Family sweater hat-done!

The family sweater hat is finished. It didn't take long-maybe 1/2 an hour till I figured it out.

The whole point of the Handmade Home book is to use what you have. But in our home we don't have wool sweaters, because we don't wear them. So I checked the 29 cent racks yesterday at Goodwill and I found about five of them. You should look for at least 90% wool content. Then wash them each by themselves in hot water (oops-I washed them altogether-lots of lint) and then dry in the dryer. That's called felting. It shrinks the knit fibers so they are tight and close together. Then, basically you cut out two pieces of the same pattern piece, sew a couple darts, sew the two pieces together and embellish if desired. I desired. I embellished with another piece of felted wool and a button.

So, I made the infant/toddler size because I can't enlarge on my copier. Now I need an infant to wear it. Wait a minute-no I don't! I can just give it to someone.

To tell you the truth-I don't really like wool. It makes me itchy!☺

Hey-I'm on a roll. Three down 30 to go.

Art and hooks rack-done!

Project number two is done! It's the art and hooks rack, one of three non-sewing projects in the book, Handmade Home.

Here's what I did-

::Looked around for a piece of wood-I found an unused shelf from a little particle board bookcase we have in my daughter's room, in my closet.

::I taped it off with painter's tape and took the green spray paint to it.

::Glued a piece of ribbon along the center

::When we went to lunch after church, I had my niece draw a couple doodles on the back of a paper placemat. I painted them with kid's water color paints, cut them out, and glued under and on them with wood glue. (I don't recommend using wood glue.)

::Hammered a picture hook the the back.

::I drilled two holes part way in the particle board and then hammered two nails (painted white) in the holes.

:Finally, I hot glued buttons to the nail heads.

::Done, done-stick a fork in me I'm done.

Things I did wrong-

::I tried to rush it-I ended up messing up the paint because it wasn't dry and then I had to touch up-taking twice as long as it could have.

::I used wood glue. Instead of taking the time to go find craft glue, I used wood glue and it just didn't work very nicely.

::When I was nailing the picture hook on the back, I boogered up the art work on the front. Should have done the back first.

Two projects down 31 to go in "The Handmade Home Project"

Have a wonderful and safe Labor Day!

World's smallest tomato

Can you tell I neglected my potted tomato plant?

I was a bad, bad gardener this year!☺

Sprucing up the sewing corner

My motto is "Let no surface go uncovered!".

Sewing corner down under

So I decided to try to make a little place in my basement for sewing. My house is fairly small and when I try to make something the whole is in shambles and I can't find a darn thing. I already had all this crap stuff in the basement, so I put it to use.

I took the world's ugliest "pc cart" outside and spray painted it "jade". I even sanded the edges a little bit! I took off the keyboard tray and there you have it-my "sewing cart".

The red cart to the left is a cart rescued for me by my daughter from Larry's aunt house. It was about to be trashed and she wanted to bring it home to me. I love it. Glad she did. On the top I sat a crate on one half and a little divided tray thingy on the other half. It holds some of my notions.

I found some super long nails and wedged one in between a beam and that's holding some hoops. One can never have too many hoops.

Also hung a little clothesline so I can hang some good stuff from it.

I recovered my ironing board with a thrifted table cloth and hot glue-too lazy to sew it. I covered my repurposed water squirt bottle with thrifted Contact paper. Cute right?

Here's a close up of my red cart.

I have a thrifted wooden canister set sitting on and in the crate-they're still empty-yay!

The second and third shelf is holding thrifted sheets and t-shirts for future projects (maybe).

Behind this cart is a game table which we bought our daughter for Christmas years ago. Never used. Now I'm using it as a table where I can use my cutting mat. I covered it with a sheet.

I still have a pile of stuff on the floor because I took it off the stuff I'm using (like the cart and game table) and I don't know what to do with it yet. I'll figure it out someday.

I might get a rug and put it under the sewing cart and ironing board-so my fabric doesn't get filthy from the floor.

I hope you liked the tour of my humble little sewing corner down under. Hope this helps the rest of my house-it needs it.☺

I'll take 2 beach blankets to go, please

I've been busy-making more beach blankets to go.

Dawnie gave me a bunch of sheets and chenille bedspreads-so I'm going to pay her back with 2 beach blankets to go.

After uttering my very favorite phrases many, many times::

Some beach!

MOTHER!

What the frick!
Why you little...

they're done, and will be delivered today.

If I had to give any advice before making these it would be-Pin, pin, pin before you sew, sew, sew!☺

My new play stove

Yep-play stove. Dawnie and I went to eat Mexican today and then we hit Walmart (not happy) and Goodwill-a different one than usual (happy).

They had this new-looking wooden play stove (it folds down) in it's original box. I wanted it cause I liked it. The lady at the check out said it was 99 cents and I said I'll take it.

I think I'll keep it set up in the basement for now. You never know, I may have little visitors that would enjoy playing with this sometime. And there's always the possibility of grandchildren in the far, far future.

If you can't get me-don't worry-I'm probably just down in the basement playin' with my stove.☺