Preparing for The Bump: Puddle Pads

One of the best investments that Mr. S. and I ever made was in our bed. After a lifetime of foam and springs, our hand-made 100% wool bed by Shepherd's Dream really was a dream. It's warm in the winter and cool in the summer. We don't use air conditioning, and the wool bed keeps us so cool and dry during hot muggy summer nights.

To protect it I use big thrifted wool blankets, which I just put down on top of the mattress under the fitted sheet, but considering how many accidents, leaks, and general wetness that accompanies newborns, I wanted something easily changed but still effective. We have two wool puddle pads that we got way back when we got the bed, when Safiya was still a babe, but they're now a little out of our price range (they were well worth the initial cost, though - over the years they've washed beautifully, stayed thick, cozy, and soft, and absorbed wetness and odour very well).

So I thought I'd just make a little stack of puddle pads for on top of the sheets, planning to whisk away the top ones as they get wet. Thrifted wool blankets run about ten dollars around these parts, and after felting them I can get four puddle pads from one (I just cut them and zig-zagged the edges). They're not as thick and luxurious as the ones from Shepherd's Dream, and the weave is a bit looser, but at about $2.50 each, I can afford to double them up....actually, I can afford to sixteen-uple them up, which would be the equivalent cost :-)

Cozy, cozy! One more thing ready for The Bump...

What to Do With All Those Scraps?

When I was little my Mom always had a little plastic bag taped to the side of her sewing machine table for the inevitable snippets and scraps that come with sewing so that she could easily collect them for the garbage.

As with any next generation, I went bigger and badder :-)

That big swing-top can sits snug against my sewing machine table and ever since I've started to seriously sew, it's been patiently engulfing all the little scraps and threads that are too small for my other scrap bins (yep - there are two more totes, one for wovens and one for knits/felt - those scraps are saved for projects like beanbags and blankets).

I choose to use mostly natural fabrics, which really wouldn't be a problem in the garbage since they would decompose pretty easily, but I use thrifted polyester-cotton thread and fabric some, and the idea of my craft resulting in bits of plastic sitting around forever and making their way into the food chain makes me shudder too much to sew a straight seam, so I've been collecting it (while trying to get away from the whole polyester thing in the first place). But what to do with all those scraps?

My pregnant self tried to take a nap outside the other day, and was quickly and uncomfortably made aware of the dearth of outside cushions in this house.

So, Safiya and I sewed up a giant cushion from cotton canvas that I had, and stuffed away!

Oh, if you decide to do something like this, make sure you check your scraps thoroughly. Some things we found that would be unpleasant to sit on:

And hey - there's my bag of yellow embroidery thread that I thought I lost last year!

There will be grommets on each corner so that I can hang it up for storage, and some kind of colourful cover is in the works, but it's pretty functional as it is. A couple of years' worth of scraps handily dealt with in one afternoon. It's a bit lumpy, but certainly comfortable enough:

And yes, I'm really only delaying the inevitable, because that cushion someday will meet it's demise, but let's hope it has a long and nap-filled life...

It's the Little Things...

Mr. S. walked into the kitchen last weekend only to discover my nine-months-pregnant-almost-due self perched on top of a stool, cleaning the top of the fridge.

"Uh-oh.....how many days have we got, then?" he said. You see, the last time 'round I did perfectly reasonably things like scrub the inside of the washing machine and the dishwasher right before Safiya was born. So Mr. S. is, understandably, a little freaked out :-)

Of course, impending baby is a great motivator, so there have been lots of little things accomplished lately, which is awesome. Like handles on the kitchen cabinets:


Like me finally sewing curtains for the bedroom (thanks to my friend Sandra who passed the raw goods on for me to work with!):


Like, having given up on being able to tie running shoes and degenerated into Euro-not-cool-in-any-way style 'cause I just didn't care anymore:


to redeeming myself with a $5.99-Value-Village bit of slip-on relief and cuteness:


Now, if I could just figure out how to get nailpolish onto those far-away toes......

The 1900 House and Making Toothpaste

Safiya is enamoured of The 1900 House. I took the DVD's out of the library one day, intending them for myself, and one day when I wasn't feeling particularly well, I popped it in. In general Safiya is adverse to unfamiliar media, but when they started talking about not having electricity and having to use the outhouse outside, she peaked around the corner and said "watcha' watchin'?"

And so starts Homeschooling History 101 :-)

One of the things which I do on-and-off but which Safiya now helps with with increased fervor after watching the show (a gazillion times) is making toothpaste. She likes to raise her eyebrows at the idea of having to brush your teeth with just baking soda - yucccch!, and thinks our recipe is greatly improved over what they did in the 1900's (after having tried the plain baking soda :-) She actually prefers it to the fruity kids' toothpaste that she had.


Here's the recipe, adapted from my well-worn copy of Jackie French's Natural Solutions:

3 parts baking soda
2 parts calcium carbonate (which I easily ordered from the pharmacy)
1 part vegetable glycerin
drops of peppermint essential oil, as desired

Mix well. Store in whatever way is easiest for you.

The first time she made it with me we decided to use an old, well-cleaned toothpaste tube and then duct-tape the end, which worked o.k. at the beginning, but then it leaked a bit at the end.


This time we wracked our brains and found a better solution. We increased the amount of glycerin to make it a bit more runny and reused old honey bears! Perfect!


Oh, and we're well on our way with the reality-tv-show based history curriculum. We've gone through Frontier House (she's trying to convince Mr. S. to keep chickens for eggs in our backyard) and are starting Manor House (originally The Edwardian Country House). This is proper education, right? ;-)

Preparing for The Bump: Food

Our freezer, which was on a power bar (brilliant, I know), was turned off accidentally (I blame the cats, as they can't defend themselves). There was very little to rescue by the time we noticed what was going on. So, start all over again, right?

Thinking ahead to the very likely scenario of our family resorting to all-takeout-all-the-time when The Bump is born, and realising that in reality I prefer the taste (and cost!) of our homemade food, I've implemented a little planning that's actually been pretty easy so far.

Anything that I can make double batches of that freezes easily I'm doing now. This also has the added benefit of me not having to negotiate take-out ingredients, especially when I'll be tired with new baby and my defenses are down and I'm inclined to say "whatever, I don't care, I just need to eat something, damn the consequences!" :-)

Now, Mr. S. is a great cook, and I'll be able to rely on him to cook for us too, but some of this has to do with budget as well. I'm really really looking forward to the four months that he's taking in paternity leave, and wouldn't change that for the world. It also means that there will be a cut in funds to be creatively confronted for those four months, which is fine by me.

And it allows me to start playing in a small way with something I just learned from one of the new people who helps cook in our community kitchen for the free lunches on Tuesdays. We always prepare really good food with enough options so that no matter who walks in, there will be something to eat for them, carnivores and vegan celiac freaks like me alike. We do have budget and availability to consider, and we're trying to do what little we can to ease people into to the idea of eating seasonally and frugally. But then this new person (who is a phenomenal cook) comes in and starts asking if we have things like cream and cheese and sour cream! The decadence! The cost! :-) However, he made a really good point: Everyone deserves the best food we can possibly make, presented in a manner pleasing to the eye, because that's a way of feeding people too. So we've been making a little extra effort with presentation, which makes a bigger impact, even on me as a cook, than I imagined. We all know this, right? Any menu at a good restaurant teases you with the description and presentation of the food, not just what shows up on your plate. "Smoked chipotle chili" sounds better than just "chili". And that extra effort shows respect and consideration for the person eating the food.

So, after all that, what's the point? I guess when I look into my freezer, instead of trying to navigate unlabeled food of dubious origin dumped unceremoniously in a rush before it goes bad in the fridge, I think it'll be nicer to see things like this:


Even the cooks need to nourish their souls :-)

There Are Socks...

These are my favourite socks. Wollen, warm, cozy, cushiony - they are the perfect cold weather socks. Consigned to the back of the sock drawer (if Mr. S. detects holey socks he chucks them!), they lay there forlorn until, inspired by Becky's darning post, I decided to rescue them.

I probably could have winged it, but I approach any new skill with hesitation (what if I mess up darning socks? what horrible unremovable mistakes could result?), so I used a Very Instructive Video.

This is my fuzzy in-process-shot (having no darning mushroom around, I instead availed myself of a lightbulb):


And this is my not-much-better results shot (black-on-black yarn doesn't show well, sorry, but look - no hole!):


And now they are cozy-comfy on my feet again! Oh thrift, how I love thee.....

The Litterless Lunch and Food Fit for a...

King? Queen? Sultan? A hungry kid and her mom.

Today is Wednesday, which means we have lunch at Sultan's after swimming lessons at the community centre. We are fortunate to have an amazing network of community centres in Toronto which provide an astonishing array of classes for large and small for very little money. We are also fortunate to have people like Tamara and Samer who provide the yummiest falafel ever, not to mention homemade lentil soup, vegetables with garlic sauce, and other delectable handmade Jordanian food (vegan and gluten-free not even on purpose!)....mmmmm.....it's only 8:45 in the morning and yet I crave already.....that's Tamara walking away in the picture below, protesting the picture :-)


Safiya has been taking classes at this particular community centre for a couple of years, so it is a ritual and delight to walk in at lunchtime. She orders "the usual" and has started being in charge of the money, and we chat with Tamara and Samer and watch Danforth Avenue life pass by, usually playing "I Spy" as we eat.


That white sauce on the vegetables is the garlic sauce. It's basically just garlic and oil blended together. Soooooo good.


This Wednesday ritual has also provided me with an opportunity to practice and perfect the litterless lunch. We try to eat mostly at home, but it would be foolish to pass up good Toronto food and the opportunity to support our small restauranteurs, so I always carry our water bottle and cutlery roll with us. And now, I've added a couple of tiffins (got them here, but I'm sure there are many places to get them) and, on Wednesdays, a lug-a-mug (Tamara makes Safiya a special sweet black tea with fresh mint that we savour on the way home). At Sultan's they gladly fill up the tiffens instead of the foam one-use dishes that are offered, as do most restaurants if you ask nicely and just emphasize that you're weird that way :-) Or, even better, with a smile say that you're trying out the first "R"; the reduce one. Most of the time no explanation is necessary, which is great.


The tiffins took a while to take, as with any new habit, but they're perfect for picnics, which we will be doing a lot more of as the weather gets warmer, and, also important, leftovers from restaurants, even ones that are sit-down with china (apparently if you have kids, you have left-overs :-) I don't know the energy input required to make these, but they're light, unbreakable, I can pass them down to Safiya, and they're better by leaps and bounds than recycling, which also requires high energy input and doesn't always happen as it's supposed to. Sometimes the recycling thing seems to me to be just a salve on the eco-conscious, kind of like buying indulgences were to the church in the Middle Ages.

So, if you're in Toronto, say hi to Tamara and Samer at Sultan's, which is at the north-east corner of Main Street and Danforth Avenue. And bring your tiffin :-)

Lengthening Long Johns: Yet Another Use for Sweater Sleeves

Safiya is growing tall like a lovely weed, so her ankles are poking out the bottom of her long johns like, well, legs poking out the bottom of too-short long johns. They fit her otherwise, so enter the old sweater sleeves, once again! This took about ten minutes.


1. Fold up the cuff of the long johns:


2. Pick a sweater that has been felted only a little, or not at all, so that there's some give, and make sure that the sweater sleeve cuff will be the right size to be comfy around the ankles. Cut the sleeves however long you need. Slip over the turned-up long johns, with the cut edge of the sweater matching the end of the cuff. Match the seams and pin, evenly gathering and pinning any extra fabric:


3. Sew about a 1/4" seam. I used a straight stitch, loose-ish tension, and a walking foot, which is perfect for knits. (Sorry about the blurry picture!) Notice the direction of the pins now; you kind of have to flip the leg around and make sure that you don't sew the leg shut! :-)


4. Obviously the cuff edge is finished and the sweater sleeve edge is not. I didn't zig-zag finish the seam, though, just in case I someday want to remove the cuff...you know, just in case there's anymore kids around here....someday, maybe..... It should hold up because we wash woolens gently. So there you have it:


A longer leg!


If she keeps growing this fast she'll have rainbow coloured long john legs soon!
:-)

Wardrobe Refashion, Kid's Version

Every once in a while I quickly go through my clothes and put things in the donation bag. Lately though, I've become a bit more mean. Yes, there's a perfectly good shirt of Mr. S.'s that he doesn't dig anymore in there, but you can't have it because the buttons can go in the button box and the rest can make rags. Stingy, I know, but might as well get as much use out of it as possible.

So there was the top in the picture up there, which was an early-pregnancy-friend-gave-me item that seriously? Awesome on a hot summer beach day when the pregnancy boobs are so big that they can be seen from space, but these days squishing is hardly to their benefit ;-) I quickly shortened the elasticized bodice (just cut the top couple of inches off in-between rows of stitching), took the side seam in, added ribbon for straps, and hey presto!


On a roll, I got daring with this:


Love the pattern, love the cut, but too small. I'm not sure if doing the following is officially sanctioned altering - is this allowable? Apparently, 'cause it worked!


I put the t-shirt on Safiya, got her to stand still (!), pinched it up on top of her shoulders until I got a decent fit, marked one side with a safety pin 'cause that's all I could manage given the level of wriggliness, and then turned it inside out and pondered for a minute.


This is a view from the back of one of the shoulders. The trick, which I almost got, is to line up the neck binding and the sleeve seams from front to back. There was extra fabric on the back, so I just pleated it as I sewed the seam, following the original line of the shirt (which yielded a perfectly fitting sleeve - I was pretty amazed!) It still puckered a bit across the back of the neck, so I just folded it under and stitched, as you can see.

O.k., the following is my doctored version (the red arrows are where I lined up the old seams, which are in white, and the green line is where I sewed the new seam - does that help, or am I making things more complicated?)


Anyway, not the most glamourous of jobs, but it created, it all of 5 minutes (minus the pondering), a perfectly serviceable dress:


I'd love to show you a picture of her wearing it, but most of the time today she was sticking her hands in the pockets and pulling it up over her head. I can, however, show you what happened at the end of the day:


That's our vegetable "garden". There's herbs, sunflowers, and sunchokes in there somewhere. And the often played in but rarely photographed mud hole. With the dress as accessory.

Anatomy of a Sweater

Remember these piles that showed up a couple of weeks ago? Well...


Can I talk some more about felted sweaters? It is almost Valentine's Day, and I do love them so... :-) From this wonderful stuff you can make blankets, legwarmers, armwarmers, scarves, mittens, oven mitts (particularly good as wool is not very flammable), the lining for tea cozies, clothes for children, stuffed animals, pillows, and the list goes on!

As a textile, it comes with it's own peculiarities when you're using it, since of course it has had a previous life. Since I'm into recycling and closing the loop, I was trying to find ideas on how to use an entire sweater with nothing leftover! So, already accounting for using the arms and body as fabric, here goes....

Take one felted sweater. Let's pretend is has a hood, pockets, a front zipper, and buttons, just to make life complicated.

buttons: (easy...I mean, c'mon, they're buttons...)

the label: mine get cut up for the snippets bin, but if I were more ambitious and oh - way more talented, I could try something like the incredible quilt by by Terese Agnew called "Portrait of a Textile Worker".

zippers: very cool jewelry by Kate Cusak

pockets: cut out to make a pocket purse, keep for cool surprise pockets in blankets, add to other clothing (I'm thinking of adding them to a spring coat for Safiya), use for legwarmers...


hood: why mess with it? :-)


And then we come to the seams. The peculiarity with felted sweaters is the seams. Usually I cut out the seams, as they are too bulky to use for most projects. And so, for over at least a year, I've been accumulating this mountain of seams, waiting....and waiting.....Until one day the light went on, I sewed the ends of all of them together and ta-da!


It makes an awesome kind of yarn. I've started crocheting a rug:


However, I think I need a bigger hook! I worked in the round so that the differences in thickness wouldn't matter so much. This stuff works up fast, and is soooo thick and cozy - it's going to feel fantastic under the toes. Even better, it will be a wool rug that's also washable, since it's already shrunk! What's cool is that while I was working on this, Betz White had another great idea of what to do with the seams...

The only thing leftover that I can't figure out what to do with are the used sewing machine needles from all the sewing! I think they look pretty in a small glass jar by the sewing machine, but I'll bet someone has thought of what to do with them.....the craft universe, after all, is a very creative place!

got any ideas?

The Good Stuff

For a former farmgirl, I've got ridiculously sensitive skin. Today we indulged in one of the little routines around here; making lotion. This is adapted from Jackie French's Natural Solutions:

3 parts oil : 1 part beeswax, grated

(I use sunflower oil, as it's high in vitamin E, relatively inexpensive, and I can get it Canadian made. If I'm splurging I add some calendula oil.) Heat the oil and wax in a double boiler (or, um, extra-from-Value-Village-'cause trying-to-wash-wax-doesn't-work-pot balancing precariously over another pot) until wax is melted. Take off heat, add a few drops of essential oil, and slowly whisk in about 1 part water (keep whisking! or else it gets lumpy, and lumpy lotion? booo!) Keep in the fridge.

Done!

It's inexpensive, pure, and, having tried everything else including doctor prescribed? This is the good stuff, baby!