Tag: cleaning

homesteading

Gathering Moss

 

When I was a kid, my family moved houses exactly once. I was 4, and I only remember the important bits: wrapping my plastic doll dishes in newspaper just like my grandmother wrapped the dishes in the kitchen and dancing like a crazy 4-year old around the For Sale sign in the front yard. I “moved” again, for the first time, when I went off to college. From then on, I moved a lot, assuming you count every time in and out of a dorm room a “move”. Once a year, sometimes twice. Halfway out of student housing post graduation, …

quilts

One More Reason to Love the Internet

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The crazy quilt I posted about a few weeks ago is on it’s way to a new home! I can’t even begin to fathom how this would have gone if there were no Internet. Probably the challenge of finding a good home for this quilt would have ensured that it continued to live under my sewing table. Instead of writing a blog post and a small collection of emails, I would have had to print actual, physical photographs and write actual, physical letters to strangers asking for help. Not to mention that I wouldn’t have had the slightest idea where …

sewing

Yak Shaving

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Somewhere in the middle of last month, I pulled out the cream colored interlock knit I bought ages ago with intentions of making something for me. I located and prepped all the pattern pieces I needed to make view D of McCall’s M6513. Ian helped with the tissue fitting. And then I discovered the interlock was about an eighth of a yard short. If this were a true case of yak shaving, the story would continue like this: So, I gathered my things to head off to the fabric store. But I discovered a flat tire on our one car. …

quilts

New Home Needed for Possibly Antique Crazy Quilt

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Back in the early-mid 1990s, my grandmother gave me a quilt top, since I was into quilting. I think she may have picked it up at a garage or estate sale, but I don’t know for sure. It’s a traditional crazy quilt, with hand-embroidery around the edges of every single piece of fabric. The time and love that went into making this is a bit mind-blowing. The fabrics are all over the map, but they tend toward the satin, silk and velvet. Some of them look like they started life as ribbons. Not all of them have held up so …

homesteading, sewing

Bags for small things

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Maybe it’s the proverbial spring cleaning, but I’ve been on an organizing spree lately. I’ve got bags of out-grown clothes to take to Goodwill, books to drop off for the Seattle Public Library book sale, and dead electronics and computers finally making progress toward Re-PC and Total Reclaim. If it’s been ignored for years, I’m making an effort to decide what to do with it and then follow through. I’m pretty good about bagging up Caitlyn’s old clothes a couple of times a year, but they usually move as far as another closet, not actually out of the house. Mixed …