DIY skirting table and sweater dryer
I needed a skirting table to sort my fleece and I also need a larger space to wash and dry my winter sweaters to put them away for the summer season. SO I came up with this idea using:
- portable drying rack
- 3″ strips of scrap fabric
- assorted velcro lengths
- netting or mesh piece
This is my drying rack. Measure the top width and length when opened up all the way.
Cut a piece of mesh or whatever fabric you have to use as the netting to the above size.
Sew strips of velco to a 3″ wide piece of fabric.
Sew that strip to the ends of the mesh along one edge. then flip the mesh and sew the other strip to the opposite end.
Wrap and velcro around the last two bars of the drying rack.
Start sorting your wool…. Now, I have a smaller mesh more like a fabric screening and I want to make the exact same thing for drying my sweaters. ( I don’t want to put clean sweaters to dry on un-cleaned fleece ….) 
Alter Linens and Banner
Someone once told me how busy the month of May was, in fact she likened it to the Christmas Season. I was a young mother of two small children then and I couldn’t understand what she was talking about. I know now!!!! May is a busy busy month, and I totally agree!
I have been sewing all sorts of wonderful things, gardening, filling orders and spinning, but not blogging and I will try to catch up.
The first series of projects I’ve been working on is new Alter linens and Banner for our Church.
I did not take a photo of the linens on the Alter, but I did snap a photo pf them before they left. I don’t have access to a fabulous sewing store chain…. I have to make do with what I have. The base fabric is a hand-me-down Damascus duvet cover, the trim is a rayon velvet strip of fabric 5″ and trimmed on either side with white gimp. I embroidered crosses in the center of the rayon. I also embroidered ‘ihs’ with a totally cool font named kingslsland. The banner will be new this week for Confirmation. New week starts Pentecost season and the white linens will be put away and the red will come out. The banner is all seasons.
I strip piece the 4 sections to radiate from the center out. The fabric strips are random sizes and fabrics of white to off white with hints of gold. I appliqued the cross and decorative vines to green leaves then the blooming lily is 3-D. There will be a proper stand and holder….now the broom handle.
Oopps I see two threads now….
I also have been enjoying the roses in my yard….
I have vases inside the house and in my studio and they are the old variety so they have a wonderful scent.
I also am trying my hand at potted calla lilies…. I’m so loving my flowers.
If I am going to mention my flowers I have to mention my yummy garden. Mostly lettuces and herbs are what I am getting so far, but last night I picked my first zucchini!
Easter Egg Dye
I have this lovely Lovely Shetland fleece…..
I’ve got this much carded and prepped for spinning…..
and I am so excited to start spinning…. but I do have A Lot of fleece to go…. so I tried easter egg dying.
I started with adding water and vinegar to glass jars with matching lids. I added the tablet of dye and waited until it dissolved. Then I stuffed the jar with fleece until full.
Then I microwaved the jars without the lids for 2 minutes. I let it cool for a couple hours, then microwaved it again and let it cool even longer. I am actually using these warm jars to keep an abandoned doves nest with 6 eggs warm so they will hopefully hatch.
I have it incubating in my oven….. so I’m working around that for dinners…. crock pots, grills… it’s all for the cause!
Back to easter egg dyes:
Look at these vibrant colors!!!
When I pour the liquid out the dye is complete absorbed by the fleece and it rinses absolutely clean!
I can’t wait to card all these colors!
Oh did you notice the odd ball pieces of cast off wool around the baby birds nest…. nothing goes to waste around here!
Pattern Review
I was in Walmart the other day and in the magazine section was this pattern… waiting for me to find it. The walmart near us now has an one lane section for craft supplies and I guess now, patterns. Who knew? Well, this simple pattern caught my eye with the t-shirt top. The pattern was around $2.00 and worth it!
While it was raining and in one afternoon I de-stashed a couple pieces of fabric (which actually took more time than actually sewing,) and constructed these two shirts. The pattern fit is pretty true. I am of the shorter in length variety, so I had to make that adjustment and that was it! 4 pattern pieces supper simple and with the lac version above it took less than 30 minutes to put together. I didn’t even hem it I used the salvage as a ruffle edge.
Because this went so quickly I had time to make another and I fancied it up a bit with some embroidery and decorative stitching.
Two new white t-shirts that aren’t your standard T’s…. they have a feminine flare which is nice and well worth the $2.00 investment for the pattern. If the rain keeps up I may hunt for some fabric to make the skirt!
New fleece
I have some awesome friends! They are enablers … they enable me to continue with my fiber additions. When I don’t post in awhile… they check up on me and when they go away , they come back with presents. They support me in helping me researching new ideas and projects… pass along information and links and basically hook me up with my suppliers!!! I am so lucky to have you all!!
Look!
I was given 2 beautiful fleeces as a present. The top on is a Romney wool and the bottom is a beautiful Shetland. I was so excited to receive these…. it was better than Christmas morning for me…. and to think my DH thinks I am hard to buy a present for…. Raw, kinda stinky and dirty wool thrills me… I mean I think anything goes after that!!! I cleaned both and stared carding into batts. The shetland is sooooo dreamy and long. I’m having to learn a different way to prepare it to spin.
I can’t wait until I can spin these!! BUT..I have all of these orders….
And we are trying to clear the bank and somehow get a dock and path down to the river so the kids can enjoy the river this summer… It’s always something!
I’ve been picking out dogwoods and clearing around them so my DH can save them and cut back everything else. There was two years growth covering the ground and it was and is hard work. SO… do you have a thoughts on a walkway to the river idea? The dock is actually built and waiting to go into the water…. fingers crossed it’s this weekend. SO those fleeces may have to wait…
A Bow Clutch
This is a very special piece of Fabric a Friend asked me to use to make her some type of bag.
This fabric was handwoven in the Isle Of Harris, Scotland and is a true Harris tweed.
Cutting this beauty took courage! After a few emails back and forth we came up with an idea and this was the result:
This is the back of the Clutch with an added slip pocket, and monogrammed for identification. I like the back to be a special as the front!
I couldn’t resist the inside either … When the flap is opened the handwoven and Harris Tweed labels will show…
We looked at photos of different Clutches and envelop style bags and I drafted a pattern for this fabric and bag. If you are interested in a bow Clutch I happened to find a wonderful DIY tutorial for a similar clutch using a zipper here: http://www.elmstreetlife.com/2012/02/diy-bow-clutch-sewing-tutorial.html
Happy Sewing!
Farm day!
Not only was it Spring Planting at the Larry Paul Living Museum, but it was Farm day for our family too! Saturday I volunteered at the farm to spin.Oh I had such a terrific day. I love stepping back and taking a break from the rush-rush of our world and doing the simple quiet things.
Here are the two wheels I was working with. The Saxony Flax wheel is in the background and I brought my Ashford Kiwi to spin un-dyed Merino wool. I tried my hand at cotton and had some success with the wheel in the back, but that had a few issues that needs to be fixed for longer spinning.
Here are some of the yarns I showed off…
In the morning it was still chilly and this beauty warmed us up quiet nicely! I really want one for my home…. real heat!
And here’s a shout out to Cathy… who we miss so much! Wish you were here!!
At my Home, we started our garden too…
I t doesn’t look like much, but there’s a lot of work in that!! We have potato’s, onion, peas, squash, cucumbers, lettuce and spinach so far with room for more. I have tomatoes started in planters and we have also planted raspberry and blueberry bushes. 
We’ve dug up and removed shrubs and re planted some, move walkways and are in the process of putting them elsewhere and generally are trying to clean up the outside. We still have to parint another coat of stain on th ewhole house and all of the trim…. but inch-by-inch it’s getting there!
And…. we have several new additions to our family. June, Shelly, Teresa, Sarah and Hope. Sadly, Teresa didn’t make it.
The Family outside is eagerly waiting to meet the rest of the clan….
What a great weekend, I think Spring is finally here!!
Catching up
I have been so busy with orders from all my shops! Woo-hoo! This has been one of the busiest springs in a long time so I am thankful for the work. One of the shops I monogram for is a Coastal Greek. Last fall we started adding pockets to t-shirts and monogramming them…. It’s taken off and I have buckets of T-shirts to add pockets too, however the orders come it.
I end up with a sliver of scrap to cut off on either side of the pocket.
I have shown this before, but this is a close up of the scrap pile from one order.
I zig-zag the ends together to make one long strip. Wind it on one spool and spin it to make another ball of yarn….
When I have enough I am going to crochet a large kitchen rug. Speaking of spinning…. I am learning so much in the evenings to wind down from all of my sewing.
This is a pile of merino wool, on the right is washed on the left it is carded and ready to spin. It is so soft! 
Here is a fun spin that I later decided I didn’t like in two colors so I dyed the whole skein blue to make this lovely batch two spools full!
That was a medium grade wool, then with a fine grade I spun this lovely yarn.
Now, just so you think I’m not knitting any of this… I will, but on my needles at the moment is a terrific summer sweater that is in the current issue of Creative Knitting magazine called the great open wide carefree cover up.
Here are the sleeves in process. For some reason I don’t like knitting sleeves, so I find if I start with the sleeves on separate needles I finish the sweater, because I like knitting the back and front pieces. Another funny thing is that I don’t like sewing the sweater together and I hate swatching! I like blocking the sweater, I think that is one of my favorite parts. I don’t know why?
As sewing>>> I want to mimic the look of this terrific skirt, for my body the peek-a-boo parts need to start where this one ends. I have another fun skirt for my dd in mind and I will have sewing photos later.
Today it’s all about gardening:
I have potato’s onions and peas planted and we are working on the fence around the garden and I will have (hopefully) wonderful completed fence photos today. We are also digging up so scraggly azaleas and re-planting raspberry and blueberry bushes! I will have my own berry patch!!! so off to work and digging I go!
Pink angora Sweater
I knitted the sweater over a year ago and the bottom hem was a basketweave pattern. I hated it! It made me look fat! Ew.. so it sat folded in my drawer. Who keeps an angora hand knit sweater stuffed in a drawer? So I ripped it apart from the bottom up. Thankfully I knitted this sweater from the top down so it was fairly easy once I got it started. Another plus was that I knitted it in the round.
I saw this lace pattern at:
SeamlessKnittingLove.com on the feather lace Cowl patern by Ewelina Murah. It was a simple and clearly written pattern and I was able to knit it up over a couple of evenings. Now, I am happy! I love the smoother lace finish and hopefully it looks better on me. I can’t wait to wear it now!
A few other items I have been working on:
A pair of high-waisted jean shorts, dressed up and remade from a pair of goodwill long jeans. Girls like the added lace detail …
A single ply from the chevoit white wool fleece that I cleaned, and dyed.
Slivers and scraps of fabric sewn together in a long…long strip, then wrapped onto an old bobbin and ready to corespin into another novelty scrap yarn. I sort of just like it as it is… isn’t it pretty!
and the girls… just for fun!!!
Have a great weekend!
Ashford Kiwi 2
I am very proud of the spinning wheel we made, however… my carpenter skills were a bit off. To make another wheel that works better wasn’t something I wanted to do. I learned a lot on that wheel and I knew I wanted a flyer with a bobbin instead of the spindle wheel. After a lot of research and reading I purchased this Ashford Kiwi 2. I really want to paint the wheel a glossy blue…. but I just waxed finished the wood with my Beeswax finish to protect it. I’ll paint it later, I was itching to start spinning.
My Flyer has the sliding hooks to wind the yarn more evenly and smoothly. The yarn on this bobbin is from my first sheep’s fleece undyed. I have to tell you at first I had trouble with the (over spun) yarn twisting around the guides and thus causing the yarn to jam and not feed on the bobbin then causing more over spun yarn. It took me awhile to get a rhythm and turning the guides away from the bobbin and that problem solved. As far as directions and putting the wheel together it couldn’t be more clear or easy. The wheel worked perfectly first try, my problem was me. I treadle too fast… imagine that…. me wanting something FAST?????
I ordered my wheel off ebay from The Copper Moose and it came with extras for spinning. The first bag of top roving I already spun to get the feel of the wheel and here it is…
I have a few thick/thin areas, but this was the first yarn I spun out of the box. I made the yarn with the sheeps fleece after I spun this for practice. Top roving all prepared and combed and perfect is a DREAM to spin . The Nitty-Noddy by ashford also came with the spinning wheel as part of the extras. A Nitty-Noddy is the wooden thing the yarn is wound on to make a skein. I have a project in mind for this yummy yarn as soon as the needles I have to use finish up another project.
The Ashford Kiwi 2 wheel is so smooth, quiet and a pleasure to spin. The yarn feeds evenly (when I remember to give it up) and I can see that I won’t out grow this wheel for a long time. I would suggest if you are interested in buying this wheel, look to see if you could buy it with the Jumbo flyer and orifice. This will give you more options for spinning, from thin, to a thicker art yarn. The biggest plus would be having the largest bobbins possible. I will say that the bobbins that came with mine, which are the 3 1/2″ spool for sliding hooks hold more than the original kiwi bobbins. The only thing I have purchased for this was 3 extra bobbins.
I was so excited to get the wheel put together I didn’t paint my wheel when it was off the wheel. I did finish it so it would be protected, but I wish I didn’t have to take it apart so I could paint it a pretty glossy blue. It might be a long time before I take it apart to paint. I like everything else natural so… I will enjoy it as it is.
