repurposing a doll bed into a fruit basket

Today was a day of calm for me – amazingly as Boo had a friend over to play.
While the children played I sat and repurposed.

I picked up a toy Moses basket from a charity shop, about 3 years ago now, with the intention of fixing it up. It has sat waiting all this time. I almost did repair it, on about 3 separate occasions, but my heart wasn’t in it. It just didn’t seem like something we needed/wanted. The girls co-slept and didn’t use baskets so I suppose it didn’t seem right to get them to do this with their babies. Today I realised we needed a fruit basket, and considering fruit is a large part of our diet I decided we needed a largish one. I wandered round the house, and garden trying to find something suitable but couldn’t find anything and that was when it occurred to me to take off the shaped edge of the Moses basket and make an original fruit basket. A nice, oval, fruit basket. Of course once you cut some off you have to re-affix the edge. And then of course there’s some of the original damage that still needed repair!

 

 

 

 

soapytype witchery

I finally got round to making a Soap kitchen order, finally, finally, finally!

No sooner had it arrived, during my designated one hour slot, than I had opened it and got started. My first mission was to make laundry liquid. Now, you might ask why I decided to make this, especially first, especially considering we are now washing machineless and will continue so until October when we move back into a house. Well the answer is this, I wanted to. No, really although we have no washing machine we do of course still have laundry, and naturally it needs dealing with. I decided I’d had enough of grey old ecover and bioD is so bloody hard to get hold of round here and I have discovered a rather simple recipe via Pinterest, one that with a little alteration I’d be happy sticking my hands in over and over. Now, I know some people hate Pinterest, and some people have no idea what I’m talking about but the fact of the matter is I love it. Pinterest were recently hated by some due to their T&Cs, they have now amended these and hopefully those who said they’d come back if this happened will. I never left as I think I was pretty sure that once the issues were raised they’d be remedied.

Anyway, back to the matter in hand. Laundry liquid, I found it via Pinterest (yes I know I already said), which linked to Frugally Green and this post in particular, now, I changed some things. I didn’t use Fells Naptha, instead I used Hemp soap from the soap kitchen, next time I’ll probably use my own homemade soap but I don’t have any of that yet. My borax and washing soda both also came from the soap kitchen along with the jerrycan I’ll be storing it in. I’ve used lemon and geranium essential oils. It’s all currently sitting waiting for me to visit it after the ‘overnight’  bit. I’ll update you with pictures and results once I’ve whizzed it in the whizzer and glooped it into the jerrycan. Now, the whizzing bit, that’s one of the reasons I needed to do it soon, the other is, as I said a need to do laundry. Pink moved out yesterday, and we sent the washing machine packing with her. Her need is greater than ours, I’m happy to hand wash in small batches and head to the launderette with the larger loads.

My next tasks are to make candles, ecosoy wax ones a la TEOTWAWKIblog, and then to make soap (or the other way round if it takes my fancy) , and to make table dens for J and the Twins – a desperate ploy to use up my immense stash of fabric before Tom leaves me (or dumps it all in a skip somewhere…..). I think that’s enough for now.

more woods prep

Oh dear, I’m definitely not being a very regular blogger.

I can tell you though that life is very busy here. Platforms have been built, forestry work has begun, straw bale building has been undertaken (not here but elsewhere), bunting has been made. It’s all systems go for our move. We will be houseless very soon and I am amazed to say I am not the slightest bit nervous, just happy, contented. We will soon be the proud dwellers of a tent, of the bell variety, in the woods.

I anticipate lots of learning, lots of laughter and hopefully a little bit of lounging…. more than anything though I anticipate peace – finally a place that feels right.

vintage patterns!

Knowing I needed to find a pattern for a top to take part in the spring top sewing I decided it was time to look through my pattern stash. As previously stated these patterns were all handed down to me by my mother (still alive and kicking but no longer sewing thanks to the arthritis) or by another elderly lady (elderlier… than my mother and also plagued by arthritis) so none of them are modern.

I’ve picked a few for show and tell, they span 3 decades and include some with fond memories for me! 2 of them don’t have dates on them so I’m not sure which decade from but they’re definitely from within the 3 the others span so I’m not too worried. I decided to leave out the incredibly cringeworthy 1980’s ones as I feel maybe my mothers mistakes don’t need to be made too public and why single her out when just about everyone made fashion mistakes in the 80’s!

a small selection

left to right top row first 1954, 1961, 1969, 1970 (maternity)

bottom row 1969, no date, 1973, no date

I distinctly remember at least one of the dresses my mum made out of McCalls 5915, it was cream and beige, a kind of medium weight texture waffle, I think it was wool. I’m sad she doesn’t have it anymore, when she returned to Spain in the 1990’s she didn’t take any of the clothes she’d made in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s with her. I think it’s a shame, I’d love my daughters to be able to see the wonderful clothes their Abuela made, and of course maybe ‘borrow’ them for myself…. there were some beautiful items, all really well made out of really good fabric.

The 1970’s maternity dress was the short version with long sleeves, it was black with tiny orange, red and yellow flowers all over. I know because I wore it for my first pregnancy in 1993 (only I wore it as a top not a dress, my mum has always had good legs (even now, bit wrinkly but still better than mine)). I gave it back to her after Noise was born, I don’t know why but she didn’t keep it so I never got to wear it again. I didn’t have this pattern and didn’t think to ask my mum for it when I got pregnant again in the 2000’s, I so wish I had, I’d love to have had such a comfortable, cool top to wear these last 2 times! Maybe next time……

Simplicity 5152 my mum made at least 3 versions of, my favourite being a heavy boucle type fabric with huge beautiful buttons. I loved that suit when I was growing up.

The sad thing is I never saw my mum in any of these, I just used to hug them and stroke them in her wardrobe. By the time I was old enough to notice what my mum was wearing it was the 80’s……

‘spring top week’

I’ve decided to take part in this ‘Spring Top Week’ form Made by Rae . I just need to find a top pattern (although she has some suggestions), or work one out for myself. I’m quite excited about it as I reckon it’s just the kick start I need to get sewing – also it’ll be fantastic to have a top that fits me (finally!).

In other news, the fabric shop has finally re-opened! Although when stocking the newly refurbished store they forgot a few things…. I needed some dpn’s and they didn’t have any at all! They said they’ve a little notebook where they’re making notes on all the things they’ve forgotten! It’s so great to have the store back, so much easier to get the things you need – I think it may even be why I feel newly inspired to craft. Cool bananas.

More from me on springtopweek when I have some patterns to consider. I actually have a cupboard full of patterns, I just need to go through them to see if there’s anything suitable – particularly in light of the fact these patterns were passed to me by my mother and another lady of a slightly older age… mid70’s to late 80’s (their ages not era) patterns are in fact mostly 70’s (era not age this time). Wish me luck in my hunt – you never know I might even find something I’d quite like to get married in….

crafty tuesday (post 2 today)

well i should be collecting the girls but i’m not that desperate to hear their arguments yet so they can hang on a bit while i post this.

Boo & I got on with making Christmas pressies this morning. I aquired a large pile of felt from a lovely lady on freecycle and so we set ourselves the task of making purses. i say ‘we’ but they are Boo’s creations so she should take all the credit.

She’s drawn round the template, I’ve cut them out (well she isn’t 3 yet i can let her loose with tailors scissors yet..), she’s punched holes all round the edges, we’ve folded them and i’ve helped her blanket stitch round the edges. she chose the colour of the felt and the wool for stitching for each person. she’s very proud. and so am i, she did very well and (for her) was very patient (mostly) and very careful (mostly) and we didn’t end up with any injuries or disasters so it was a very successful exercise.

pics to follow this evening (after i’ve got the girls from school….)

crafty stuff

i will try try try to add pics later as a post about what i’ve been creating isn’t terribly interesting without the pictures to show (although maybe the pictures are too honest, maybe i should just pretend i’ve created some masterpieces…)

this week i found a very easy skirt pattern by angry chicken and figured it was time to use the fabric i had aquired. now, please understand that this is not fabric that i have gone out and deliberately chosen but fabric that has come my way. the first (pic to follow later) came from the scrapstore, and the second from my friend G, her mums friend was having a clear out and as G doesn’t do floral (not that i thought i did either but hey..) and she only has a son she thought she’d pass some my way. my first hurdle was to get hold of Fold Over Elastic (FOE) in the UK without importing from the US, so i searched and found this site and ordered some FOE, i was wary having never used the stuff, never seen the stuff and not being convinced about the colours i was choosing…. but i did. less than 48 hours it had arrived and i was excited. so i set about turning the strange and not terribly atractive fabric into two 5 minute skirts. then i bought tops to go with them (£3 and £4 respectively) and so for the cost of 2 lengths of elastic, postage for that and 2 tops i have 2 complete new outfits. luckily i’m going on holiday so i can wear them without fear of bumping into people i know and see every day (just my family and those i grew up with!!)

muffin wanted to make shorts, so she did. we have only just worked out how to do the waist band and as i need to complete mine and the babies packing and then we leave at 5.30 tomorrow morning i think the shorts will need to be finished in spain (maybe with help from Abuela). muffin realises that using jersey for a first sewing project wasn’t necessarily the best idea in the world but actually it’s worked. and they don’t look half bad at all, in fact i think they look pretty fantastic.

i also thought i’d convert a rather mad dress from the scrapstore into a skirt, all that’s required is the FOE and a hem so i might have time later as it’s straightforward. i might also make a ‘snood’ as Tom’s neck gets cold when we’re in the car and we have 3 days driving ahead of us…. G’s stash included a large piece of black fleece.

can’t think of anything else crafty for now