In Praise of the Fabric Shower Curtain

Last fall, we took down our vinyl shower curtain and hung up a green canvas one. We had bought it at Target, after they put their back to school stuff on 75% clearance, for about $4. We weren’t entirely sure that an all-fabric shower curtain would work – would it keep the water in? Would it get soaked? Would it drip on the floor?

Well, I’m happy to report that it DID work, it did keep the water in. It got soaked, but it did not drip on the floor.

It did, however, start to break down and tear apart. We think the problem was combined soap scum and mildew. And once it started to go, it really deteriorated quickly.

So, this fall, I bought myself some Hemp and Organic Cotton plainweave and made us a new one. It was not hard to make (I mean, it’s just a big square – 72 inches by 72 inches – with holes for the rings at the top). Hemp is a bit more rot-resistant than cheap cotton is, and we’ll also take it down to wash it more often. Hopefully, this one will last us a good many years.

I like the natural color better than the green, as well. (hey, when you’re buying on clearance, you can’ t be too picky!) If we ever fix up the bathroom, I’ll stencil the shower curtain with historically-appropriate designs.

What I love most of all is that it’s not vinyl. It doesn’t fill our bathroom with noxious fumes. It’s renewable and biodegradable.

Cross-posted at Natural Living Des Moines.

Wee Knitteds – Using up Leftovers

Been trying to use up a bit of leftover sock yarn – actually, it’s the Monkeypal I love so much. I hate to have these tiny little balls of leftover yarn sitting around, you know? So these tiny wool soakers are ADORABLE. What I’m going to do with them, I have no idea. They’re so easy to make, and fast (about an hour), I’ll probably make a few more. The pattern is here, and here’s the Ravelry project page.

And these little socks were fun to make. High-Energy Baby Socks, they’re called. Apparently named after the pattern developer’s friend’s baby, who was nicknamed High Energy Fetus. Anyway. Simple but with fun details around the top. I knitted these up mostly at the pool during our week at Okoboji, watching Wally and Daddy playing and holding a napping/nursing Genna. PS – tried nursing discreetly while wearing a bikini and knitting? Yeah, not so much. Ravelry project page.

These socks are a pattern I made up myself, based on the other two baby socks patterns I’ve used. It’s ribbed throughout, with a simple heel flap, knit top-down. I knit it on size 3′s, wanting a slightly bigger size than I was getting on size 2′s, and I’ll be honest – that was, I think, a mistake. These socks kind of slide right off of her. They fit will around the foot, but they just slide off for some reason. Grrr. But they are awfully cute, and if I put legwarmers on over them, they’ll stay up, right?

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Then I also whipped up this sock for our DSi. I thought it would use up the rest of this yarn I inherited from my mom, but, um, there was more there than I thought. This particular pattern, though, was awesome. It’s knit in a tube, flat. I’ve read how to do this several times in several different places, but this pattern was the first to use words in a way that made sense to me. As I read it, I finally understood how this works. Ravelry project page. Pattern. NOTE: if you decide to use this pattern, on the line where she explains how the ribbing words, she says:

Slip Stitch Pattern (ribbing): k1, bring yarn to front, slip st purl wise, purl 1, slip sts purl wise, bring yarn to back

She means “…purl 1, slip st purl wise…”  ONE stitch. Not stitchES. There were some questions about that in the comments on her blog (linked above), but I don’t think she understood what was being asked.

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And then I used the same pattern, a felted it a bit, to make this pouch for the IPod Touch. And then I used up a bit more scrap making this little pouch with the same pattern, adjusted to give me a flap to fold over and snap.

Napkins

We bought these napkins on clearance at a local store, then I stenciled them. Fun! Available at Etsy.

ICAN Soaps

On a whim, I ordered molds to make awareness ribbon soaps, hoping it would arrive before my friends left for the ICAN National Conference. The molds got here on time, and I whipped up some ICAN/C-Section Awareness soaps for the auction at the conference, which is a fundraiser for ICAN. These were fun to make. I have some listed over at Etsy, and a portion of each sale is going to ICAN of Central Iowa.

Cupcake Soaps

So, several years ago, I saw a picture online of some cupcake soap that someone had made and I thought, “if I ever make soap, I will totally make some cupcake soap.” Well, I started playing around with making soap, and couldn’t resist making these little cupcake soaps. I used the mini cupcake pans I got from my mom, and the papers have been around since I can remember, they look like they’re from the 70s. These particular ones are chocolate with vanilla “frosting,” but I also made some strawberry and vanilla ones. They’re so cute to look at, I have a hard time using them!

Some of these are on their way to Miracle Diapers to be used as Thank You gifts to the sewers who repair the dipes that are sent in. Some of these will be Christmas presents. Some will be gifts for various people and events.

I’m not going to sell any of these. I used somewhat lower quality soap base for my first several batches of soap, and prefer to use the high quality, really nice oils and no Sodium Laureth Sulfate stuff for soaps that are for sale. BUT I anticipate making more of these and THOSE will end up in the shop (or at Craft Saturday).

Soap Making

So, making soap has been another item on my list of crafty things I’d like to try someday. I had decided to give it a try and if it worked well, to make soap for folks for Christmas this year.

I used melt-and-pour base. This is the base melting.

After adding colorant, essential oils, and some other stuff to my first batch, this is the soaps cooling in the soap mold.

I had a hard time getting the soap out of the mold, and you can see from the squished floral design here that pushing really hard is NOT the solution.

Freezing the bars in the mold does the trick, though – the soap shrinks away from the sides just enough.

I considered this enough of a success that I will go ahead and make several other varieties of soaps for Christmas presents for the gals in the family.

Made my own Deodorant!!

Inspired by Amy at Angry Chicken, I made my own deodorant last week. So far, I have to say that I love it. I have struggled to find a deodorant that worked very well for me and that wasn’t full of crap that I don’t want on my body. THIS stuff is exactly what I’ve been looking for. Or, at least, it would appear that it is, after less than a week of use.

I used the recipe Amy wrote out on the post linked above.

Sink Skirt

First – could my sink seriously be any grosser? this is the sink the Washing machine empties into, and also is our utility sink for things like washing out paintbrushes. So that’s why it’s so gross. It was fairly gross when we moved in, so not all the grossness is from us!

Anyway. I wanted to make this little area look a little less cluttered. I keep our junk towels under the sink, and was sick of looking at them. This sink skirt was SOOO easy.

I basically just cut a piece of fabric a few inches longer than the length from the sink lip to the floor, and a few inches wider than the sink’s circumference. Hemmed it on all four sides. Sewed the hook part of a strip of Velcro to the top of the curtain. Hot glued the loop part to the sink. (Most places recommend using peel-and-stick Velcro for the sink, but I didn’t have any. But I did have a glue gun that was sad from neglect.) Stuck the curtain on. Voila. Done. It was a 10 minute project, not counting the time spent waiting for the glue gun to heat up, deciding I could knock out a few other quick things while waiting, forgetting I was waiting, and remembering the glue gun about 20 minutes later as it’s oozing hot glue all over the top of my washing machine.

(also, you can see that the area cluttered back up in a hurry. The garbage can has to go there. The floral box is actually a sturdy stepstool for my son to reach the sink. The small bucket is our downstairs hamper for putting towels and wipes that are dirty. That was supposed to go under the sink, but didn’t fit. I’ll have to figure out a way to get it under there.)

Completed: Felted Goodies

These have been fun to knit up, really. I used some yarn I bought on clearance when I was working at Jo-Ann.

A little felted wallet that holds credit cards, finished with a sweet little vintage button. The pattern came from GrittyKnits.

This was a fun purse, though the twisted handles were a bear to de-fuzz! I turned my back on it in the washer for a bit too long and I think it shrunk a bit more than I would have preferred, but it’s still a very nice size. Pattern from Magknits.

Felted Bowl. I can’t decide if I want to add handles and make this a purse (which was the original plan), or just leave it as is, and use it as a bowl. It’s got an interesting gathered bottom, which came to be because I was starting to run out of yarn and really needed to finish it up!! I made the pattern up as I went along, of course not writing anything down, as is my MO, it seems.

Completed Projects Flying Off The Machine Like Crazy!

I’ve been sewing like a mad woman getting ready for Craft Saturday on the 8th.

Five aprons – my favorite’s on the top there. Most of them have a pocket and contrast waistband.

Coaster sets, some sets of four, some sets of six. The set with the tomato on the top has a tomato, onion, peas, broccoli, carrot, and eggplant.

A four-place placemat, napkin, and coaster set based on a set of placements my sister owns.

A fun quilt-block looking placemat set.

Six-place placemat set, six different leaves, all in different fabrics, raw-edge applique.

Set of coasters.

Well…off to do some more sewing! Up next: Children’s leg warmers, tote bags, and some wet bag/changing pad sets.