Phoebe Gets Her Quilt

It is a big deal for me to finish a quilt! I started Phoebe's quilt in October 2018 and finished 14 months later.  Now, each of my children sleeps under a quilt I made.  Oh, that makes me happy!

For Phoebe's quilt, I used crib sheets and scraps of clothing that she and we wore.  I limited the colors to pink, blue, and yellow, but I mixed in little exceptions to liven things up.

I am quite serious about sewing down my stash, so I used the white fabric I had on hand for the squares, which means there are actually two slightly different whites.  For a few weeks after I made this choice, I was ashamed; the church of my childhood believed in  matching as part of its religion. For years, I have been slowly growing away from this perfectionism. Quilting and mending are spiritual metaphors for me, I reminded myself, so these whites are my choice to "gather up the fragments and let nothing be lost" (paraphrased from Jesus' words in the book of John after he extended the little boy's lunch of  bread and fish to feed thousands of people).

Another use-it-up material did not work out so well for this quilt.  I bought pink yarn from the creative reuse store, making ties in the center of each pieced star with the goal of little felted balls.  But when I put the finished quilt through a hot wash and dry, the ties would not felt: the yarn was not 100% wool.  Cussing a little and refusing to drive and seek pink wool, I re-did the ties with pink perle cotton in my stash.

I like to work in a bit of machine quilting on my quilts, but it didn't seem to fit in Phoebe's quilt.  So I handquilted the whole thing in white perle cotton, outlining the stars and then highlighting them further with diagonal lines.  I am not fond of quilting that runs all over a quilt, but prefer quilting that works in harmony with the patchwork.

Phoebe's quilt pleases my eye.  She loves it, and so do I.  I am already deep into another patchwork project for the patchwork surprise I adore, as well as the pleasurable mental work of planning and dreaming The Next Quilt until I blink and find myself cutting fabric for it.  I'll keep you posted.

Ribbon-Tied Oxfords

I had already put a pair of little girl's brown boots in my shopping cart at the thrift store, when Phoebe seized these little brown oxfords.  She insisted that she wanted them, not the boots.  I usually ignore such requests because she changes her mind back and forth about five times every time there's a decision. Literally every time.

But when I threaded ribbons in them instead of their brown laces, Phoebe and I were truly thrilled. We call them her "ribbon shoes" and she loves wearing them.  Three dollars from the thrift store and a few minutes of lacing - I'm pleased!

New Candles From Old Scraps

I play a little game where I try to reduce the trash we produce weekly. Our volume is a little high right now because Phoebe wears disposables overnight, but I'm looking at the big picture.  We have an excellent recycling program in the city, and often our recycling bins are fuller than our trash bins. 

I wondered if I could do anything with this big pillar candles that burn through their wick in the center and leave behind a heavy chunk of wax for the trash.  I did a little research and successfully made some new votives!

Supplies I used:

wax from old candles 

a metal coffee can + a saucepan to make a water bath to melt wax

small paper cups

toothpicks

candle wick string

container to hold candle molds while I poured

I put all the old candle chunks, wicks and cinders and whatever included, in the metal coffee can and set it in water in the saucepan over low heat.  Stay in the room while you do this - liquid wax is a fire hazard! Once the wax was totally liquid, the impurities went to the bottom.

I had set up my little votive molds by greasing the paper cups, and putting the wicks in the middle by punching a hole in the bottom of the cup, knotting the wick underneath, and then tying the wick to the toothpick at the top.

I set the molds in a newspaper-lined tray, and poured the hot wax in each mold. You can see that I did two color batches.  The votives hardened fairly quickly, but also left a sinkhole in the middle of each votive.  Since I made these just for winter evenings for us, I don't care, but I'm sure there are ways to prevent that sinkhole. 

And the votives burn very nicely! So I've started collecting scraps of wax and candles again in a bag for an easy, thrifty project that reduces our trash volume and keeps the house bright. 

An Unexpected Thanksgiving

I've been through colds with my children before, but never have I seen them sink so dramatically from robust health into pneumonia (Ben) and prolonged fever and coughing that stumps the doctors, even after labs and bloodwork (Genevieve). Phoebe continues to cough and cry.  I continue in health, thank God, because someone has to make tempting snacks and tea and new bribes for forcing liquids at all hours, piling up the little dishes and cups in the sink and washing washing washing laundry and dishes. And don't forget the myriad runs to various medical establishments (my husband had to go on a 2-day business trip in there, too) and food stores to coax the healthy color back into the sickies' faces again.

We realized the necessity of canceling all Thanksgiving plans with extended family on Wednesday afternoon.  Sitting with Genevieve in the hospital lab, I quickly sketched a menu that I thought could work to make Thanksgiving at home traditional and doable. I flew down to market, forgetting its holiday hours, and got there in time to see it shuttered.  I begged the meat stand to quickly sell me something, anything, and got a chicken just before he drove off.  There was just one produce stand with all its boxes packed, but Laura dug through her boxes in full sympathy and good cheer to find what I needed. 

For years, I have wished to cook an entire Thanksgiving feast with everything exactly to my taste, recipes researched, rejected, and chosen with care, ingredients gathered for weeks ahead, and linens fussed over and prepped.  And here I was, thrown into my own feast in less than 24 hours with lethargic children coughing in the other room. 

So I am thankful for things I was not expecting to be thankful for this season: for skilled doctors who use their diagnostic tools well, sympathetic nurses, supportive parents and family who jump in with childcare and errands, the relative health and incremental recovery of my children, an abundance of food from kind market sellers, and all the big things that underpin our lives that I can take for granted.

What are you thankful for this season?

My National Online Thrift Store

The plastic silverware holder that came with my dish drainer was too flimsy for our loads of dishes.  I was eyeing a stainless steel one on eBay but was hesitating because the seller used a stock photo and wasn't answering my query if he himself had the basket and was going to personally ship it.  

I had gotten burned by eBay sellers using Amazon fulfillment services, and I avoid supporting Amazon if I can help it.  I don't trust big corporations and their love of big profits and lack of engagement with the communities that host their big box stores and warehouses.  I prefer to support individual sellers and locally-owned stores.  Big corporations are also automating as many jobs as possible in the name of profit, which is costing people jobs.  I know it's a complicated issue because our economy is not sustainable as it is, but I also believe that people want meaningful work for fair pay.  So I try to avoid the big corporations and look for the small-time sellers on eBay (my national online thrift store!) or little companies with online stores. 

As I considered how badly I wanted the stainless steel silverware basket, I came across a red metal one in my favorite thrift store.  For $2, it was by far the cheapest option, and I was also supporting a local store that gives its profits to MCC.  I was very pleased.

I'd welcome your thoughts on Amazon, eBay, and online shopping in general. 

"Repair, Don't Throw Away"

"To combat a throwaway consumer culture, Sweden is giving financial incentives for people to repair clothes, bicycles, appliances, and other goods, according to the World Economic Forum.  In addition to providing tax incentives for repairs, levies are being added to the manufacture of new appliances based on the amount of chemicals used.  More people paying for repairs should mean more people in the labor force and more local jobs." - quote from The Mennonite May 2017, which is summarizing from Christian Century

My purse which I love, but it is vinyl and the corners are wearing off; I took a blue Sharpie to the worn corners.  A stopgap while I shop for a new purse (hopefully not vinyl).

 A Moses basket whose handles were fraying off the basket.  I darned the handles back on to the basket with twine.

 A tiny hole in our plastic watering can melted by a neighbor's cigarette cinder; I thought it was worth trying to fix with a small piece of duct tape inside and out.  The fix has been holding for months.

My granny shopping cart had a frayed back pocket.  I handsewed some patches over it so important
things (wallet! phone!) wouldn't slip out.

I would love to see incentives for repairs!  It's hard to find repair shops for anything these days because so many people say it's cheaper to buy a new one.  Do you try your hand at fixing things or know a fix-it genius?

And Then My Checkbook Cover Broke

I had never liked that cheap vinyl thing anyway.

I dug through my free upholstery samples and thought I could make a new cover.

I simply traced around the old old one, held the vinyl together tightly while I sewed, and bingo!  a new cover in about 20 minutes.  I did use a sewing machine needle that I have set aside for sewing on paper.

There's a pocket for the debit card that accesses the account.

There's a binder clip to keep the checks for deposit handy.

I'm very pleased with its looks and functionality.

Long-Enough Sleeves for the Tall Girl

Genevieve requested a bathrobe, and I thought I'd check the thrift store first before I made her one.  She wanted a big old floor-length robe - so much fabric if I was sewing one!  And while I was finding the robe that she now loves and wears every day, I saw a pair of pajamas for me.  

Vera Wang, if you please, for $3.  But the sleeves were a bit short - a perennial problem for a tall person like me.  I bought a $1 purple shirt, cut off the sleeves and attached them inside the pajama sleeves at the piping seam. 

 Now my wrists will be covered and warm. . . which is not a pleasant thought in this heatwave.  The pajamas are tucked away with my other winter clothes for the cold days.

My Favorite Garden, Vietnamese-Style

Right next to our church is my favorite yard garden.  It's a treat to walk by and see what the gardener is up to all year long.

Recently, the gardener himself was out when I walked goggling by.  I felt shy, but I told myself that most people who love plants love to talk plants, so I introduced myself and told him how much I love his garden.  His face lit up, and he started immediately handing out samples of his many kinds of mint and basil; he's Vietnamese, so his varieties are different from the ones I know and he was explaining which ones are good for what.  We had a language barrier for sure, but I did ask him if he minds if I take pictures of his garden and he waved his hand, sure sure, and handed another sprig of mint over the fence.

I returned another day with my camera (feeling shy again, but reminding myself I had permission).

My deep love for this yard is based on the pragmatism and sheer abundance - I love the make-do greenhouse/potting shed built out of old windows as far as I can tell, and the old swingset frame used as a trellis and also a shelter for tender plants.  Bottoms from nursery trays turned into fence, all kinds of supports and planters improvised from things most Americans throw away.

Look at the milk-crate edging, the lettuce mixed with flowers, the buckets and improvised shelves. I love the make-do, can-do vibe. And the roses.  Oh, the roses!

Their scent is a beautiful as they are because I put my nose in as many as I could, and thought of my grandmother who grew roses in tidy little bushes but this yard has a different tidiness, a different aesthetic from the middle-class American gardens I am accustomed to seeing.  It tickles my imagination and makes me bolder in my own gardening efforts.  I am hatching some plans for two different arbors at our balcony and porch and I am not thinking small or middle-class, no I am not.

Steeping Tea the Pretty Way

There are these lacy cloth things that I've seen in old-fashioned kitchen that are used as lids.  Sometimes they even have beads dangling at their edges to weight them down.  So I rooted through my bag of doilies that I keep for sewing projects and found a suitable "lid."

I often put tea that is steeping for iced tea outside my kitchen window to keep every little bit of heat out of the house that I can, but I don't want anything or any critter to drop into my tea.  I also don't want a metal lid to seal to the jar during steeping. So now I have a pretty, breathable lid for my jar.  Does anyone know more about this method - is there a name for this fabric cover?

Stroller Organizer

Phoebe's main stroller kept breaking at a joint, and my husband would fix it and shake his head warningly.  So I took that as a sign that the stroller was going to collapse on the sidewalk with a full load of market provender some sweet day.

I could not bear the suspense.

So I took a lot of things to the children's consignment store and got $40 off a used stroller for a grand total of 20 bucks.  It feels a little wiggly and its basket is not as big as the old one, but I am now free from suspense.

I knew I was going to need some kind of stroller organizer for the new stroller because I did not want to throw my phone, wallet, and keys down in the basket.  I decided to see if I could make something that would look nice and function well.  I'm so pleased with this stroller organizer!

I used some scraps of Sunbrella fabric in my stash, so it's more like home dec weight with the added weatherproofing.  Each end has a gusset to make a roomy box with fabric ties at each corner.  I used some yellow scraps from this very misguided skirt as interior pockets.  And I put two bands of wide striped elastic at either end to tether water bottles.  There's also bottom space that I toss a book and a stroller hook into, as well as small purchases and doodads.  The fabric ties are very secure on the stroller handle.  I've been using it for over a week now, and I love it!

Goodbye, Mullet; Hello, Pixie

 I just up and cut it off this morning while the turkey was roasting. I set Phoebe in her high chair in front of a Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star video on Youtube, and vacuumed her off when I was done.

By the way, I think I have my 15-lb turkey method nailed down:  dry brine (2 Tbsp. kosher salt, 2 Tbsp. sugar, 1 tsp. pepper, 1 tsp. poultry herbs) for 24 hours, bake 425 covered for 1 hour, then 3 hours on 300 (or until nearly done) and uncover last 30 minutes.  My meat thermometer was dead in the drawer when I wanted to test the turkey, but it was delicious and easy, so I'm saving the details.  I'm not scared of cooking big pieces of meat anymore, but I don't do it often enough to remember.