter as an easy-to-tear backing for embroidering or appliqueing soft fabrics. 15.  Put baking soda into a coffee filter and insert into shoes or a closet to absorb or prevent odors. 16.  Use them to strain soup stock and to tie fresh herbs in to put in soups and stews. 17.  Use a coffee filter to prevent spilling when you add fluids to your car. 18.  Use them as a spoon rest while cooking and clean up small counter spills. 19.  Can use to hold dry ingredients when baking or when cutting a piece of fruit or veggies. Saves on having extra bowls to wash. 20.  Use them to wrap Christmas ornaments for storage. 21.  Use them to remove fingernail polish when out of cotton balls. 22.  Use them to sprout seeds. Simply dampen the coffee filter, place seeds inside, fold it and place it into a plastic baggie until they sprout. 23. Use coffee filters as blotting paper for pressed flowers. Place the flowers between two coffee filters and put the coffee filters in phone book...  24.  Use as a disposable "snack bowl" for popcorn, chips, etc.

For the Boys

Nope, I don't have any boys.  Just that one little girlie girl.  And she has lots of little girlie girlfriends.

But she also has friends who are boys.  And I have friends who have boys, nephews (pretty much grown up now), and future boys will be coming along.

I just found these 2 blogs celebrating BOYS this month.  Made By Rae and Made are celebrating boys with their crafts all month.  So far, they and their guest bloggers lean more toward goodies more appropriate for preschool boys, but there is still a lot of month to go!

Now, why didn't I find all these cool craft-and-sewing blogs back when my husband and I were part of the young couples' Sunday School class, and I was going to baby showers every month?

On Task

Last night I started crochetting a scarf to match Earthgirl's new winter jacket.  We picked out the yarn together - a pink and brown variegated.

When I first piped up to say, "I should crochet a pink and brown scarf for your new jacket," I regretted it - if I kept quiet, it could have been a Christmas gift.  But I would have made it pink, brown, and white striped.  When we looked at yarn yesterday, she very much preferred the variegated. I'm glad she is getting something she wants.  I'll probably try to do a hat, too, though the jacket came with a hood and a pink fleece earwarmer-type headband.

 

I worked on it last night, sitting up in bed with my crochet hook. (Side note - does anyone remember the movie "Sweet Liberty"? It wasn't great.  But I remember one of the female leads (not Michelle Phifer, but the other one) sat up in bed quilting.   There were problems with pins and needles.)

I really like the way this yarn works up.  It feels good going through my fingers, and the stitches look neat.   

By about 7, I was up, crochetting with my coffee. Now it is finished, except for blocking. But it's noon - and I am still in my pajamas.  Nope, no picture of that.

I just want to add that we are REJOICING with Crispy and the Peters over God's provision of funds for their next (expensive) step toward bringing home their 2 sons from Ethiopia much sooner than they thought.

Chain-stitching

I had such fun teaching our American Girls club a few crochetting skills last week. (See 2 posts down from here.) We just worked at learning to chain stitch last week. Most of the girls wanted to take their chain stitch samples home. I was delighted at how hard they all worked to learn this new skill. The hardest part to learn? Tying a slip knot at the beginning!

We used Lily Sugar and Cream cotton yarn, and I love it. It's on sale at JoAnn's this week.



Earthgirl gave her sample to her friend who missed out with a broken finger. She's wearing it as a choker. (If you click on the picture, you can see through the glass one of the brothers waiting patiently out in the hall.) Other girls wore them as belts or bracelets. One Mom told me that her daughter went home and chain-stitched an ankle bracelet using a fork!

During home practice with Earthgirl, I made a really long chain, tied the ends, quadrupled it up, and now use it as a headband. It's been a hot summer, and my hair is too short to clip up off my neck, so I have lived in headbands.

Wash Day

Warning: photographs of a laundry appliance below.

These days, I just walk right past the laundry detergent aisle.

I don't even check the laundry detergent coupons.

Yes, I've become one of those Homeschoolin' Mamas who stays at home (most of the time), makes my own bread (some of the time), makes my own clothes (at least some of them), AND the laundry detergent I use to launder them. Pretty domesticated, huh?

It's been a long while coming. When I ordered Fels Naptha laundry soap from Soaps Gone Buy, I read the recipes. I saw write-ups in magazines, on blogs...I knew that one of these days I'd make my own detergent. I read up on making the liquid detergent, and figured I will probably never make that kind. A few weeks ago, I took the plunge with the easiest recipe I've seen, the one from Southern Plate, and we are happy with the results thus far. I mix it up a little at a time (we are a pretty small family, and store it in a soup container from our favorite Chinese food take-out place. {I'm not so domesticated that I can't appreciate good take-out Chinese food. I grew up in the country, and I enjoy a few in-town conveniences}

I was delighted to find all 3 ingredients, including two kinds of laundry soap, stocked on my local Publix supermarket laundry aisle. I guess this trend is catching on. When you use this detergent, it does not make suds, but the clothes are clean.



Here's the method I use:

Homemade Laundry Detergent

1 cup grated laundry soap
1/2 cup washing soda
1/2 cup Borax

Mix together. Use 1/8 cup per load.

The initial batch I made up using the partial bar of Fels Naptha I had. It had been laying open for a long while, and grated up very fine.



The second batch contains some gratings of Fels Naptha and some gratings of Zote soap. Those new bars did not grate into powder, but into sticky shavings, and I have to mix it a little each time I dip it out. Currently, I have the rest of those two bars open in hopes they will season up and grate more finely next time.



A couple of notes:

1) You are supposed to use washing soda, not regular baking soda (I have no idea what the difference is), but when I checked at Walmart, I saw they had stocked large boxes of regular baking soda next to the Borax.

2) I like the smell of the Fels Naptha better than the Zote, though I like both. I understand you can use Ivory soap, too.

3) I don't know how well this works for those with sensitive skin, but I gave a few loads-worth to my SIL, who is married to Mr. Sensitive, and hope to report back on that soon.