Having a day off!

The New Years resolutions I am really sticking to, not the only one but one of, is to have a day off on the weekend. I do a load or 2 of laundry a night when I get home from work, hound my husband to pick up during the week and on Friday night or Saturday morning we have been cleaning top to bottom to have Sundays off.

So with my new time off I have had time and energy to do a few things I want to.

One bone of contention around here is dressing up the min pin Edie. We have 4 dogs but only Edie would be a dog you would dress up. She weights a whopping 5 lbs, has no body fat and very short hair. The poor thing gets cold in the winter!

However, my husband and sons HATE the fact I put a sweater on the dog. She owned three items, a sherpa style coat Lauren bought her when she got her and then gave to me when she gave me the dog, a small pink sweater again from Lauren and a hot pink handspun sweater I made her, her first winter with us. All are size x-small. They are now too small for her. She wears an X-small around but she is now too tall so they pull but items from the store in size small tend to be too big.

So I set out to make her a coat to keep her warm, to keep her from digging at my blankets all the time dragging them across the floors to find warmth, and something the boys would possibly not detest.

The solution! Camo fleece coat for Edie! It's not quite a snuggly because it lacks arms and actually stays on, and it's keeping her warm. She hasn't been shivering all day and is running around completly content in her camo coat.

The husband and the boys still think it's stupid to dress up the dog and not pretend they can't find her to let her out....oh well at least I'm not making her dresses and such!


I was still in the simple sewing mode, things I could make fast, with what I have, without making or using a pattern because I HATE using patterns. Well my one son needed new pajama pants, he's tall, skinny and lanky and no matter what fits his waist is about 4 inches to short.

With less than 2 yards of walmart $1 table flannel and about 30 min I created him some new pajama pants. He was given no choice in color, it was what ever mom had on hand. But they now fit perfect with a little room to grow and no more high waters.

So this is how I get to spend my day off without chores. 1 well dressed dog and 1 well dressed child. Now it's time to go knit on my wandering vines sock as I am still working on finishing off all WIP's before begining any new projects.

When I was almost finished

Ok so the story on my living room furniture

I had a vintage 6ft long yellow, down filled, sofa that I loved and came home to one day out on the curb with all the down filled cushions taken already. My mother lived with me at the time and bought a nasty, dog smell infested, sante fe covered, small sofa from a friend of hers so wanted mine out to put hers in. So one day I come home to find she had someone help her heft my sofa to the curb to bring hers in and by the time I discovered this the cushions were all gone, thanks to garbage pickers, and the deed was done.

A few months later she needed to leave my home, never to move in again, but, I was left with no furniture as she was taking her sofa but had thrown mine out.

About that time my friend Lauren was moving to Florida and had a sofa, chair and a half and ottoman in her family room she wasn't taking with her. I took these off her hand years ago as she's now been back from Florida for two years...so this was all maybe 3 years ago or a little more.

You've probably seen this chair and sofa set in many images on my blog, white background with large blue stripes on the sofa and a denim blue chair and ottoman. Well it matched nothing in my house, had a few issues and i decided to recover them, 3 years ago.

Here's the chair, missing it's back cushion after a fight between some new pets in the house. The bottom cushion was worn and needed to be replaced.
The ottoman had a few holes and ware spots in the material that just got worse in my house with kids and pets.

So left uncovered this is how bad this chair would now look. I think even the cheapest of the cheap would pass this up on a curb!

Now I purchased a fabulous ultra suede in my favorite color to recover this chair. I started the cover when the back cushion was still attached and got to the point where I only had to add the skirt when that back cushion was destroyed. I was upset and didn't want to deal with it so it sat for 2 years with no back cushion, no skirt, and an over sized slip cover that now was too large for the chair. Well now it's all fixed. I had to repin the whole thing and took off 2-20x8inch sections on each side of the back. I added the skirt and closures and washed the whole set. The only issue left to tackle was the back cushion as you can't sit comfortably on the chair without something behind your back or you're hitting the bar in the structure tright on your lower back.
So I made a back cushion I thought would be large enough but by the time I stuffed it enough to fill it out to where it was comfortable to lean back on it was now to small width wise. I'll have to work on this portion again sometime and then make a matching cover for it as I still have plenty of fabric left even with the ottoman covered.


So for now I am still using the pillow I covered the other night, but, theres now a skirt to the floor, the blue is all cover and it looks finished. This pillow could pass for the back cushion and only I, and anyone reading my blog, would know it's suppose to be other wise.

Now I only have the sofa left to slip cover in the living room and I will once again have a matching set.

How to Pay your Lawyer

Ok kidding! It's a joke between my friend Lauren and I as she does represent me in court when needed but is also one of my best friends. She dragged me to the fabric store one day, a foreign land to her, so she could have some help picking out fabric I could use to make her a bag but that she liked as we have very different tastes.

Well I finally finished her purse for her last night. It came out really cute!

Upholstering

I have several projects around the house that have needed to be completed for quite some time. One of which is finishing slip covering my living room furniture that I have had the material for for almost 3 years now. So I finally got sick of looking at this green chair that was getting worse and worse as the weeks rolled on and one night, at about 3am, decided to start recovering it.
Here is an in progress. You can see the dark olive green of the original chair here.

And, to even my own family's astonishment, later that day I finished the whole slip cover and the chair was finally rejuvenated! I decided not to go with a full skirt to the floor on this piece because I liked the look of the wood legs showing. I do plan on eventually sanding and staining the legs though.

Then a quicky last night. I had a 26x26in throw pillow form I will admit I threw on the chair in its white splendor and have been using it uncovered...I know ghetto!

This material I have only had a few months and amazingly was upholstery material I found on the Walmart $1 table. I made the piping to give it a more finished look and inserted a zipper so the cover can be cleaned without destroying the form.

The living room is finally coming together now to just finish a skirt on another chair and slip cover the sofa...and not take 4 more years to do so.

The Worlds Perfect Sock Bag...almost

So all us crafters see these wonderful, and sometimes just really plain simple, bags for oh $30-$600! If I was going to spend $600 on anything it would NOT be a knitting bag or any other type of craft bag! So I asked around for ideas on what people would like to see in a knitting bag.

I don't sell my things for now, thinking about it, but, asking others for input is nice because I have made items in the past, shown them to people and they go "Oh thats great and if it had X it would be better" so why not just ask first then design and create?

So without further ado, here is my worlds almost perfect sock project bag!

(these are all clickable link photos so click to see a larger image of each)




This is the outside you can see the front view with a clear pocket for a project sheet and the side width. I like a nice structured bag and this is a very nice rectangular bag standing all on it's own!




The vinyl exterior pocket is the prefect place for either a pattern book, index cards or regular sheet of paper with your pattern printed onto it. This came from asking how people carry their projects around. Most seemed to do what I do, print off a pattern on regular paper or scan and print it off, but some liked having the book or index cards. Here it doesn't matter, the clear pocket will keep it well protected. Added bonuses are that the pockets large enough to hold a few more things and you can write on it with a dry erase marker and wipe off to keep track of where you are.




Again, taking suggestions and what I wanted in a bag, we have an attached scissor minder with a pocket to protect the tips of the scissors and your projects from the scissors themselves. This accommodates from a small pair of travel scissors up to a regular pair of seamstress scissors. On this same side a welted zippered pocket that can hold up to 9in dpns or circular needles, also a measuring tape, post it notes, pen, several sets of dpns or circs.

I also included an elasticized pouch. This way when you need to put that sock away it can go into the pouch staying neat with the needles right there and won't just get mangled bouncing around in the bag!





Then I added 3 yarn minder pouches. Each allows you to see how much yarn you have left on a skein, holds up to a larger skein of sock yarn (ie noro and sockatta pictured) or 2-3 skeins in 1 pouch of something like panda cotton, melody, even 2 cakes wound on a ball winder per pouch. So you could hold more then one sock project at a time if you chose (or even a few dish clothes, scarf, smaller projects).

Each pouch has a zippered top so your yarn won't fall out or be damaged, dirty etc. Then I added grommets to feed the yarn through. This way your yarn stays neat and tidy and would also be perfect for working 2 socks at a time and keeping that yarn from tangling all up.






Here it all is opened up! You can see the pouch to hold your WIP is right near the minded yarn. Because the bag is structured you can easily set it on a table to view the pattern and feed the yarn out the bag, or set it on the floor when you don't need to have the pattern in the bag or view it.

I'm excited to start using it, but, now I probably should finish the husbands socks you see pictured. I took a break to make a new bag to put them in!

Bath and Body Treats

Here's a cute little set I made up. I'm not sure if I'll be doing another any time soon








The basket itself was made with gardening twine and acrylic yarn held together. It was a cool idea and the basket stands up alone, however, took about a week for my fingers to heal from rope burn.
Then I sewed the liner to fit and made a few extras: reusable cotton body poof and matching back washer, knit and crochet wash clothes, a therapeutic eye patch and neck/head wrap.
The wraps are designed with a special ingredient so you can soak them in either cold or hot water and they will absorb and hold the water and temperature. You can then use them to help with humidity, heat, hot flashes, colds, aches, pains, cramps etc.

I also did up some quick glycerin based soaps in lavender, added a lavender plant, some potpourri and such to finish off the whole lavender theme.