More Making

 In looking through my photos from last year I realised I did a lot more innovative cooking (for me that means following new recipes, more or less), read slightly less than in 2020 (which I count as a good thing), and knitted three sweaters for grandchildren. I've shown you one of them, an apple green cardigan for Isla. 

I also made a coral red hoodie for Isla and a blue jumper (pullover sweater) for Struan. These were both challenging makes. The hoodie because I'd not made a hood before and attaching it was interesting; the blue jumper because of a strange 'knit in the stitch below' thing that I never figured out how to correct properly if I made a mistake. This meant taking out several rows instead of just one and re-knitting. Also, the wrap around collar was very short on instructions. Bill seemed to understand them better than I did, perhaps being more familiar with a wrap-around collar. I finished Isla's hoodie right before Christmas, but I was stitching together Struan's jumper in the car, driving up to Edinburgh Christmas Eve! I had to make Bill pull over halfway to have him explain (again) how the collar was to be stitched on. I really don't want to do that last minute stuff again. 

Another thing I made around Christmas time was some little Christmas trees. They were quite fun, if time consuming. Marilyn, from the Linskill Craft Group, shows us all how to make these. She had done a whole bunch and made bunting from them! I just made enough to decorate a few gifts with them. I will try to make more for next year.

I've started knitting another cardigan for Isla from a pattern written as a chart, sort of like a counted cross-stitch chart, only different. I've ended up writing it out row by row, which is very tedious. I'm wondering if everyone does this or if I'm just making work for myself. I can't see following this pattern across a whole row and keeping my sanity. 

Things I've Made

I've fallen down the genealogy rabbit hole again. My cousin, John, in Buffalo NY helped me work out another person to test as being my possible first cousin (once removed). The test will be sent off to Duluth, Minnesota soon and then a daughter from Chicago needs to visit to help set up her mother's account. It will be about a month after it is sent off when I know.... I'm very excited!

I thought I'd post about what I've been making, then realised I've told you about the big thing - Isla's cardigan. It suits her well, if it is a bit big (which is a good thing!). I'd love to show you a photo, but her father - who works in IT - has views about his children's online privacy, so I need to respect that. Sarah shares photos with family and I have to say they are gorgeous. Nothing to do with me, I know, but I feel very lucky to participate. I have a blue sweater / jumper on my needles which hopefully will be ready for Struan by Christmas. I hope to do another cardigan for Isla, the same pattern as before but with a hood on it. Struan's sweater will be BRIGHT blue (he's madly in love with blue just now). I found some coral red for Isla's hoodie and I think it will suit her well. 

One thing I don't think I showed you was the green bag I made for Katie, Simon's wife, last spring. I'd started it a long time ago and just got around to finishing it in time for her April birthday.   (I've clearly lost my mind) bag I made for my lovely friend Pat's 75th birthday. I made it in green and purple (Women's Institute colours) and white (which makes it suffragette colours). It has a pocket on the outside and two inner pockets, one on each side.

The other thing was that I finished the knitted blanket I began 2-3? years ago. I can't begin to say how thrilled I am to be done with it. Knitting patterned squares was a much bigger challenge than I'd expected, and I needed so many of them! in spite of having only made a half-sized blanket. This knitted blanket has obvious errors in it - some of the squares got put in sideways - but I'm not prepared to fix them. I think it just adds to the hippy-dippy 1960s look all the more (a bit more psychedelic, man). 

Then there were loads of leftover bits of yarn from that, which I made into my usual granny square type of throw.

Finally, I've been doing a few Innocent smoothie hats for Struan to play with. These are all the rage just now in my WI Craft Group, but I tend to do the ordinary hats. Much faster and Age UK gets 25pence for each hat whether they are fancy or plain. I'll do fancy for Struan, but not for Age UK. If that makes me mean, so be it.

This is a bird called a 'blue tit'. It took me a
long time to get used to that name.

This pattern is called a 'cheeky monkey'. 'Cheeky' seems to
be a word that refers to mischievous behaviour on the part
of children that is being accepted as 'cute'. 

Mom's Birthday

I'm posting this on the right date, but admit to being rather late on this, which sort or surprises me. If there is any birthdate I'm ready to remember, it's Mom's. But life has been rather busy lately and much of it has had me thinking of her.

I always think of her when I'm sewing, but also when knitting. She taught me knitting and crochet when I was very young - 7 or 8 years old. I remember making a crochet poodle, named Pierre when I was 8. I'm sure I had loads of help. 

I also remember one Christmas in my 20s when she gave me a dozen sweaters she'd knitted for me in the previous year. I was astounded. I'm sad to say I can only recall a few:

a grey cardigan

an oatmeal coloured dolman sleeved sweater (jumper)

3 vests (waistcoats) in baby blue, light pink and purple

short sleeved sweaters (jumpers) in cranberry and another a red

I know I still have the first two and the blue waistcoat up on the attic. I'm sad I can't remember the other five sweaters, perhaps they'll come to me in time. They were all made with acrylic yarn except the dolman sleeved thing which was cotton. They weren't exactly up to date styles either, but I wore them as much as I could. Perhaps the other five were just too unfashionable, I don't recall. I remember the red short sleeved top was a bit scratchy and I wore a cami underneath to make it tolerable to wear.

My roses didn't fare well this year after we ran off to Scotland for a couple of weeks (to see Sarah and her young family) when they most needed dead heading. When I finally tidied them up there wasn't much left. These white roses were hanging down, droopy, so I cut them and put them on the dining table. I didn't know if the buds would bloom, but they did and I've just caught them before they began to drop petals. When thinking about this post I remembered that white roses are a symbol of eternal love. The words 'white rose' are engraved on Mom's wedding ring, which I now wear as mine. 

I've been busy working on a sweater for 3 month old Isla, Bill's newest (and probably last) grandchild. Since her mother, Sarah, has Isla's brother Struan calling me 'Grandma Shelley' and has been quite positive about the idea of my knitting and sewing for her kids, I guess I can say I'm knitting a cardigan for my granddaughter, Isla. It feels a bit weird to say that, but it's lovely at the same time. 

I also managed to crochet a frog for Struan. He named him Gordon. I'm still working on the dinosaur pattern, I may need to consult with some other knitters who managed this one.

I found this pattern on a blog called Oliver Boliver. I can see there is a lot more there to explore.

We had a wonderful weekend, in spite of the rainy weather. We had barbequed chicken, potato salad and carrots and broccoli in the tent, after I toasted/microwaved Struan's dinner: beans on toast. He sat in the motorhome quietly entertaining himself while I cooked dinner, careful to instruct me he needed butter on his toast. 

We had a lovely walk in the woods at Kielder Forest, taking in all the sites and signs. It rained quite hard at one point but as I was very warm and mostly waterproof, I loved it. It wasn't warm rain but it did feel like being a child again and playing in the rain. The raindrops on all the different plants sparkled beautifully after. We walked past the first really dark forest I believe I've ever seen - completely black and impenetrable. Sadly, I didn't think to bring my camera.

Saturday night it was raining so we all crammed into the motorhome - my covid red flags all seemed to have evaporated somehow, but then all the adults are fully vaccinated. We had barbequed ribs, rice and ratatouille (leftover from another meal at home). Sarah and Gareth provided wine and desserts for both meals and I got to 'cook for company' for the first time in ages. 

Struan came back to supervise my making his dinner again Saturday and watched me packing up Sunday morning. It may have been that he enjoyed being in a new space, one without a baby sister, but he let me cuddle him a bit and help him on and off with his waterproofs. I felt wholly honoured by his company. I'm grateful Sarah is a generous woman to give me 'granny rights'. My Mom would be so pleased for me. 

Knitting Fish

 

I can't believe I haven't shown you my knitted fish - it's a herring, to be more specific. Others who have been knitting fish all seem to feel compelled to give them names that begin with H. I must admit I've felt the same pull but have thus far resisted. 

Why on earth might one take up such an activity? We have a local museum, The Old Low Light, which requested that the community do so for an upcoming display about women's work on the Fish Quay. For this they want loads of herring - they don't care what colour - and they provided a pattern and even offer if it was needed.  

At the end of the pattern using the normal wool, the author suggests knitting a fish out of plastic. I'm currently cutting up bags to make 'plarn' (plastic yarn). In the meantime, I stuffed my fish with plastic. I know that some of the members of Tynemouth WI craft group are knitting fish as well as the Age UK knitting group I belong to. The display will be quite interesting, I think, and surely all of us who have contributed will want to see it.

This heritage centre is all about the fishing industry which has played a significant role in this coastal area. Up until Brexit, the North Shields fishers was Europe's main supplier of prawns. I've no idea what has happened to that since given the difficult customs arrangements that delay the delivery of fresh seafood. 

The name Old Low Light refers to a building that formerly was the lower lighthouse. In the old days, ships coming into port needed to line up the high light and the low light in order to navigate safely. The high light is now a private home. 

We are fortunate to live in an area with such rich history - and to be given the opportunity to knit fish!

2021 Stack

Not having a lot to say these days, I thought I'd look at my photos for 'inspiration'. The first photo I took this year was of the books I got for Christmas. Hopefully none are from Amazon, but that's not in my control. I give Bill links to alternative sources and I know he feels much the same as I do about Amazon (or says he does) but I'm not sure where his kids stand. Mind, the presents they sent were all in variations of brown wrapping paper that can be re-cycled, so I'm hopeful.

The second photo is of a present from Helen, a cute idea but not likely to be used. It got a second photo because it has no name on the spine.

The Fashion of Film, Amber Butchart.  I'm a major fan of Amber Butchart and have been for several years now, ever since I stumbled upon the series A Stitch in Time. This book  like some of her others (I hope one day to have them all!) looks at categories of clothing that came out of certain types of films, such as Crime: Dressed to Kill; The Musical: Spectacular Fashion; Historical Epic: Dressed to Excess; Horror: Supernatural Chic; Romantic Drama: Seductive Style; Sci-Fi and Fantasy: Bionic Bodies; Art House and Independent Style with Substance. Unfortunately, I didn't come away with many ideas for clothes I might wish to wear, but there were lovely photos all the same.

The Weekend Crafter - Knitting, Catherine Ham. This is a book I found years ago at a thrift shop and it had several simple knitting patterns I meant to try. Unfortunately I must have loaned it to someone and it never came back. I would run into references to it and finally asked Bill to get me a replacement for Christmas. 

Cooking with Scraps, Lindsay-Jean Hard.  Unlike Hugh Fernley-Whittenstall's Love Your Leftovers, this isn't about mountains of meat but rather scraps of vegetables. Lately the cauliflowers Bill has brought home have been rather puny, more leaves than flowerettes.  However, I now cut off all the enclosing leaves and put them aside, which makes getting at the actual head easier (slides of roasted cauliflower are now a very popular main dish in our hosue). Then I slice off the green curly bits and steam them like I would spring cabbage or spinach. Finally, the white stalks that are left can be cut up into bits like sliced carrots or chopped (with the help of a Pampered Chef tool) finely to make cauliflower rice - a name Bill objected strenuously to until he realised how useful this was.

The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, Gertrude Stein and The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book. Something I can't recall dragged me back into my fascination with the interwar period, perhaps re-reading a Phryne book? I was dismayed to find that neither this biographical work or the cook book were available through my library, so I put them on my wish list. Sarah, Bill's youngest, was asking him what I wanted. I told him to tell her to surprise me with either this book or the cook book and she did surprise me - she gave me both. I've not read either front to back as yet, only dabbled here and there. I've been over run with library books for a while now, but I hope to make them a priority soon. They are very much of their time, but that is what makes them so fascinating. Apparently, Ms. Toklas was so awed by Ms. Stein's writing reputation that she didn't attempt to document her cookery until after the death of Ms. Stein. Can't say I've read any other writing by this august person. 

Alabama Studio Sewing Patterns, Natalie Chanin. I'm not sure this was a great idea. I was keen because I thought it came with a bunch of patterns. It does and it doesn't. The patterns don't work for every one's computer. Bill was thankfully able to make them work after a fashion. However, one either has to understand how to make them into tiles - which means you end up with 40 pages to put together with tape - or to pay for a specialist printer to give you a large pattern. I ended up doing a couple of them with a printer for about £10. So it's not really a great deal. Also, a lot of the patterns have to do with applique by hand, which is sort of their hallmark. Not my cup of tea sadly. I think I was blinded by the coolness of the reputation. I appreciate that if you live near Florence, Alabama, the vast array of 100% cotton jersey fabrics is seductive, but I can't see me paying $30 a yard plus postage and duty. However, I do hope that the patterns will help me to upcycle some of the thrift store sweaters I've acquired over the years.

Threads of Life, Clare Hunter. This was an excellent book that I've read about it elsewhere.

Threads of Life

 I've just finished a book that I found very moving. Threads of Life by Clare Hunter speaks about not just historical sewing but about the experience of women. It's difficult to describe further without quoting long parts. 

I did fold down one page to return to. It lists the textiles Mary Queen of Scots brought with her on her return to Scotland from France:

For her voyage to Scotland Mary had packed ten cloths of estate (the ceremonial cloths which hung above monarchs' thrones emblazoned with their coat of arms), forty-five bed sets, thirty-six Turkish carpets, twenty-three suits of tapestry, eighty-one cushions, twenty-four tablecloths and a variety of embroidered wall hangings. There was her own wardrobe of fifty-eight dresses, thirty-five farthingales (hooped or padded underskirts), several cloaks and shifts, petticoats, stomachers, drawers and coifs. They encompassed thousands of metres of luxurious fabric: embroidered, appliqued, braided, beriribboned, fringed, tessellated and studded with jewels.

Never mind cloths of estate, she had me at fifty-eight dresses. I wonder how many pairs of shoes she brought?

At the end of the book the author lists websites that hold images of some of the things about which she wrote:

Bayeux Museum: https://www.bayeuxmuseum.com/

Conflict Textile Collection: https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/

(https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/conflicttextiles/)

Craftivist Collective:  https://craftivist-collective.com

Embroiderers' Guild: https://embroiderersguild.com

Foundling Museum: https://foundlingmuseum.org.uk

Hunterian Museum: https://gla.ac.uk ( https://www.gla.ac.uk/hunterian/about/video/)

Judy Chicago:  https://www.judychicago.com/

Peace Museum: https://www.peacemuseum.org.uk/ 

(search for textiles)

Peoples' History Museum:  https://phm.org.uk

(banner-display)

Quilt Museum: https://quiltm.org.uk

AKA The Quilters' Guild Museum

(oh, the shop! - and the close ups of items in their collection!)

Sewing Matters: https://sewingmatters.co.uk

(sadly, this is not a secure site?)

Smithsonian Institution: https://si.edu

(search textiles)

National Museum of African American History and Culture:  https://nmaahc.si.edu

Textile Society: https://textilesocoety.org.uk

Victoria and Albert Museum: https://vam.ac.uk

Visual Arts Data Service: https://vads.ac.uk

(search for textiles and enjoy the amazing close up views)

Sewing a Bit

 My WI Craft group has motivated me to sew where little else has. In the good old days we met each month and I would have a teacher lined up to show people embroidery, needle-felting, patchwork, making wax wraps, all sorts of things. We each would take a turn demonstrating something we knew how to do. I think those are the best groups - where everyone participates, giving and taking in turn.

We still meet each month, but on Zoom. Since the technicalities of demonstrating a craft on Zoom are beyond what most of us have the patience for, we've each been released to do our own thing. Eventually we decided to have a theme for each month, with each of us making an interpretation of that - or not. It has yielded some fascinating results. 

Our theme for January was 'snow'. I couldn't come up with anything but 'make something white' which turned out to be a cross body bag from white scraps. I'm not happy with the finished product: it's too wide and the strap is too narrow. So it's likely not finished but just at a resting point.

Our theme for February was 'red', for George Washington's birthday (cherries), the Chinese New Year (red is an auspicious colour in that culture) and of course Valentine's Day. So I made yet another tote bag. 

I can remember where quite of bit of these fabrics originated. Some belonged to Rita. I have a photo of her wearing a red dress made of the taffeta-like fabric of the front pocket. Others were from upholstery fabric samples. The French toile picture is from having my kitchen curtains made at an outlet in Blaydon. I asked for the scraps left over - I'd paid for the fabric after all. 

The inner pocket has some cross-stitching on it. I lined that pocket to protect the back of the stitches. Both the cross-stitch and the lining fabric came from Jan, a lady formerly in my Thursday night craft group. Jan is terminally ill and no longer crafts so she handed over her enormous stash, some of which came my way. I will share photos of this bag with that group and perhaps it will get back to her. Leslie, another lady from that group, gave me quite a bit of the patchwork cottons. She is a crafter who buys the materials for a project, finishes the project and discards any leftovers. About as opposite to me in every way!

The theme for March is 'Easter'. I've no interest in eggs or rabbits, so will likely make another tote bag...perhaps in green.

Putting a Mask on It

I've been absent the last couple of posting days. On Tuesday last week the neighbours (the ones from which we are 'semi-detached') began a major overhaul of their kitchen / dining / utility room by taking out a wall and putting a door to the outside where a window once was. This is the second wall they've removed and Bill teased me that their house was going to fall down and take ours with it. I didn't find that in the least funny. I'm hoping they aren't creating an echo chamber next door as we already hear far too much of their lives as it is. However, it's out of my hands and I try not to worry about things I can't do anything about.

I had the bad timing on Tuesday to have a migraine about the time the hammering and drilling began. I took some ibuprofen and went to find refuge in the back seat of our car. After a couple of hours I felt well enough to finish the post I'd started but that was all I could manage on my Writing Day. And strangely enough I forgot all about this blog over the weekend. So while the plasterers and electricians carry on their work today, I'm very pleased to say I have no headache.

On the inside. You can see how the wire bends over Bill's nose.

A couple of weeks ago, Bill had asked me to make him a mask. I've been going through all the fabric stash in my craft room and pulling out what I thought were suitable cottons, zigzagging the edges and putting them through the wash. I expect I could make a couple hundred masks if I needed to, but I think half a dozen for each of us should be ample, particularly since we largely stay at home. I went into the post office last Monday to send off my US tax returns (because I'm married to a foreigner and filing separately I'm not allowed to file my taxes online). It was fairly scary but I think I may have got away with it. Bill just went into a small local DIY store this morning, having scoped it out at the weekend. He chose it because a) they are a local one-off shop and b) they hardly have any customers in ordinary times. We have groceries delivered or Bill goes to shops or cafes that serve at their front doors. We have no plans to visit any pubs, restaurants or supermarkets for the foreseeable future. We both feel very fortunate that we are able to stay safe at home most of the time.

So I wasn't in any hurry to make him a mask, but I finally did. Out of Winnie-the-Pooh fabric.

From the outside. 

I chose a pattern by a German lady named Iris Luckhaus, who was a professional pattern drafter at one time. She reviewed a lot of different patterns for masks, decided they all had shortcomings and then drafted her own. She explains it all here. I will make this again, I think, only I may try to figure out how to put a filter between the two cotton layers. It's a pretty straightforward pattern using two 8" squares and two small rectangles and two lengths of elastic. It also has a channel in the top for a piece of wire which can be removed for washing. I used florist wire. The hardest part was figuring out the pleats - I've never made anything with pleats in my life - but I eventually got there. She has quite a few diagrams and I finally found the one that clicked with my somewhat deficient brain. 

I put the elastic through the tubes made by the small rectangles and then had Bill put it on. I tied the elastic behind each ear and adjusted the fit per his instructions, tying a double knot on each side. Then I tightened the knots, trimmed the excess elastic and pulled the knots into the tubes on each side to keep them out of the way.

Sadly, you can't tell it's Winnie the Pooh fabric, but I have a number of other children's cotton prints that I put aside for Bill. Those of you who know him will likely agree this is entirely suitable. 

Hearts

Our WI Craft group Zoomed in May to chat and share what each of us had made during the past month or so. Someone suggested we have a theme for what we made in June and they came up with 'hearts'.  After we all signed off, I promptly forgot all about it.

The committee for our WI decided we should join Zoom for the £12-13 a month it costs so that we didn't need to bother with the 40 minute limit. We Zoom for our regular meetings, for committee meetings, book groups and book social meetings, craft group and other chat meetings and, soon, coffee mornings. While it is true we aren't bringing in money at face to face meetings we do have a substantial financial cushion and the Zoom fee is something like 20% of the rent we paid to rent the Parish Hall.

Some email or other about booking the Zoom call reminded me about hearts and so that very Monday I sat down with my three cookie cutters (bought for crafting, not baking) and came up with lavender bags. I have about three years' worth of dried lavender from my seven or eight bushes which are growing nicely just now, but not yet in flower. Except for the French lavender which has done it's best ever this year. 

I started with some black net fabric that was in my Aunt Rita's stash. Sadly the plastic red hearts stamped on the netting stuck together after being folded for years. I liked the silver back better than the now patchy red and silver fronts. My sewing machine didn't like any of it, so I sat down to do some hand sewing. I don't care for the look of the lavender through the net, but Bill liked it.

Years ago I played around making heart and star shapes out of sheer fabric bits in my stash. My sewing machine liked this sheer fabric better, apparently (a sharp, new needle, perhaps) and I sort of got away with making these shapes. I called them 'fairy bandaids'... no comment. Anyhow, I found a couple of these and stitched them together for another lavender bag.

Finally, I tried something larger with some more solid fabrics. The back solid is a kind of textured silk I imagine Rita making a cocktail dress from. The front vintage print is in polyester. I think it was given me by one of the sewing ladies from the Linskill group and I imagine it dates back to at least the 70s if not 60s. I had to look up how to do a blanket stitch again and putting this last one together took the most time, but I think I like it the best. They all smell delicious!

The two other ladies produced hearts in a similar fashion as lavender bags, though I think theirs may have been stuffed with something else. One new person had made a great hanging of three hearts in different blue fabrics from old clothes plus some twine and a couple of sticks. Someone else had worked on a cross-stitch for their first grandchild, a girl, which had lots of hearts in it. One lady made some paper cards which employed hearts; I envy her great eye for design. And one of our very clever knitters knitted a three-dimensional snail character whose shell was in the shape of a heart. 

Our theme for next month is flowers. I'll be working on the knitted flower squares of a blanket I'm making, which is a bit boring, but I'm looking forward to seeing what the others come up with!

Bunting

[Note: For some reason Google, who hosts this blog, has taken a disliking to my photos on some of my recent posts. I'm checking them and replacing photos, but perhaps not always in the same location, as this is fairly tedious the first time, never mind a second and I've no idea if there will be a third...]

So far as I can remember, I didn't know what bunting was before I came to Britain. Not that I never saw it before, I just didn't have that word for it. I mostly remember it being a bunch of plastic flags, all one primary colour, on used car lots. They were strung from a pole or a roof to the ground to make a person notice the cars or the sale or whatever.  I just thought of it as 'a row of flags'. I thought of bunting as something to do with babies, but I'd no idea what to do with babies - still don't. I wasn't around babies much when I was growing up, being an only child and an only grandchild on both sides until I was 12. Surely 'baby bunting' isn't just this bunting in baby fabrics hung in a nursery? I thought it was some old-fashioned kind of swaddling or diapering or something. Anyhow.

I've been making some bunting for our WI's 10th birthday party in June. Not that we are likely to celebrate it in June, but we'll celebrate it someday.  I may or may not be there. Oh, I'm planning on being alive, but I don't really fancy returning to 'normal' life until they find a good treatment for this Covid-19, better yet, a vaccine. I doubt I can tie Bill down until a vaccine emerges, however. But enough of that stuff that never goes away.

Bunting. It's not too hard to make, depending upon how fancy you want it. Mine involved dinking around with a 1" strip of fabric folded into quarters, for the binding the flags would be hanging from. I used tons of pins and still got some steam burns, but none that blistered. 

I have a tape maker somewhere, a gadget that is supposed to magically produce bias binding. However, I  never succeeded in even getting the fabric inserted, so felt it a was of money. 

Then I tried a trick I saw on Youtube countless times, where you put a long needle into your ironing board cover and run the strips under it. That worked a lot easier than pinning. Then Bill suggested I make a video, which I did with his help - two of them. About as amateur as you can imagine. Not to mention my 90-year-old hands, due to baking in the sun for 40 years (hands on steering wheels get all the wrinkle making rays). He also suggested the second one, showing how to put the needle in. Seemed obvious to me, but I humoured him.

I finally worked out ot bring the two edges together in the middle before they went under the needle, then to use the weight of the iron back before the un-pressed section, to help me pull it all tight. That made the ends lie down to be pressed and it all went much faster after that.

I made my first flags with opposites sides in complementary colours (opposite side of the colour wheel) just to have a system. Those went in the centre of my binding. Then I made a diagram on an envelope and selected pairings of colours so that nothing would repeat very close on each side, in colour or at least in pattern.  No idea if that makes sense. I tried to use the whole rainbow, including lighter shades but not including neutrals. 

Me trying to figure out how to control the fabric, also to get the cameraman
to not burn himself and not block my sight.

It makes a big mess having all those colours out at once! But then I always make a big mess when I sew. Hope to make a few more sets of bunting and then move on to something else. I'll let you know how that goes.

Placing the needle was far easier without the first time, without an audience!

Enjoy the videos (good for a laugh if nothing else). I'll never take a slick production for granted again!

Ironing Board

A few years ago Bill redecorated my craft room - three years ago almost to the date. I got some new carpet at the time and when there was underlay left over, I kept it (of course I did). I had a couple of ideas for how it might be useful.

One was as shoe liners. UK size 3 is the closest I can get to what is size 5 in the US and probably with age I need more of a 5.5. Size 3 fits better than it used to but I need liners for a lot of them so I don't slide around inside. Unfortunately, I found that the shoe liners I cut from carpet underlay were far too thick for this purpose. So I moved on to the next project.

We have two ironing boards in this house and I can't recall why. One is standard size, lives in the kitchen pantry and Bill uses it to do most of the ironing that gets done in our house. It gives him something to do. I don't mind ironing at all except when it comes to sheets and he's the one who likes ironed sheets so I let him get on with it.

The one in my craft room is extra wide. I remember Bill bought it and came home with the story that two little old ladies in the queue behind him remarked 'That's an unusually large one' and he turned around and said he didn't hear that often from ladies, which made them giggle. I was just glad I wasn't with him.




It wasn't terribly long before the pattern of the metal grid showed through the thin padding and the heat-proof cover. It actually marked the pattern on the fabric being ironed. So I put a couple of fluffy terry cloth towels in for extra padding and added a wide binding to the cover so it would fit over the layers. This worked for a few years, but of course the towels got flattened and the grid showed through again.

I decided the time had finally come to tackle this.

I was impressed at the thin foam padding still being in one piece even though it was so deeply marked. As you might guess, I didn't throw it out, but put it in a bag in which I collect tiny bits of fabric and thread, thinking it might be useful as stuffing one day.

My old friend, Joanne, crocheted hanger covers after padding the wire hanger with foam rubber. Like me, I doubt she bought the padding, it was no doubt left from something else she had. I still have the hangers she made for me.

I pinned the padding to my carpet underlay and traced it with a felt tip marker. Then I put the padding aside and moved the project to the top of the ironing board. I'm too old to be crawling around on the floor any more than I have to.

It was a challenge finding something to cut the thick underlay. Scissors hurt my hand and I wasn't prepared to wait for Bill to hunt his utility knife down. I had my own utility knife but wanted to keep it sharp and doubted I had extra blades for it. I went through my collection of X-acto knives to find the one I did have more blades for and then hacked my way around the outline. I ended up doing this twice as the old padding must have once gone over the edges of the board, but this underlay was way too stiff for that. Eventually I had the size I wanted.

Then it was a matter of re-stringing the cover. I'd cut the old cord, made from 3 strands of some sort of silk or cotton crochet thread. I didn't throw it away but doubled up each of the single strands and added it to my ball of short bits, for knitting Innocence smoothie hats. I have made these for Age UK for several years now. Frankly, though, they don't really serve any practical purpose other than to net Age UK 25p for each one made. Kids collect them but I expect they eventually find themselves in the trash bin, so why waste good yarn on them? Scrappy yarn makes quite interesting hats and pom poms after all. 

Anyhow, my recent gifts of fabric scraps have piled up in the corner and so I can't get to the crochet thread collection at the moment. Instead I used a skein of orange embroidery thread for the new cord. I tied it to a large paper clip to slip it through the binding. I wrapped it around a metal bar I've had for a while, part of another collection someone gave me, to help pull it tight without cutting my hands. 

Lo and behold, a long cap came off this bar to reveal a needle fine crochet hook. I can only imagine trying to crochet with sewing thread, this hook is so fine. I never knew that's what this bar actually was!

So, I now have a nicely padded ironing board, ready to do some sewing! It "only" took me three years to do this and it feels almost that long since I sewed anything. I'm looking forward to it.