Cleaning My Woollens

I have been slowly eliminating synthetics from my wardrobe for the past few years, while at the same time developing an even keener appreciation for wool, magical fibre of wondrousness.

A lot of people think of wool clothing as difficult to launder, but this isn't true. Wool, being originally created to cover an animal, is also constructed to naturally shed dirt. So, a lot can be done just with a natural-bristle brush and maybe the odd mist of water from a spray bottle. If you've been sweating in it, a little cool water and an hour or so hung in a breezy spot will take any unpleasantness right out.

My favourite way to clean my woollens is to hang them outside - dry - on a windy day. This time of year is perfect - damp air and constant breeze make every day a laundry day. And if it should come on to rain while your stuff is hanging outside, all the better. Just make sure it's dry before you fold it and put it away, and you'll be golden.

The camera did some weird things on this shot.

Another great thing about this method is that it really discourages moth activity in your house. Moths like to be left alone in a dark, undisturbed corner to sleep in their little flossy cocoons, and then to emerge hungry and munch on your wool. The more you can get your wool outside and moving around - and here I'm referring to yardage, too, if you're a knitter or a sewist - the less appealing it will be to moths.

I left my four sweaters, three skirts, and my husband's suit jacket out for around three hours in a cracking wind. By the time I brought them back in, my arms were full of clean, cold, and almost unbearably fresh-smelling wool. No chemicals, no washing machines, no detergents, no dry-cleaning bill. The next time I see a good windstorm brewing, I'm going to run four wool blankets and two duvets out on the line.

SNIIIIIIFFFFFFFF ----- ahhhhh!

Thanks, sheep!

You're wonderful, and marvellous, and special.

You people are the loveliest! Thanks to you, my daughters both met their fundraising goals in ONE day! Thank you so, so much. They just couldn't believe you'd do that for them. They were so amazed and happy, they were inspired to spend this past Saturday at a local gourmet shop, owned by a friend, with pamphlets and a donation jar. Apparently my youngest daughter, 7 years old, was walking up to people, as bold as brass, and saying "Hi there! Do you know that the Newfoundland Pine Marten needs our help?" I wasn't there but I hear it was a marvel.

And, they raised another $80!

So, thank you all again for your wonderful gifts. The kids are watching the mail for their "Planet Protector" badges, all because of you.

XO

Does anyone save UGLY animals?

My daughters are really into fundraising. Last week a man came to our door, introduced himself by telling me his name and that he was homeless, and asked if we had any bottles he could have. We loaded him up, and as he left, my daughter, in considerable distress at the thought of him out in the cold all day and all night, said "I'm going to save up and buy him a house." She has $4.97 so far.

At the moment, they are also raising money on behalf of Earth Rangers and their "Bring Back the Wild" campaign to benefit the Nature Conservancy of Canada. They have chosen for their funds raised to go toward habitat preservation for the Newfoundland Pine Marten. They can be very creative in their efforts - in the past they have sold brownies from a stand at the bottom of the driveway (proceeds to the SPCA), they have sold paintings they themselves made (proceeds to themselves), and they have done bottle drives (SPCA, again). This Saturday, we are off to my friend's gourmet food store, where the girls are going to dress up and hawk some homemade cookies in little cello bags: all profits to the Newfoundland Pine Marten via Earth Rangers.

It's a cute little program, where the child can set up a webpage of their own, featuring a little cartoon avatar they can customise, with a fundraising meter to show how close they are to their goal (the oldest has set a goal of $75, and the youngest wanted to go for $500 but upon reflection she set a goal of $75 as well -- she says didn't want to give TOO much to the animals: she'd rather give to humans. Our homeless friend Tom, for example.).

But they aren't doing too well, so far, and since both Tom and the Pine Marten are facing habitat loss, I thought I'd direct you to their fundraising pages in case you wanted to throw $5 their way. They'd be thrilled...so far they each have $10, donated anonymously by their mother. (Keep that on the down-low.)

My oldest daughter's page is here, and my youngest daughter is here.

Thanks in advance!

Down With Synthetics!!

For years I've been lauding the merits of natural fibre. I remember in the early 1990s, trying to find yardage for sewing that had no acrylic, polyester, nylon, and so on.

And NOW look what they've discovered.

Billions of fleece items made from recycled pop bottles don't look quite so good now, huh? It turns out you can run from plastic, but you can't hide. When are they going to just stop making this stuff? The day after Never, I'm thinking. And my poor children, and yours, are going to have to deal with the toxic shit we just keep buying, wearing, and throwing away.

And cancer? I bet cancer is laughing its head off right now.

Earth Day is coming up. It's a good time to make, or renew, a commitment to sustainable, eco-friendly clothing. You should consider it -- for the health of your family, your body, your home and the planet...more or less in that order.

Resurfacing

Argh! What is with the crazy viruses this year? You're sick, you're better, you're sick, you're fine now, Oh Wait, you're sick again.

I think I'm on a Fine day, so I'm online for the first time in a week to remind you about Earth Hour which is on Friday. It's a sad state of affairs when we congratulate ourselves for turning off our lights for one hour a year, but I'm sure Mother Earth is saying to herself, "Beggars can't be choosers". Imagine how different the planet would look if we all habitually did those Fukushima-style rolling blackouts. (Yes, Dave, even I have heard of Fukushima.)

It's no secret that we're reliant on technology. I rail against it, but you should have seen my look of dismay when, mid-scrub, my Oral B Sonic Care toothbrush batteries died. And once I breezily decided I'd try making macaroons without a power mixer - just good old fashioned whisking. I nearly had an apoplexy, and for days I felt like one arm was normal and one was Popeye.

It was humbling. It makes me think the obesity epidemic could be ameliorated just by making everybody do their housework and cooking appliance-free. The nation's arm-jiggle would be gone, certainly.

Longdrew

I finished spinning the Romney - now that I've really got the hang of the longdraw, I can't believe how fast it was. One evening to do the second bobbin, a day to let it rest, and less than an hour to ply.



I ended up with 136 grams of a 12 wraps-per-inch 2-ply, with an estimated 230 meters. This puts into the worsted-weight category, which was a little heavier than I was going for - I was aiming at DK. Still and all, it'll make a nice something-or-other.

I've started spinning the Shetland, now that I'm comfortable with the woollen longdraw, and the other night I filled a bobbin in an awfully short time. I will be spinning and plying this fleece one ball at a time, apparently - using two bobbins of singles onto two bobbins of 2-ply. I had wanted to do a whole bunch of singles before plying, but I've not got the bobbin space for that. I've only got four bobbins for my wheel (I have three Ashford bobbins but they are shorter in the shaft-length so I have to futz about jimmying washers to keep the tension line from hitting the flyer arms as I spin).

No pictures of Shetland singles yet - next time.

Friday I am doing a performance (real, honest-to-goodness, darkened-theatre gala performance) for which a lot of rehearsal with duet partners is necessary, so I might not post again this week.

Might, though.

Today, tomorrow, and Thursday are good days for planting and transplanting. I went to a local charity plant sale last weekend and have been anxiously waiting to put in all the perennials I bought. I also acquired a hazelnut tree for a song (less than $5) because, I think, it has been chomped by a deer while a seedling. The central trunk is cut off about 2" from the ground and the tree has already started branching below this pollard - it'll be interesting to see how it grows in the next few years.

I think I'll do hanging baskets this year - tips? I've worked out that you need to stuff those suckers fuller than full, and feed them like Hansel and Gretel, but any other less well-known wisdom would be very welcome.

I think they'll be full sun.

Well the great, blustery outdoors awaits. Off I go to get dirty.

Today's Earth Day

I thought, in celebration of Earth Day, that it would be neat to try an entire day of no technology. We use it a lot in this house, to the point where we take it for granted and no longer notice that we're using resources not to make our lives better, necessarily, but to use up time we can ill spare. We're doing great so far - we haven't turned on the television, the phone is off the hook, and we haven't touched a comput.......

DAMN IT.

Switch 'em off, flick 'em off, WAAAAY off.

Earth Hour 2009 is scheduled for this Saturday, March 28. It's a one-hour blackout, from 8.30 PM to 9.30 PM local time.

Last year we plunged ourselves into darkness for an hour and wondered why, since it's so easy to do and it saves so much energy, we didn't observe Earth Hour once a week. Life is all about habits, though, and turning off every light in your house for an hour a week (daytime doesn't count) isn't one of them - it takes some remembering.

Anyway, I'll be shutting everything off, computers and all, on Saturday for an hour. You should too.....and you can sign up on the Canadian site and be entered to win a trip to see the Churchill polar bears.

Pin-ups

It's interesting how we humans are so very much creatures of habit. This is true not only in daily things, such as tapping my toothbrush twice against the side of the sink after brushing, or Mr. HalfSoled always having Mini Wheats for breakfast, but also on a larger scale: a seasonal scale. It's like clockwork. Summer winds down into fall, and I start itching to clean out my house. Destash. Donate.

I have a theory, actually, that people in modern Western civilisation suffer from depression, boredom, apathy, and stress partly because they are suffering a conscious disconnect from the natural world, while still being unconsciously affected by it. If we weren't affected by its cycles, or if we were aware of them and embraced them, I think things would go a lot more smoothly for us.

Anyway, this is all to say that I've been mucking out the old HalfSoled stables, and thoroughly enjoying it. (The only problem is that spiders keep creeping in to the piles of stuff I have carefully organised and sorted, and freaking me out.)

The other day I found several cards that I had stashed on top of my bookcase. They had been sent to my children by a lovely kind blogger and I had put them up to avoid damage. I searched for an album to put them in, but to my dismay there was no room for them. What to do?

I don't know what you'd do in this case (I suspect you'd probably go buy another photo album, which would take less than an hour and cost less than ten dollars) but what I did was make my children a bulletin board for their mementos from afar. Here it is:



It's a fairly simple project, and you, too, can have one just like it (possibly not featuring Strawberry Shortcake, but to each his own). All you need is:

- a foam core board about 20" by 30"

- lightweight cotton fabric, 45" wide, approximately 1 meter

- batting cut to the same size as your foam board (I used Thinsulate because that's all I had)

- about 6 meters of 5/8" grosgrain ribbon

- hot glue

- $2,500 sewing machine to make pretty hearts. Totally worth it!


This project gives me major destashing points. I had all these things lying around, with the sole exception of the grosgrain ribbon which I bought for $0.75 per meter at a poorly lit Fabricland while REO Speedwagon serenaded me tinnily from a small radio sporting a huge, cornea-threatening antenna. (After all these years they still can't fight that feeling, in case you were wondering.)

Lay the foam board face down on the wrong side of the fabric, and trace around it. Add 2-3" on each side for wrapping and glueing, and cut out.

Baste the batting to the base fabric, keeping in the lines you marked in step 1.

Cut a pocket piece 2" longer than the base fabric, and about 8" wide. Mark the centres (by folding fabric in half) of both pieces, and then the quarters (by folding in half again).

Hem the top edge of the pocket, and lay the grosgrain ribbon along it. Stitch along both long edges of ribbon. Embellish with your very expensive sewing machine.



Lay ribbon across base fabric in a cross-hatch pattern, pinning at junctions.



Use costly sewing machine to make little embroidered hearts at junctions, to tack them down and look oh, so pretty.



Pin pocket to bottom of base fabric, matching centres, quarters, and edges, and pleating extra fullness into pocket edges as needed. Baste. Tie off all threads. Press whole shebang.

Lay fabric face down on table, place foam core board atop it. Hot glue around the back edge, wrapping the fabric tightly around the foam board as you go, to stretch the ribbons on the front. Trim and miter corners.

Turn over to admire your work and realise you've forgotten hangers. Crochet some chains and with difficulty hand-sew them to the back of the fabric, cursing yourself for doing such a very thorough job of hot-glueing.

Hang on a wall, preferably with a level.

Adorn with lovely postcards from Denmark, if you're lucky enough to have some, and if not then make do with a few woebegone photos of your family standing in front of the Grist Mill, or sitting under an orange tarp as rain hammers the campsite.


And when the craze sweeps the continent, you can say you saw it here first.

I hardly know what to say

Dear Criminal Who Stole My Bike:

I hate you.

Sincerely,
Shannon


Dear Asshat BikeThief:

You hurt my feelings and almost made me cry.

From Shannon


Dear Parasite:

I hope the bad juju from my STOLEN saddle gives you hemorrhoids.

Shannon


Dear Lazy SOB:

Get a job and buy your own bike like I had to do.

Shannon


Dear Poo Stain:

I hate you for swiping my bike and forcing me to drive my car for every stupid errand I ever have to run, and hence to get fat.

Shannon


Dear Stupid Idiot:

If I ever see you riding my bike I am going to walk straight over and feed you a knuckle sandwich so hard you will be crapping teeth for a month.

Shannon


Dear Cancerous Polyp on the Anus of Humanity:

I hope no one ever knits you anything as long as you live.

Shannon

New Happy Place

I spent this past weekend camping with my daughters, along with my cousin and her two girls, at a lake in the mountains about forty minutes from town. It was a sun-drenched, lazy-water weekend with long, hot afternoons and just the right amount of breeze. I took some pictures for you. (Click 'em - you'll be glad you did.)




I love how the lakes around here are all the same - deep, cold, clean, with conifers right slap up to the edge. It was a bit crowded, though: there were four other families enjoying this lake on the same day we were there - a Saturday. It was hard to get along sometimes, but we managed not to step on each other's feet too often.


I'm being facetious.






Here's where I realised I was not capturing the feel of the day and the lure of the water, so I shifted my perspective a bit. I put my camera in mortal danger for you all




but decided it was worth it.


<

This is such a cool spot. On the left of the above picture you can see there is a narrow channel (it's about 8 meters wide) between the mainland and the sandy beach of an island. The children could easily cross this little land bridge - it was covered by only about 70 centimeters of water.



We took the girls up to one of the boat-in sites we could see from the beach - it was vacant but I promise you, at this time next year it won't be. (I'm looking at you, Mark. I'll bring the Hermann's.) This was one of the most beautiful places I've ever been - looking down on the bay in which we'd just been swimming.





There - you can clearly see the little neck of water between the island and the mainland.





It was hard to get a smile - everybody was hot and thirsty by now.





And here they are, happy and tired. They're smiling now because I am holding up two golden marshmallows on a stick.

Pepsi and a Top Dog, and a spot out of the smoke...doesn't get any better than that...even if you DO have a gigantic mosquito bite on your leg.

-------------------------------------

I have finished Drifting, and will show you blocking pictures tomorrow. It's beautiful. I'm seaming right now but have yet to pick out buttons. Maybe I'll get to that tomorrow as well.

Plunge Right In

Erudite Mondays at HalfSoled Boots

Volume 4, Number 2

Planet Ocean

Laurent Ballista and Pierre Descamp

I saw the girls reading this (again) the other day, so I thought I'd peer over their shoulders and give you a little glimpse of this amazing book.

As a homeschooling mum I am always on the lookout for interesting resources. I don't really believe in limiting a child by their age level - that is, not giving them a book just because it is above their current comprehension or reading level. Content - that's another matter. I wouldn't hand Charlotte The Catcher in the Rye, for instance, or Dracula.

My kids have been glued to this book ever since it arrived, and they still haven't discovered everything in it. It's not directed to children, so the text is advanced and there is no attempt to make the science easier for young readers. This makes it a good challenge for the kids, and also means they get worn out fairly soon while reading it...there's a lot of information for a young mind to sort through.

The volume is over-sized, as a coffee-table book should be. The photographs are stunning - you can really count on National Geographic, can't you?

The coolest thing about this book are the photo captions. These contain the name of the animal, the location they were photographed, and the actual size. It's amazing to see some intimidating spiny crab with huge jaws, and then to read that the actual size is 5/8".

If you want to be smarter, read this book. Here is the chapter list:

The Ocean - That Great Unknown

The Undersea Prairies

The Polar Oceans

The Undersea Plains

The Undersea Forests

The Undersea Mountains

The Oases of the Open Ocean

The Coral Reefs

The Law of the Strongest

Adapting to Their Environment

The Love Life of Marine Animals

Living Together

The Indispensable Oceans

There is a heavy focus on sustainability in the face of the human population explosion, and the effects of human consumption on the world's ocean ecosystems. It doesn't hit you over the head, though - it shows you the breathtaking photos, tells you about symbiosis, describes the changing chemistry of water. You can't help but reach your own conclusions.

Every so often there is a two-page spread of text entitled "The Expert's Opinion", on such subjects as "Arctic Ecosystems", "Sustainable Fishing: The Great Challenge", "Coral Reefs: A Precious Asset in Peril", or "Tourism and Marine Biodiversity".

If you get a chance to look through this book, take it. It's a beautiful and challenging volume - in a jaded world there is still an entirely different, strange and wonderful planet to discover.

HalfSoledBoots Highly Specialised Book Rating System

Planet Ocean gets

Reread - Constantly

Given to Others - I won't let it out of my house but I push it on everyone who comes here

Bookplate - Yes

3/3

Reclamation is a beautiful thing.

I've been waiting to show you this FO for a while now, but the weather wasn't right for taking pictures, and I didn't have a photographer. This morning I decided, to heck with a photographer, I would ask my six-year-old daughter to take the photos.

Salvage Skirt

Pattern: None. Method suggested by Threads number 120, September 2005. Yoke adapted from Burda 8677.

Materials:

Invisible zipper

Cotton flower trim

Fabric strips:

-silk charmeuse

-Josef Otten cotton lawn

-silk satin

-polyester satin

-polyester double georgette

Yoke:

-Josef Otten cotton

I read this article when the magazine first came out. I liked the idea and started planning the skirt right away. Instead of buying meters of new fabric for it, I decided to cut up some finished garments that didn't fit or didn't look as nice as I thought they would.

Reclaiming fabric is a nice idea, but it can be time consuming, depending on the garment you're recycling. If the piece has a lot of seams, you might have trouble finding a long enough portion to make a workable strip.

This, like most other sewing, is a slightly space-intensive undertaking. All together, when I had all the strips cut, laid out, and sewn together along their long edges, the total length was 167". All that length had to be pressed, serged, pressed again, hemmed, pleated, and sewn to the yoke.

The magazine does not call for a separate, fabric yoke. According to the directions, you make a yoke, shaped to your waist-to-hip, out of fusible interfacing. You then pleat the skirt directly onto that - using the iron to press the pleats in place as you fuse them to the skirt. Then you free-form quilt all along the interfaced yoke to secure the free edges of the pleats. Insert a zipper, and you're done.

I didn't like the finished look of the piece as given. The pleats look a little random and messy to me - and I thought it would likely be unflattering to have them extend right up to the waist. I have no hips to speak of as it is, and the vertical lines would have eliminated what shape I have.

In order to create the illusion of a difference between my waist and my hip, I made a standard, shaped yoke out of a fabric that matched part of the skirt. For this I used my favourite yoke - from Burda 8677. I adjusted the length so that the seamline between the yoke and the fall would be exactly on the fullest part of my hip. I also fitted the seamline so that it would be quite a bit bigger than my actual hip, counting on the fullness of the pleated strips to hold it away from my body. To emphasise the seamline and broaden the hip a bit more, I added the flower trim.

I like how this turned out. Those 167 inches of skirt, when pleated in, really add a lot of swing. The fabrics are all light and flowy, as well, which captures motion beautifully. I don't know if you can tell from the pictures, but this skirt is full of light and drape.

The fabrics have various degrees of opacity, with some of them being very sheer indeed - this allows for an interesting play of light and shadow in the finished piece, while the pleats at the top take away any revealing glimpses that might otherwise result.

I think my favourite part of this skirt is the fact that it's recycled. I reclaimed fabric from a long, waistless sundress I hardly ever wore, a silk slip I made before I was married, two skirts that no longer fit me, and the lining from a skirt whose outside was so full of pulls as to be unwearable. The rest of the necessary strips I made from stash fabric that no longer appealed to me as they once had.

I would make this again. Happily, having worked through the method once, it'll be a lot simpler next time. But for now I'm out of garments to cut up, so I'd have to buy fabric for the next one. You could really go as expensive or as cheap as you wanted - or a mixture of the two. You could use silks, if you like, or you could use poly. There are always some very pretty peau de soie fabrics out for summer, which would look lovely interspersed with gauze or voile.

Why bother reinventing the wheel?

I was going to talk about the subject of biofuel, but instead of droning on in a boring and wordy fashion like I probably would, I will simply ask everybody to go read this, please.

Edit:
I should clarify that I disagree with Grandad that Global Warming is a myth. However, I do applaud his observations on the growing of biofuel and the impact it will have on world hunger. My problem with biofuel is not that it is based on a 'half-baked' theory of Global Warming, but that it is a monumentally selfish reaction to the problem of dwindling oil reserves. It's a response intended to keep the western standard of living more or less status quo. "Instead of forcing people out of their cars, let's just burn up a DIFFERENT resource!"

See? Wordy and boring.

And Something from Ovid Here.

The weekend was packed with energy and action - lots of things happened. Some of them I'll get to another time, but can I draw your attention to my very impressive, brand-new, raised vegetable bed?


The reason it's impressive is, I made it yesterday with all recycled materials. I went into the gloom of the shed and dragged things around, unearthing clay pots and pressure-treated beams that have lain forgotten for years before we even moved in. They provided excellent habitat for enormous spiders and wintering bumblebees, but it was time they were used for a greater purpose.



It's a small beginning. When we moved in here a few years ago, I tried to grow vegetables. I failed spectacularly, harvesting a miserable, terrified collection of anemic spinach and pale, stunted carrots.

I think it was the soil.

So this year, I started from the very bottom. I cut down and removed three inches of sod, laid a black weed barrier, boarded off the (small) area, and am going to fill it with a mixture of compost, some of the soil from the original garden, and Sea Soil. I do have to buy the compost, but it won't take much to fill this 2 meter by 1 meter bed.

I am not much of a vegetable grower, being more interested in perennials and flowers of all description. But veg gardens are the way of the future as well as the past, because as gas prices go, so go food prices.

By the way, we are at $1.26 per liter now ($5.04/gallon). I admit I gloat a little bit, as smugly triumphant as only a busser and a walker and a rider can be, when I hear people grumbling about how much it costs to fill up their Escalade. I am quite keen to see what happens this summer when it reaches the predicted $1.50 per liter and hits these complacent consumers right in the wallet.

Look what else happened this weekend.

Before:


After:



Some small person at the BC Children's Cancer Ward is in serious luck (for a change).

A Gesture of Goodwill Toward the Planet

I'm spending tomorrow night in the dark. Care to join me?

Saturday, March 29 from 8:00 to 9:00 PM, turn off your lights for Earth Hour.

Someone’s in the kitchen with Dyyye-NAH.

We went for a drive today. We went here and here and stopped to walk around here for a bit. On the way there I did one of these, and on the way back I did the other one.

Above was the post I originally wrote. I think I was going for succinct (though links would have been provided) but ended up just sounding tired and thought I should rework it.

I've been working in the garden, meditating on the teachings of St Alsatius, watching Buffy by night, and planning my spring knitting. Things calmed down a bit in the last few days but right now my oldest daughter has an attitude that would curl your liver. I thought we're about 9 years early for this kind of crap, but apparently 6 year olds are known for it. So I will trudge on, hoping desperately that it's a phase that will pass, and in the meantime flexing my disciplinarian muscles. I have developed several strategies for causing her various degrees of pain and anguish depending on the severity of the offense, so as to avoid having to come up with something on the spur of the moment and, as likely as not, ending up either yelling at her until we both burst into tears (been there, done that, resolved never to go back, but went back so many times I ended up with a frequent customer punch card) or taking away all her toys FOREVER.

By the way, GREAT sentence structure there.

So we are dealing with the six year old. Then there's the saintly almost-4 year old, who has cultivated this lovely nice-as-pie expression which she uses as she's cooing to me "Whatever you say Mummy". She might as well just say "I'm the good daughter" because that's exactly what she means. She puts on this toddlerised smile and cavorts around, pretending to be all innocent and daisy-chain-making, and though she's not fooling me, her poor sister grinds her teeth into a fine grit watching this display of disingenuousness.

Anyway, between the two of them I feel like my mental faculties are always on the brink of mutiny. One of these days I will answer the door wearing a tinfoil hat, playing a paper banjo and chewing on my own hair.

So, this drive. We went to look at the teensy doggies!! And may I say, they have NO RIGHT to be that cute. They wooed me. They chewed on my fingers and lost their footing on my lap and fell asleep with their noses in the crook of my elbow. They did not wee on my jeans (no doubt they've planned that for later).

We left my daughter's cotton rag quilt with the breeder. She will put it into the puppies' kennel for the next month and on April 20, we can go pick up puppy and blankie and bring them both home. It was tricky talking to her and bringing the blanket in and whatnot without alerting my children to our plans (as far as they knew, this was just a friend of ours that offered to let us look at her puppies), but they were luckily absorbed enough in the dogs that they weren't listening too closely to the adults. I didn't manage to get any pictures for you, but there will be plenty after April 20.

On the way to and from, I did this:

This picture makes it look like the baby is half Lilliputian and half Brobdingnagian. I assure you the booties are not so disparate in size as they appear.

Isn't this yarn scrumptious? It's the beautiful Icelandic "Tinkerbell's Wings" colourway that darling Lizbon sent me from Rhinebeck.

We stopped at a place called "Coombs Country Candy and Creamery". I saw the billboard announcing it, then there was one of those highway signs, or whatever, saying "Artisan – Candy". Sounds promising, doesn't it? Well, it was okay, but not fantastic. They were playing this really loud music so you had to almost shout to make yourself heard by the (vacant, barely-civil) girl behind the counter.* But they had a sale where you could get three slabs of fudge for $11. So we got chocolate peanut butter, vanilla, and maple walnut.

The kids wanted an all-day sucker but I'm not such a chump.


We also stopped here. Enjoy the photos (click to embiggen), as well as your first ever (sideways, blurry, distant) glimpse of Mr HSBoots' handsome visage. I have used him as scale for the root system of one of the "Fallen Forest Giants" we passed. (So dubbed by the Forest Service, or maybe Environment, Lands and Parks, or maybe just the dude who writes the text for the nifty signs.)

Boy it's dark in there under the canopy.

This tree is practically roaring "Clumsy Ox come home!"

Where's Waldo?

Too bad I can't provide scale for this fallen tree. I can only tell you it is HUGE. Like, I don't know, maybe a hundred or so meters long? Dunno. HUGE.

Duh.

"...opened the forest". I like that.

I'll be back soonish. I just realized tomorrow is Monday, and if I can dredge up a book review I'll post it. I'm sure you'll understand if I don't get around to it though….I might be busy cutting out my banjo.

*Note: I have bad luck with these candy-counter girls, don't I?

Thrift is Better than an Annuity

I found out about Wardrobe Refashion 2008 from Mel at Pipe Dreams and Purling Plans. It's a simple idea for reducing my consumerism and environmental impact: recycle, renovate, repair and create my wardrobe this year, without buying new clothes.

I will be spending today on the mending/finishing basket. One day won't cut it.......uh, especially if I stop to blog about it......but at least it's a start. And, if you've ever wondered how exactly you're supposed to patch a pair of jeans, wonder no longer.

You'll need medium or heavyweight fusible interfacing, scrap fabric (preferably the same fibre content as your garment, and pre-shrunk), an iron, pins or Stitch Witchery (fusible adhesive webbing), a sharp needle and thread. Once you have these things around, by the way, you won't need to buy them for a long time. Just get a half meter of both interfacing and quilting cotton - it'll last you quite a while and only cost a few dollars. If you prefer a heavier fabric, such as denim, you can skip the interfacing stage altogether. You can also cut patches out of worn out clothing - choose the less-worn bits, of course.

Fusible interfacing and quilting cotton.

Step One - Create a Patch.

Fuse a section of interfacing onto the back of the fabric, making sure it's on-grain, if you're using a woven interfacing.

Cut out your desired shape from the now-interfaced fabric (I used a sheep cookie cutter and an extra-fine Sharpie).

You can use any shape, keeping in mind that one with lots of points, such as a star, will start to show wear around the edges very quickly.

Now you have a patch - or, I suppose, you could always buy one from a fabric store. But it won't be nearly as interesting or satisfying, I'd wager.

Step Two - Baste the Patch.

You need to hold your patch in place while you sew it on. There are two ways to do this: you can use pins (and caution while sewing) or you can use fusible webbing. My mum calls this stuff "Stitch Witchery", which I think was a brand name back in the day. It comes in a roll from which you can snip off bits of the length you need.

Position the patch where you'd like it, with the Stitch Witchery underneath, completely covered by the patch - you don't want this stuff stuck to the soleplate of your iron.

Fusible web on the bottom - patch on the top.

Press, without steam and for a fairly long time. Use the appropriate setting for the fabric you're patching. The heat has to get right through the double-thickness of the patch, so test it by lifting up on the patch a little bit to see whether it's fused. It doesn't have to be solid as a rock - you're just trying to keep the thing in place while you hand-stitch it.

Fusing the patch to the jeans.

Or you could do it the old-fashioned way.

Step Three - Sew the Patch.

Hand-sewing is getting to be a lost art, as everyone knows. If you're not in the habit of mending, darning, reattaching buttons, and so on, you might have to practice a bit before you really get the hang of it.

For today's patches I used blanket stitch. I like the look of it on this patch fabric.

Here's a good photo tutorial for blanket stitch.

Working from LEFT to RIGHT, (though I hold my fabric so as to make it TOP to BOTTOM) bring needle out at point A (outer edge). Insert at point B (adjusting spacing as desired - I spaced mine about a millimeter apart), then with thread below the needle, come out at point C directly below. Repeat, noting that point C now becomes point A for the following stitch. Make sure your spaces are even - unless you want them uneven.

Taking the stitch - note thread is below needle tip (also note I did this one right to left - don't let it bring you down).


Drawing the loop smaller.

Pulling the thread tight, ready to take another stitch.

Here are a pair of finished patches on Charlotte's favourite jeans. These hearts had to be a bit on the big side, which brings me to my final note: Patch 'em as soon as they need it. Apparently it's true that a stitch in time saves nine.