Heirloom Sewing

As most of you that follow this blog know I love the needle arts. Whether it is sewing, crochet, knitting, embroidery, cross stitch or quilting I adore them all. As a child I grew up with a seamstress mother who instilled these skills in me early. Recently I sat down with a pattern, a pair of scissors, needle and thread and made a couple little dresses for a dear childhood friend of my oldest daughters. She was expecting her first child. 

Although it is hard to tell from the photo this little dress is a peachy pink.

What makes this little dress unique is that every stitch on this dress was done by hand. It was sewn at my dining room table. With tiny french seams and even hand sewn button holes and embroidery. They now call this heirloom sewing or french heirloom sewing. Around New Orleans where I grew up in the 50's this was much more common than now. Especially with special clothing like christening outfits, first communion clothes and wedding dresses. They made beautiful little baby ensembles for new babies. Gowns and day dresses especially. 

It has been a long time since I had done any hand sewing and just wanted to revisit the skills. It gave me a good reason to make a really special gift for a special little girl. 

I also did a little smocked pink gingham gown.

Again every stitch done by hand.

Blessings from The Holler

The Canned Quilter

Busy Hands

With less house to clean and mowing and gardening to do I have begun to do more and more needlework.  I am trying to rebuild a stockpile of gifts. A handmade scarf makes a great birthday or Christmas present. Maybe a matching hat to go with it or mittens.

The scarf above is my first completed knitting project. I have been learning off of you tube videos and a book I purchased.

I love this one made with super soft yarn with just a modified Half double crochet stitch.

And a couple extra pot holders and I want to crochet some scrubbies and dishcloths to match and maybe sew a couple dish towels in a coordinating color. Wouldn't that make a great housewarming or bridal shower gift.

And for those baby showers and great nephews and nieces coming along a couple of these stashed away wouldn't hurt.

I also want to start crocheting some baby hats, socks, booties and blankets for a local charity organization called Newborns In Need. They make baby items and donate to the needy, shelters and hospital neonatal wards. It is so hard to buy items for those tiny preemies that fit and they also provide burial clothes for God's littlest angels. Those tiny babies that are still born or miscarried. 

As I restock my homemade gift stash I'll use those extra bits and pieces to make those tiny baby hats and booties with the leftover yarn and hoping to run across some sales on baby yarn to stock up a stash for this my newest endeavor. I also have a couple baby quilts to quilt too.

But those busy hands projects keep me out of trouble and off the streets and goodness knows I need it.

Blessings from The Holler

The Canned Quilter

Rainy Day Projects

With all this rain of late I took advantage of the inside time to make new potholders for my kitchen. It was past time to pitch the old ones. I made regular size ones for pot holders and a couple of the larger ones that I use to put hot pots on.

I have used the same pattern for years which is basically just single crochet for the pot holder itself a shell border of double crochet. Made of heavy cotton yarn they last for many years and are machine washable. 

Yo can find the original pattern at  http://www.myrecycledbags.com/2008/11/22/my-basic-potholder-pattern/

Blessings from The Holler

The Canned Quilter

New Dish Towels

As most of you know one of my objections to these modern times is the practice of sending American jobs overseas. Watching my neighbors lose their jobs last fall when Hanes closed a local factory was particularly upsetting. They bought a small local company (the competition)  then a year later closed it down and moved all those jobs to Mexico. It drove home for me the importance of buying American or producing my own. I will not even pretend to influence or sway the thinking of the public but I can vote with my spending dollar. Most people these days when they need something for their home run to their local big box store buying inferiorly made, over priced, foreign produced goods. American consumerism at it's best. 

Recently I decided that I needed new dish towels in the kitchen. In the spring and summer, and especially during high canning season, my kitchen linens get used really hard. By the end of the year they are usually showing hard wear and tear and sporting a myriad of various stains. 

In an effort to practice what I preach I  looked to the many plastic containers of cloth stashed in my large sewing closet for a solution. Much of this fabric not purchased new but picked up at estate sales, garage sales, goodwill stores and fabric clearance sales at the end of the seasons. Some of the stash left over from various sewing and quilting projects through the years.    

In the end I was able to totally restock my kitchen towel drawer without ever leaving the comfort of my own sewing room. 

Lightweight cotton linen fabrics became lint free dishtowels for drying that glassware and stemware.

I especially like homespun as it make wonderful towels that are absorbent yet still thin and because it comes in darker colors that don't show stains as bad. A good decorative stitch around the edges assures that those reinforced hems do not fray.  

It is the perfect weight to be absorbent, yet dry out quickly, especially draped over that dish drain rack or warm oven door handle. 

A few cloths hemmed of heavier flannel for those heavier drying jobs where more absorbency is needed and lint isn't an issue. 

Some new linen blend napkins with the scraps.

And some unbleached muslin tea towels. I remember my mother making these and using two a day. Every morning and evening after the house cow was milked she ran her milk through a muslin dishcloth to strain out any trash or straw that may have fallen in the milk bucket.  A homemade answer to cheesecloth only a finer weave. Muslin makes great jelly bags and I love these muslin tea towels to drape damp over rising bread dough bowls. 

Many people put a lot of rick rack, lace or decoration on their homemade towels but I like maybe just a little decorative stitching and that is it. I did put a little eyelet lace on one but didn't really like it.  

Now all I need is to pick up some terry cloth to make a few really heavy duty towels and my kitchen linens should be restocked for another year. Huck toweling is great too but I can no longer find it locally so I will have to find it online. 

And I even found some more net in my stash to make some more crocheted scratch pads for washing dishes. 

The only problem with this is being able to find good quality material. Gone are the days of walking into fabric stores and buying huck toweling by the bolt, I can even remember buying birdseye diaper material by the bolt or yard. These days when I find good quality tea towel material I snap it up. 

Just one more thing produced on this farm and one more dollar saved for my household. And one more winter chore down. 

Blessings from The Holler

The Canned Quilter

A Place For Everything

 Like most self proclaimed OCD sufferers I am a subscriber to the "a place for everything" philosophy. But every now and then you have to reevaluate a place and find a new one. Recently I have been spending lots of time at the quilt frame and sewing machine. As I age and become more forgetful it becomes even more important that things be organized. If I have a designated place for things I find that I am much less likely to misplace items.

I remember so well my late mother in law. In the later years of her life she became almost blind. She managed really very well until someone reorganized her things. Then she was lost. She memorized where everything was and as long as it was in it's place she could find it without her sight. 

This is especially important with a skill such as sewing. There are so many small but useful items that are easily looked over or lost. Needles, pins, thimbles and other small objects easily fall behind tables and under chairs to be lost forever or end up in the vacuum cleaner or even worse someones' foot. Since I quilt and sew in a carpeted room I have to be especially careful with this.  For years I have had pin cushions full of needles around my sewing areas. I dislike needles in pin cushions because they get pushed down into the pin cushions interior because there is no head to stop them. There they become embedded and lost forever.  

So I took the time to make myself some needle books. Just scraps of fabric sewn into books with scrap felt pages. Odds and ends of rick rack and lace to decorate them and buttons from the spare button jar and bits of elastic for closures. 

Now I have small books for different needles. Quilting needles, embroidery needles, basting needles, upholstery needles, and any other needle you can think of. 

All neatly tucked away in their own little books. These can go into a drawer or sewing basket and I don't have to worry about them falling out or becoming lost.  

Wouldn't these make a great stocking stuffer for daughters that sew or even MOMS. Or maybe small sewing kits for the purse or glove compartment. A small pair of scissors, needles, a needle threader and a couple of cardboard skeins of thread. 

There are lots of patterns floating around out there online. Just let your imagination run wild. 

Blessings from The Holler

The Canned Quilter

Everything Old Is New Again

The old garden hat is looking pretty ratty! Since chemotherapy I am extremely susceptible to sun burn. As a result of this I am always with sunglasses and never without a hat. When it is windy though I spend half my time chasing them and in my neck of the woods it is almost always windy. So I had to find an alternative for those windy days.

And I had to look no further than Baby O's hope chest. 

This was O Wise One's great grandmother's bonnet. Grandma Martha had immigrated from Indiana with her circuit riding preacher father. She came across the country in a covered wagon with 7 brothers and sisters and her parents. She later married Grandpa Bill fresh out of the Civil war complete with his 40 acres and a mule compliments of the United States government for services rendered. Only problem was he had to go to this place in the middle of nowhere called Missouri to claim it. 

Grandma Martha always wore one of these sun bonnets and in most pictures she has one on. My husband was lucky enough to inherit one of her sunbonnets in his aunts hope chest. And as Baby O points out complete with DNA deposits. (sweat stains Eeeewww) As you can see by the fading and sweat stains this thing was worn often. Now there are many patterns on the Internet for sunbonnets but I like this one because there is a pocket on the back of the bonnet for a drawstring. This is handy because if you have thick hair or long hair in a bun you can adjust the size of the back portion of the bonnet. This one when I found it actually had what looked like cotton butcher twine used to gather it.   

I was actually able to reproduce the bonnet from just looking at it and didn't even have to take it apart. 

No more chasing that darn hat because I can tie this puppy down. And a pattern traced to make as many as I need. I think I will make one more at the least so that I can wash one and wear one. The original bonnet is tucked back safely in tissue paper in Baby O's cedar chest.

Won't I just be quite the sight with my green bonnet on my green tractor mowing fields : )

I think the next one I will make in yellow to match my Cub mower. LOL

The neighbors will probably be ready to commit me : )

Blessings from The Holler

The Canned Quilter

Out With The Old

My clothes pin apron is looking pretty sad these days. Threadbare and one tie torn off it has seen it's last round trip to the clothes line. What's a girl to do.

Why just go on online and find some ideas and some scrap denim and make me a new one.

I saw one in an etsy shop so if you want a similar pattern she is selling a PDF pattern 
Similar Etsy Pattern

As for me I just kind of looked at it and winged it. Notice mine has a square bottom as opposed to her round one. I think if I make any more I would make them a little bigger.  

Everything was scrounged around my sew stash. An old wooden hanger, some scrap ricrac, lace and a couple buttons out of the button jar.

Guess my clothes line is ready for spring!

Maybe I'll take that old apron and take it apart and make me a new one of those while I am at it : )

Blessings from The Holler

The Canned Quilter

Around To It

The glare in my dining room window in the winter is terrible. But O Wise One hates curtains. After all we have no neighbors. There is not a human for miles that can see in this window and O Wise One likes to sit here and drink his coffee and watch the wildlife. As we get older though he finds that the glare from the snow is blinding and hurts his eyes. For years we have just had a small ruffled valance here. He decided it was time for curtains and especially when there are no leaves on the trees to shade that part of the porch. 

So in O Wise One fashion he went out in the shed and found some wood and made me a curtain rod for that big window with a shelf on top.  That wood has been there forever! It is pecky maple bought from a lumber mill when we lived in Louisiana. I stained it on the front porch with stain and urethane left over from other projects. So the cost of this project was $0.

And O Wise One hung it on the wall above that window. And there it sat...................

and sat.............

Until I sat down at the sewing machine Saturday and finally made drapes. After almost a year I finally got around to it. Yep drapes in a day. Just simple drapes that could be taken down in summer and replaced with just a ruffled valance to let in all that summer sunshine. Made from recycled material from a long ago project. This was once a huge curtain that hung over a sliding glass door almost 15 years ago. Recut and remade to fit this window the total cost $0.  

Now all I have to do is maybe make some lace sheers and find something to go on the top of that shelf : ) 

Preferably before another year.....

I am seriously considering making winter quilted drapes for that window. Wouldn't that be warm and help keep that heat in.   

Blessings from The Holler

The Canned Quilter

Winter Projects And Dish Scrubbies

With rainfall the middle of last week and snow this weekend everything is pretty much a snowy/muddy mess. The cold weather has also returned for this week.   

All this yucky weather has inspired me to tackle lots of cleaning projects including several closets. Since Baby O has also moved upstairs and we cleaned out her outgrown clothing I have a large pile of old clothing to cut up into rags and strips for rugs and quilts. I am slowly working my way through my pile. 

 I had several requests for a picture of the bags I crocheted out of plastic grocery bag strips. This one is Hank's and he uses it to carry his children's books around the house. At naptime he goes and retrieves his book bag for grandma to read him books from. When he leaves for home his bag is put away until next visit.  I also have several of these in the trunk of the car. They are so handy as grocery bags or even better when I visit those vegetable stands they can really hold their weight in produce. Great for shopping garage sales and trips to the library too! Sorry there really isn't a pattern I just sat down and crocheted the bag off the cuff. Nothing fancy but they sure are handy and so much more sturdy than those bags before they are crocheted. So for anyone wanting to try it I would recommend finding a bag pattern online that you like and trying your hand at recycling those plastic bags. 

Here lately at night I have been crocheting scratch pads for washing dishes. I found an old Halloween costume while closet cleaning that had lots of netting to make the skirt puffy. (Netting and not tulle) 

I found the pattern linked below online for making scratch pads from nylon netting. What a great way to recycle the netting from those old costumes and I may not have to buy scratch pads for quite some time. I have  a half dozen now tucked away in my dishtowel drawer : ) These can be thrown into the washing machine and washed supposedly and won't scratch your dishes. So far mine has worked great...

Scrubby Tutorial

So with lots of cleaning to go yet I am always ready for night time and an hour or so after dinner of quiet crocheting and a good DVD to watch. I am hoping to have most of my spring cleaning done long before spring and gardening season. This week's project is cleaning over the kitchen cabinets and wiping them down. Some time this month I want to make some more soap also. 

I have a new quilt top ready for the frame and hope to get it basted and stretched this week also. I'll take pictures when I get it on the frame. So as you can see although last week was a slow week for blogging we are getting lots done. 

What projects are you tackling this winter?

Blessings from The Holler

The Canned Quilter