all vintage pillow

Made from vintage duvet cover fabric, vintage souvenir Tshirt, vintage trim, cut apart. Pillow filler is made from vintage muslin stuffed with vintage poly-fill recycled from another pillow.

spot repair

A favorite linen shirt had an unidentified spot that resisted removal. A cover-up took place, although the embroidery skills are sadly rusty. Hmmm, maybe the spot was rust?

The wii not be budged spot.

The cover up.

vintage fabric pillow

Bought some vintage fabric at a yard sale recently for a textile artist friend. She wasn’t thrilled, but the friend who was with me at the yard sales just loved this piece. She needed some comforting, and finding a last pillow insert and that the fabric was the perfect size just seemed fortuitous. Some pompoms from the stash and voila! Friend was happy and pillow looks right at home.

more bedsocks

Hopefully a better version for recipient. They are worn daily, even in the heat, and the original semi-felted deep purple ones were too soft a yarn. Constant darning and patching got to be ridiculous—almost weekly. Here is a new version with a tighter (not handspun) wool and a cotton crochet yarn knit together.

Fingers crossed these are more durable but still comfortable and cozy.

knit rug

More vintage Mexican wool—knit a bedside rug to replace a vintage Mexican woven rug that was just too far gone. This yarn is pretty scratchy and full of bits of (also vintage!) plants. Not suitable for clothing, but cozy underfoot (there is a non-slip rug mat underneath).

 

knit patchwork pillows

Vintage (70’s) Mexican hand-spun yarn. The knit patchwork was supposed to become a felted rug. But the yarn wouldn’t felt…hmm. Plan B = pillows

bedsocks – temporary

The knit and lightly felted bedsocks made last year are so well-loved that the heels keep wearing through. They have already been darned once but now need a bigger fix – thinking about options which is taking a while. In order to prevent cold feet in the meantime, I whipped up some temporary socks out of a sweater that was mistreated in the wash. I cut off part of the sleeves, sewed up the wrist opening (now the toe end) and knitted on a ribbed cuff to keep them from unravelling and in place. Woolly tube socks!

They have been approved, except they apparently slide off very easily. Adjustments to cuff needed!

placemats

I was asked to make some household items as thank-you gifts to donors to a local Time Bank group I belong to. I settled on reversible placemats, and then had a good rummage through my fabric stash to see what I had that might be suitable.

I was able to make one set of 4 matching, 2 pairs of matching, and 1 pair of similar but not quite matching mats. There was some piecing involved which ended up being rather fun (once I got the math for the sizes right!).

I’m inspired to do this again for gifts in the future. Maybe I should do it now. After all, the fabric is still lying all over the place!

dish scrubbies

For several years I have been cutting any produce netting into minute pieces before putting in the trash – after seeing images of animals, birds, marine life trapped in them. Now I wonder if doing that isn’t just as bad – with creatures ingesting the stuff. So I started saving the netting if I couldn’t avoid it when I bought something. Some I have used in collage work as stencils or background or…whatever. Now I am trying something else after being annoyed with the choices available for dish cleaning. I have used the netting and some bits of cotton knit fabric to make my own. Will see how they work/hold up.

socked 2

Another pair of bedsocks for a birthday.

These were tough to felt! Regular hot soapy water hand agitation did nothing. They ended up boiling in soapy water while being mistreated with a potato masher, then cold-shocked, then back in the hot pot…for an hour. Finally 45 minutes tumbling in a hot dryer. Pretty resistant for 85% wool, 15% mohair!