DIY
Housekeeping note
Hello readers, I am planning to switch this site over to another host in the next couple weeks, meaning that it will no longer be hosted on wordpress.com. This should get rid of the annoying video ads that sometimes pop up in my posts and give me more control over the look of the site. If you keep up with … Read more
Look what bloomed today!
Clematis and irises—I guess we’re officially moving from spring to early summer.
Homemade bleach gel pens are easy to make—and a waste of time
Sometimes when I make a quilt with both brightly colored and white fabrics, I or the quilt recipient washes it without putting a Shout Color Catcher Sheet in the machine with it, and it ends up looking like this: My solution for this problem has usually been Clorox Bleach Pens, but my local supermarket no longer carries them and I … Read more
My new audio center
For years, I’ve had this cute little console that likely spent its previous life as a side table in a hospital or lab. It’s got an enamel top, and previously had a baked-on pastel paint-job that had seen better days. My friend Dekalb ground off the paint to bare the steel underneath, which I sealed with spray polyurethane. On the … Read more
Sewing Saturday: Darning a pair of Icebreaker wool running tights
When I visited Mindy Celeste this summer, I snagged my Icebreaker wool running tights on the pull-out metal frame of the sofa bed. My former way of fixing this would have been to patch it with a scrap of knit fabric. Now that I have a darning foot for my sewing machine, I darned it instead. The darning stitch is … Read more
Transforming a comforter into a quilt
My sister made me this blue comforter about 15 years ago. Unfortunately, the first house where I lived with it had a mouse problem so I ended up washing it in the machine more often than I should have otherwise. As a result, the edges have frayed. Some of the fabric wore through, too. Then Lilo the cat snacked on … Read more
Mending a pillow case after my cat ate a big chunk of it
How to mend a pillowcase after your cat (or dog, or child, or the local fabric-eating banshee) eats a corner of it. Read more …
Sewing: How I mended a duvet cover and added ribbons so the duvet wouldn't slip
I’m still working on mending some things that Lilo the cat ate before she was taking medicine for her fabric-eating compulsion. This project is a duvet cover that she nibbled near one of the corners. I sewed a seam around the hole, at an angle that connected the side and bottom (using white thread, below). I trimmed off the excess … Read more
How to resize a fitted sheet for a couch or futon
I have a futon in my basement that’s between the size of a twin and a double mattress. Since it’s impossible to fold a flat sheet around the corners (there’s nothing to tuck them into), it really needed a fitted sheet for those times when it is used for sleeping. It was easy to convert an old fitted twin sheet … Read more