54. Easter Eggs

The blue is dyed overnight soaked in vinegar and red cabbage. The yellow took just an hour or so in tumeric and vinegar. Both substances were boiled first before the soaking.

52. Mended Porch Pillow

It got chewed up in the dryer. And normally I would have simply tossed it--we have a whole crate of chair cushions and pillows and so forth for the backyard. But I looked at it again and though, "I could fix this in 15 minutes."

And I did.

49. Gate

This is the Gate That Mr. Murphy built. Possibly Mr. Chapman or Mr. Woltjen. I don't think it's original to the house, but it is old. It is, like many parts of my house, shabby. I think the brick is what fools the eye--brick houses, barring earthquakes, just stand and stand and stand. Yeah, a little tuckpointing, but they don't need to be painted, they don't need new siding or replacement bits of siding. No need to re-stucco. They just are. So it shocks me, still, when other things don't hold up like the red brick.

But I digress. This gate has to go.

My yard, during rougher times in the neighborhood, has been used as a quick cut-through to the alley to escape detection or just as a shortcut. The fault lies in two places--I could put a lock on my back gate, which is 6 feet tall and can be locked with a padlock or other such device, but the major fault is right here with this gate.

That's Billy's hand there, and the gate isn't much taller than he is. It's about as tall as Daisy, actually, easily jumped over by any teenaged male with his limbs intact. And look at that lock--it confounded our old rottweiler dog, but even billy has figured out how to wiggle the bar out of the lock. It is useless as a barrier now.

So it is time to replace it. This is the Year of Unfinished Projects, and I'm getting a lot of them done. This is one that has been staring at my in the face for 13 years. It's time.

48. Ottoman slipcover

So Leo drew on the library ottoman in sharpie marker. Dang it. Plus the thing was a bit on the dingy side--things spill, I clean them up, but it's never really the same as before. The couch itself is still in good shape, but not the ottoman. On the surface, I mean--the furniture itself is solid as a rock. The ottoman opens up for cedar-lined storage and the couch opens up to a twin sized hide-a-bed. I love this thing.

So this year, you know, I'm trying to get my life in better order all over the place. So I took one of those faux Mexican woven blankets (it's made to look hand-done but it's not) and I cut it and sewed it together with French seams, by hand, and attached an elastic band at the bottom. Slipped it right over the top. Washable if need be, free project made of things lying around the guest room/craft room, and completely serviceable without changing the aesthetic in the room. Well, a bit, considering it's rainbow colored, but the couch was denim to begin with. Still a comfortable unfussy place.

Sorry about the smudge on the lens. Didn't notice it until after I'd taken the pictures and I liked the one with the cat enough I was too lazy (sigh, the ottoman in question is right behind me) to go back and take them again with a clean lens. I blame Billy. Of course.

47. Baby Bibs

My cousin is expecting boy/girl twins this summer. So I made her a few relatively androgynous bibs. They are made from old jeans on one side and quilting cotton on the other. I did a little appliqued bit on the front of each one as well. I simply traced a bib I owned, and used sew-in snaps at the top. I considered velcro, but for an item that will be washed quite a bit, I didn't want it to wear out so fast. And sew-in snaps are a weak connector. If the bib had to come off in a hurry (like if the baby, wearing it, got caught on something while crawling around), it would. As cute as buttons or strings are, I hesitate to use them on baby items. Little snaps will do just fine.The only thing I'll change next time is to sew on the snaps before sewing the two layers together, thus hiding the stitches.

I'm thinking this might be my contribution to the church fall festival craft booth.

46. To ply or not to ply

That is the question.

I've been teaching the kids in Sophia's class how to spin roving into yarn using a drop spindle. It's been fun. And I gave them a choice yesterday. They could either split their yarn in two and ply it to set the twist (does that make sense? Like a rope that twists on itself to make a strong solid rope), or they could set the twist on a single-ply yarn.

Which was something I'd never done before.

But I'd read about how to do it, and I thought, maybe I could do it.

You wind the single-ply into a hank, like wrapping it around your hand and elbow like you might do with an extension cord. Then you hang one end from something sturdy, and from the other end, you hang something heavy. We used coffee decanters and hung them from a dish drainer weighted down with cafeteria trays. Makeshift. Make do.

This morning I came in and checked on it. Four girls had chosen to set the twist instead of ply, and they set. Fiona's had a bit of a twistiness left to it--some pieces of her yarn were overdone--but her friend Wendy's was absolutely perfect. The other two were more like Fiona's, although all of them were completely usable, no problem there. They were excited. It was a good project.

I'm going to ply my mitten yarn. But I know now how to do it without plying. Maybe next time.

45. Drop Spindle

This is wool:

This is a drop-spindle:

I made the drop-spindle from a dowel, a wooden model-car wheel, and a cup hook drilled in at the top. Drop-spindles are ancient devices, starting in the Neolithic Era and not being replaced by the spinning wheel until the late Middle Ages. It is hand work, it is slow, but it is cheap, portable, and does the trick.
Here I have it threaded with a leader cord (a piece of single ply bulky yarn). I split the leader cord in order to start feeding in the wool fluff (roving). The wool I'm using here is still a bit greasy from being on a sheep, which is what I want for this project. I bought a huge box of roving and mill-ends from a woman who gets them from a yarn mill and sorts through them by type, quality, and color, and resells them online. Perfect--I'm teaching Fiona's class how to spin with drop-spindles and that's perfect.
I catch the roving into the leader cord and start spinning the spindle, like a top, but letting it hang from the yarn as it twists. I catch it again and again, checking for how much twist is present. Fluff becomes a string, here below. Awkward photograph: I lay the camera on the ground and set the timer. So you're looking straight up at my hand holding the drafted (stretched) roving.
It isn't the most economical way to have mittens on your kids' hands come November (that would be $1 mittens at Target on clearance), but this yarn will ply into a bulky weight yarn and then will knit up tight into a warm wool mitten that, due to the lanolin content, will felt a bit and be somewhat waterproof. You can't buy that for $1 at Target. I'm thinking that the amount of roving I'll use for a pair of mittens will be about $2, and then there's just my time. But I like it. So there. I like being able to create something beautiful and useful out of what is essentially someone else's discards. That always makes me happy.

40. Dining Room Painting

The first coat of primer went up but it was obvious we'd need more. I did the beginning of the second coat last night, but found that the walls sucked the paint in just as fast as the first coat--Jake said I wasn't rolling it on thick enough, as well, which was frustrating because it took so much paint. It's 2 gallons of white on the walls right now and I'm going to have to invest in at least one more gallon of white to do the ceiling and to finish the second coat. Bah.

It's a no-VOC paint, by Bioshield, and I'm covering up dark dark red. So I'm not surprise at the coverage problems. When I order the gray, I'll order 3 gallons. Hoping that will be enough--I think it will, since I'll be covering white, not burgundy.

It smells like play dough. So strange. It goes on, with the roller, leaving a bit of a texture that I like. Our walls are plaster, at one time probably smooth as glass but that changes with 106 years of settling and use and abuse. Jake mudded and sanded for me but the bit of texture is helpful.

The white walls, after 12 years of red, are jarring. The room is HUGE. I moved the church pew and sorted through the board games we store underneath. I cleaned out the hearth (more still to do) and considered what might be next....it's good to be working on a project again.

36. In process

Bevin is coming over this afternoon to help paint the dining room, or even just play katamari damacy on the PS3 while I paint. Either is fine. We're using Bioshield, a no VOC brand of paint, in white first because we have to prime this room (the current color is a deep burgundy red). After the white is on, I'm going to order a nice medium gray. I hang so many pictures in that room I just want a nice simple background.

We got rid of the vestment cabinet and as today progresses we will move furniture into the spots where I want it for good.

I almost bought a surplus table at a Borders that was going out of business. It was exactly what I was looking for in style, very very sturdy, but as I cleared books off the top, I realized the top was just a very well finished plywood. Nothing wrong with that, except I don't want just plywood. It was the perfect height and length but not quite as nice as I would want in the end. Eventually I want to convince my father to build me a refectory table (aka monastery table). Of course.

The basement is so much nicer. I'm waiting for the dumpster to be emptied Friday before I continue.

Tiny plants are coming up in the garden. So excited.

The girls' room is laughably messy right now. I'm going on a girl scout field trip Saturday, though, so that will have to wait until I'm home. Later.

I did a bunch of mending while I watched Sherlock on DVD (yummy).

I read about chickens again, sighed, and moved on. It is not my time for chickens. It may never be, in fact. But I still read up.