Patchwork Chair Covers

I don't think I've ever shown you my kitchen chair project. I started this project last January (yes, 2013). Our kitchen chairs are two pairs:  one set belonged to my Grandma & Grandpa B, the other set belonged to Bill's Aunty Mary Polly. You could be forgiven for thinking that the 'before' picture was of Bill's walking boots instead of the faded blue print of G&G's chair; you can barely see the brown and peach brocade of AMP's chair.  I must have been in a real hurry that day?

'Before'

Anyhow, besides being the wrong colours my chairs were like sitting on a board, the stuffing was so flattened. The loose webbing on Bill's chairs made it like sitting on a donut.  

In my usual fashion, rather than go buy fabric, I decided to use up some of my mountain of fabric scraps to make up patchwork pieces for coverings. Many of these fabrics frayed and so I overlocked the edges, which meant the project took me quite a while to complete. Even so, the patchwork fabric was ready for ages before the project moved on.  



Bill did such a great job on the dining room chairs, I thought he should be the one to take care of the padding part of this project.  Besides, joint projects are more fun. Also, while my chairs were quite straightforward in their construction, his were more complex and I didn't want to mess his up.  So, when I was in Nice on my own last summer, I left Bill a 'to-do' list to keep him out of trouble; this padding job was on that list and he duly addressed it.

Real-life photos with power drill, laundry basket,
Bill's walking shoes drying by the radiator...maybe they live there in January?

When we returned from France in September we both took ill and other things seemed to get in the way. I made Thanksgiving my deadline for finishing this job.  In the event, it took less than an hour most of which was fiddling with the staple gun. 




They aren't perfect, but I'm happy with them.  They are quite comfy now and the colours coordinate with the kitchen's white and red walls, the black and brown counter and the beige-y floor.  

  

Two more things that need to happen are to experiment on some other similar fabric with stain-repellent  or water proofing and decide what to do with the wood of my Grandparent's chairs - the square ones above.  Bill doesn't want to paint his, which I understand.  I may decide to paint Grandma and Grandpa's or to find a way to stain them so they are more similar to Bill's.  

Any suggestions?

Using What I Have

I find using up what I have quite satisfying, much better than saving it 'for best'.

Cheery yellow and blue tablecloth a gift from Marie-Reine in Nice.  A lovely
reminder of a lovely lady.

On a dark grey day in January, as we were about to sit down to lunch, rather than use electricity, I lit the candles, already bought.

My Latest Weird Thing

When I bought my house back in 1996, only one of the bedrooms had a closet. I initially used that room (we call it the 'East Wing') but eventually switched over to the West Wing to avoid the morning sun. That room had no closets. Over time we acquired a couple of old wardrobes. My Victorian wardrobe I bought at an antique shop; Bill's was given to us when he helped a friend move and the friend didn't want it anymore. 

I love that my wardrobe has labels for 'gloves', 'hats' and 'underlinens', not that I necessarily use the shelves as labelled. The left side for hanging clothes has a rail that comes out if needed, but I tend to wear what is in the front and then put it at the back if it can be worn again.  I've been aware for a while that I never remember to wear pullover sweaters that are folded on a shelf, but hanger space was getting tight and it didn't seem feasible to add them.  Then I had an idea.

Some skirt hangers have little hooks that allow hanging another hanger or something off the rail. Most my hangers don't have this, but I thought that if I put my outfits together and suspended them off one hanger I could use more of the middle and lower space between garments and shoes. I suppose I could have gone out and bought something to address this but that goes against my nature. I think it's way more fun to figure out a free solution.

So instead I went into the sewing room and found some scraps of fabric, in this case t-shirt fabric, and tied them into small rings. Those served the purpose of a 'hook'. Then I put together six or seven outfits (top, bottom and a cover - a sweater or jacket). Now when I want to get dressed, I just pull out what is in front and it has all the pieces together ready to go.

And hanging those sweaters?  They go on over the 'shoulders' of a 'secondary' hanger like shown here. (Not like in my photo where the sweater is on the hanger and not even straight at that...what can I say? I don't do perfect.)

I have been 'scare crowing' of late; that is, wearing old clothes around the house rather than 'going out' clothes. Rhonda at Down to Earth called it this and I liked the term. I'm happy wearing the same thing most days until they are ready for the laundry. My main aim is to be warm and comfortable. So that, along with the fact that I don't go anywhere several days of the week, means that those have dozen outfits last me at least a couple of weeks. 

How is it that I can love clothes, but not want to be fussed about what to wear?

Handmade Christmas

Can't believe January is nearly over.  Can't believe I've not said anything about my handmade Christmas gifts.  Can't believe I didn't take photographs of some of them.  Never mind, here goes.

This year I resolved to use the very wide velveteen ribbon that was in my Aunt Rita's stash.  I've had three enormous rolls for going on seven years now and I thought it high time to use them or lose them.  I bought rolls of brown paper from Wilkinson's (sort of like a five-and-dime, though these days it's more like 'dollar' or 'pound' shops, eh?) for £1.  I used this Youtube video on making 'pom pom' bows (I've never called them that, but there you are).  My mom used to do this all the time - she never bought pre-made bows and I remembered bits but not altogether how she did it. The huge advantage of this method is that you control the size of the bow.  If you're making 30-40 in a row (like I did), be careful you don't get tired and try to cut your finger off (like I did).

For the ladies on my list, I made Criss-Cross Coasters.  A half-dozen each.  Times five.  That's 480 squares to cut out.

For Helen; the backs were all the lighter solid purple.

For Sarah. The backs were some Australian fabric
brought over by her Aunt Jane, as in upper right;.

For Lucy.

 My eyes were a bit criss-crossed by the time I finished, but they were still great fun to make.  

For Jules; the backs were all floral as in the upper left corner.

I thought hard about what colours to make for each person and I think this was what made it fun. Instructions can be found here.  I used the tip of having a chop stick on hand to help turn the corners, which was fun in itself.  

For Vivien, who gave me the green striped curtains.  

I was annoyed not to have remembered this tip about sewing sharp corners until I was doing the very last set.




It seems counter-intuitive to me, but making a diagonal stitch across the corner makes it turn out into a sharper point. Go figure.





For several other people on my list, mostly people in the States, I bought hot water bottles and made covers for them.  I ended up drafting my own pattern by tracing around the bottle for one side and adding a seam allowance all the way around.  I extended the top a few more inches so it could fold down and be buttoned. Then I copied that pattern and extended the bottom so it could be folded up.  I wanted it to be possible to easily remove the hot water bottle, but also for this not to be necessary in order to fill it with water.  I typed up safety and other tips (don't use boiling water; don't fill it, but do squeeze out the air before screwing on the top; virtually every British household has one of these things. )

I chose velvets and brocades to make the covers.  I had great fun choosing interesting buttons.  I only used one button per cover and I crocheted loops in colour-coordinated yarns and stitched those to the top and bottom to hold it all closed.  I thought they looked quite elegant, but forgot to photograph them before sending them off to the US.  Oh well.

Did you make any of your gifts for Christmas?

Jack's Fish Paste a Success!

I was telling the ladies at the WI craft group the other night about my fish pate meal.  It was confusing because of them had brought a delicious pate made with crab and salmon to the Christmas party. What I meant to tell about was fish paste, which Brits seem to think is altogether a different kettle of fish (sorry, couldn't resist).  The thing is, I'm not sure what is the difference between pate and paste, other than the fact that the latter is incredibly cheap (£4.27/kg or $1.94 a lb.) and made up of a half dozen or so types of fish. Well mine was; you can buy species-specific pastes, too. In fact, Wikipedia defines pate as a 'spreadable paste', so I'm going to stick my neck out and say they are the same.

Except that when you call it 'pate' (even better with the accent mark if you can bother), it sounds posh. When I told Bill we were having 'fish paste' for dinner, his face fell.  It seems that 'back in the day' working class men found this stuff made into sandwiches on Thursdays, that being the day before payday and the cupboard being bare of all else.  When Bill protested, I explained he wasn't getting a sandwich, but pasta with a creamy sauce that tasted of fish, at least that's how I thought it would turn out.

And it did.




And we both liked it. 

Jack's recipe is here. I cheated and used a whole onion, a small sprinkle of chili powder and a squirt of oil.  Her 'elusive' search bar is at the bottom of each post. If you put your ingredients in there you might be amazed at what she comes up with.

Have you tried anything new in the kitchen lately?

Gelatin Flowers

My Thursday night craft group is amazing.  The ideas that people have are seemingly endless.  I've only seen one outside speaker (and I wasn't impressed, myself); it is usually one person or another leading the group to show what they know how to make.  I did a session once on my Grandma's style of covered hangers and at least one person used it to make her Christmas gifts, which tickled me no end.  

An exciting thing we did in the craft group recently was to make gelatin flowers.  I wasn't that keen, they sounded a bit icky, but boy did I change my mind.  They were really fun to make and even my very flawed outcome was still quite striking - far better than I expected.

To start we were give little teardrop shaped pieces, that looked like tiny cookie cutters, in large, medium and small sizes; also several lengths of paper covered wire that comes from a cake decorator's shop.  Florist wire is too thick.  The wires were cut into thirds to make petals and leaves.

We made petals and leaves by wrapping the wires around each teardrop and twisting the wire shut underneath:  petals were formed using the rounded end at the top and then inserting a pen to elongate them slightly; leaves were formed using the pointed end at the top and then squeezing the point just slightly to make it more leaf-like.

Small flowers were made by wrapping one end of a full length wire around a pencil five times, squishing those loops together and securing them by running the other end of the wire through the ring a couple of times and pulling it tight.  Each loop was then separated (finger nails are helpful here) and twisted into a flower like shape.  The end of a pencil pressed into the middle of the petals caused a cupping effect that was just lovely.

Just the wire work was really great fun, so simple and yet the results were very delicate.  I started getting enthusiastic about this point.

Then we mixed food colouring in cold water (4 TBS), playing with colours, adding a pearlising powder if we wished or icing whitener to make the colour opaque (also from cake decorating).  Then we added gelatin, just sprinkling and pressing it in, careful not to stir and create bubbles.  The small tub of coloured gelatin was then placed into a bowl of very hot water to make it more liquid.

Each of the wire shapes was then dipped into various coloured tubs of gelatin, shaking off the extra liquid or touching it to wet paper towels to absorb the blob that formed at the end.  Terrible results were easily fixed by rinsing in hot water and starting over.  The wires were then stuck into 'oasis' - that weird florist foam that turns to dust if you're not careful.  They had to dry for 24 hours.

The next time we met, Maureen - who used to work in a cake shop as a decorator - showed us how to use narrow tape to wrap each of the wires, twiddling (a technical term she gave us) the wires to help the wrapping process.  The tape was magic:  dark green and non-sticky on the roll, lighter green and very sticky after been stretched.  It was also easily torn, like paper / surgical tape.

She gave us round beads and long beads to put on other pieces of wire and a supporting wire to help put it all together.  When every thing was taped to within a millimeter of its life, she showed us how to use slightly wider tape and to form the flowers, combine the leaves and then put the whole thing together with the beaded stems,  bending the petals slightly, or the whole stem to make them all fit into a nice shape.

Bill had watched me dip the white petals at home, as I had run out of time at the craft group.  He thought it all looked a bit silly, and it did, but he completely changed his mind when I brought home the finished article.

Far from perfect, but still quite pleasing.

I doubt I have the eye to create anything original or spectacular, but for someone who did I could see how a centre-piece that coordinated with a person's colour scheme could be quite welcome.  Maureen had two lovely poinsettia looking arrangements draped around a large candle on a plate.  She's made corsages and boutonnierres(had to look that up) for weddings, too.

If you get the opportunity to make gelatin flowers, I would recommend you leap at it!

Use It Up Month

January in our house always seems to be a use-it-up month. After all the food buying around Thanksgiving and Christmas we usually still have a couple of very full freezers. I'm in extra frugal mode this month for several reasons:  just got an enormous repair bill (over a year of rent) on my rental house in Salt Lake City; we got planning permission to build a downstairs loo; we're in the process of purchasing another motor home, having sold our first one last summer.  This sort of out-go is well beyond anything I've ever experienced. We're probably OK, but I find that I'm feeling a bit of practically beside myself with stress at the moment.

Whilst some frugal habits are still ingrained - most clothes from thrift stores, eat at home, my house robe is 36 years old, I have drifted from tightwad thinking a bit.  So I'm stepping back into old ways:

Use it Up
If I go to the store hungry I risk coming back with unusual things like instant puddings or nuts we don't normally eat. These get pushed to the back of the cupboard, forgotten until the next frugal initiative. Actually, pudding and nuts are the happy surprises.  Others include pickled beetroot, some sort of white pepper gravy mix from Oklahoma (a gift when we visited, not hoarded for 23 years) and three kinds of flour I'm not sure how to use without some research.  

List vs Bulk
Instead of buying in bulk I've been shopping with a list. Only when we get low on a critical item like milk or toilet paper do I go shopping.  I buy singles of things like condiments but two or three of basic items to save a trip or two.  I still stock up on UHT milk and get the largest package of TP.  This lets me shop only once or twice a month. I'd like to get back to buying in bulk: a full pantry is my definition of personal food security. To do that I am working on updating my price book.

Price Book
I've listed all the supermarkets in our area and calculated the distance to each.  Our closest market, Morrisons, is less than a mile away, but their labels are misleading; no matter how careful I still get caught out with the wrong item now and then.  As much as is practical, I try to take my business elsewhere.  There is a cluster of bargain shops a mile away, but as always, not everything there is a bargain.  Therein lies the value of a price book.  I know the best fresh fruit and veg prices are 8 miles away in Seaton Delaval and the fish quay is less than half a mile from home.  By shopping at a different store each time I can learn again what constitutes a bargain or even just a reasonable price.  I don't go to every place each time I shop, unless they are directly en route. I wouldn't wish to waste the fuel or my time like that.  

Alternatives
Though I bought what was on the list the other day, I started thinking I could make different choices.  Instead of buying more yeast and strong white flour to make bread, we've been meaning for ages to try making soda bread. Since we have plenty of oatmeal on hand, we could have porridge (oatmeal) for breakfast.  That would also save buying more margarine and low-sugar marmalade.  I would try making marmalade, but I've never seen Seville oranges and doubt it would be economical anyhow.

Instead of buying more milk, we could break into those two containers of powdered milk.  No idea if they are still any good, but if they aren't we could trash them.  Makes no sense to keep them if they aren't still good and the longer we keep them more more likely this is.  Both really obvious ideas but because I readily dismiss use by dates on certain foods (OK, on most foods, but with more caution in some cases) they catch me up now and then.  I can handle using powdered milk as I did in Utah, but sadly here in the UK it is no cheaper.  

When tablet sweeteners were on sale for £1 a dispenser, I bought 5 or 6.  All but the one in my purse is not empty, but there is still a jar of loose Canderel that isn't as easy to use, just waiting to be consumed.  After that there is a container of odd packets of condiments collected from here and there, with at least a few servings of sweetener.  I would substitute sugar for sweetener except that my stomach doesn't tolerate more than a couple of teaspoons a day.  The consequences are sufficiently severe that I'd rather go without than eat sugar.  Fortunately, I have no strong preferences about my tea.

We have a lot of tea around, but we both prefer coffee.  We're down to two cups of instant coffee before switching to decaf; Bill loves strong coffee but his heart does not.  Tea is much cheaper and has less caffeine, but too much upsets my stomach (I must have a very tender tummy), even with milk added.  I have some herbal stuff and when that's gone I could experiment with other 'tisanes', starting with the rosemary and lavender I have in my garden. Becoming au fait with the difference between an infusion and a decoction sounds quite witchy, mysterious and altogether fun, even though I tend to joke that a lot of this stuff is just dirty water.  I have, when really cold and thirsty, appreciated just a cup of hot water. In fact I find that I prefer whatever it is I'm most familiar with drinking.  

The price of tinned salmon has doubled in the last few years. I don't think even tuna is cheap any more.  A Girl Called Jack has inspired me to see that it's like to cook with fish paste.  I also have a tin of pilchards waiting for me to work up the nerve to 'pattify' them, as suggested by The Tightwad Gazette.  Tinned mackerel and sardines are other options.

Generics
Jack also opened my eyes to tinned potatoes.  We can get four servings from a 14 pence tin from Sainburys.  We make our own soups and prefer fresh fruit and veg, so there are whole areas of supermarkets I've not explored for a while.  I plan to make a list of the generic items for the main supermarkets near us and reconsider some choices.  For example, a tin of tomato soup is 24p compared to a tin of tomatoes at 34p. Passatta brands come and go, but it might be worth comparing the three tomato products. Good fresh tomatoes are never cheap here; bad ones are worthless to me. I'd rather eat tinned tomatoes than tasteless ones.

Free Foods
I finished off the blackberries in the freezer, but still have a lot of sloes and elderberries.  The latter are poisonous uncooked and so I'll need to be careful.  I can buy jam I'm happy with for far less than the sugar to make preserves, so it looks like these free foods will be for recreational beverages, currently a low priority.  On the other hand, I still have a bag or two of the apples Vivien gave me this summer (Thanks again, Vivien!).  Apple pie and spice cake come to mind.  Also fruit smoothies for breakfast and possibly dessert, but I'll have to experiment with that.

Not Just Food
I have two packages of hair colour I'm not that thrilled about. One is a darker ash blonde than my current colour, the other a strawberry blonde my hairdresser recommended (She comes to my house and only charges me £15 for a cut; she understands my tightwaddery well).  I've used the darker ash blonde and put in the usual streaks.  I now have 'frosted' hair, if any one remembers back to when that was popular.  I can live with it.  I may save the strawberry for when we go away next, in case I don't want to be seen!

Is your January a use-it-up month?  Or does the first month of the year have other significance for you?