Restoring Old Toys

When DD was first born, we bought SO MANY toys for her, all new. I shudder to think of how much we spent on toys that probably only lasted a year or two at most. (To my credit, most were either sold or donated to charity then, not thrown out.) My sister has a far more sensible attitude, and gets a lot more for her $50 at the second hand stores or garage sales than we ever got at the toystore!

These days, we buy a few select, high quality toys new, and mostly either make them at home, or buy second hand. While there are many second hand toys that are like new, or even gain appeal through being loved, many just aren't as 'pretty' as those you can buy new. And I don't believe in kids getting 'second best'. Though DD will happily play with her second hand toys, I often like to spruce them up a bit for her.

Here is the toy ironing board we bought for a couple of dollars somewhere. A new cover, and a second hand wooden iron from the markets, and it's a toy worth of any child's playroom. (Clicking on the pictures will enlarge them so you can have a good look if you want.)

This pram, likewise, was a dollar or two at a second hand store. I believe they're $7 or so new at bargain stores, which is probably where this one was originally from. With a new cover, it looks far prettier than the original one would have looked the day it came home from the store. I took off the old cover and used it to make a pattern for this new one. DD and I gave the pram a good scrubbing. The new cover took less than an hour to sew up (mostly due to me trying to 'improve' over the original design, when will I learn), and used the buckle from the original cover, but otherwise all new material (less than half a metre of $5 a metre material).

I enjoy this so much more than just going out and buying new, which always leaves me with a sour taste in my mouth.

These toys will also be a great addition to DD's 'home corner' once I get to it.

Op-Shop Bargains and another Nothing New Month

I've been re-visiting a lot of the local op-shops (thrift stores for those in the US) lately, and found some real bargains. Like the cushion inserts above, at $3 each. Sure, I've seen cushion inserts in stores for $3 each, but not this size, these are about 20 inches square. Perfect for DD's reading corner. The white object folded up on the bottom is actually a thin, cotton quilt, in perfect condition, it was $7. The folded up flannel sheets were $1.50 each because they had slight marks/not in top condition, which is not going to matter once I cut them up for hankies!

Then in another op-shop (where I went to buy zippers for covers for the new cushions, which incidentally I found for 20 cents each), I found these shirts on the $1 rack. Perfect for cutting up to make some smaller shirts for DD.

I love finding bargains at the op-shops. It feels so good to not only get something cheaply, but to know that I'm recycling in the real meaning of the word. These objects, which would otherwise be thrown out, are being used again. And when I'm finished with them, they'll be passed back to be used again. We waste so much in our world, it feels good to stop even a little of that.

However, despite finding bargains and some great deals, I think I've been going a bit overboard on the buying. Things are piling up, and we need some more cleaning and organising going on here. I have more material than I have time to sew, and more things than I have places to put them. So DH and I have decided to have another Nothing New month this month. Yes, I know we're already into February, and to make it neat I should wait until March, but when the mood hits you, it's best to start while you're motivated.

The exceptions to the Nothing New will be a particular set of bookshelves, or a particular couch, if they come up second hand this month.

Sheet Wardrobe

I've been sewing up a storm the last few weeks, making some summer dresses for myself (in among making all those clothes for DD). So far I have these 6 dresses (can you tell what colours I like?). Some of the material has been bought new, but most of it is recycled, and about the only place you can get this much material in one piece is in old sheets! So what I'm wondering now, is can you guess which ones are the sheets, and which ones are the new material? Most of these I plan to wear around the house anyway, so it doesn't really matter that they look like sheets, but I am curious how many of them are obvious.

The patterns are from my Stitch House book, which I officially LOVE. All of these can be made with 2m or less of material! Pretty good for an adult dress. They're also really cool and comfortable, which is a very important characteristic.

I popped my soap out of the moulds this morning too. Well, popped is probably the wrong word, wrestled is more like it. But it's out, and it looks WAY better than the last lot. The picture doesn't show it, but it actually looks kind of green, not quite sure why, but the colour is even, and the consistency is right (the last lot was crumbly and patchy), so I think this lot is going to be great. I'm really looking forward to trying it out.

I'm off for a few days to a week tomorrow, visiting my mum, so probably won't be posting. But expect lots of crafty pics and op shop finds when I get back!

Sewing Spree

After discovering this free pattern a week or two ago, I've been itching to try it. Unfortunately gardening, and all the other sewing I've been doing hasn't given me a chance until today. DH was away for the day, so DD and I got stuck into some sewing. (Or rather, I sewed, she played around me, although she did help choose the colours.) This pattern is very simple, and makes up really quickly. I made these four skirts in only a few (interrupted) hours. They look really cute on, and I'm sure will get lots of wear. I'd definitely recommend this pattern for any new sewers wanting something easy, yet professional looking.

While I was on a roll, I had a go at this tutorial for pillowcase dresses. As usual, I was making it from memory, so didn't follow the tutorial exactly, and I decided to do the thread through ties rather than the elastic and ties she used in the tutorial, but the basic idea is the same. These two dresses are actually made out of pillowcases! And they look surprisingly cute (and non-pillowcase like) on.

So in one day, using only material I already had, I made DD four new skirts, and two new dresses! And given my material stash, I have plenty more sewing days like this ahead! I wondered for a while if I would have the time and materials to be able to make all our clothes this year (well, mine and DD's, I draw the line at men's clothes, too difficult), but I'm off to a pretty good start. I can't see it being a problem to make our entire wardrobes. Well, I am making an exception to my t-shirts. 100% cotton interlock is very hard to find, and when you do find it, it's not cheap, so I'm buying my shirts second hand at the op shops.

In amongst all this sewing, I have been working on my spring garden, but it's not quite ready for photographs yet. I popped up to the old garden up the paddock this afternoon though, and harvested these. (Well, the eggs are from the chicken pen, and I actually took them out of the fridge, as they were collected this morning, but I've really been looking forward to adding the eggs to my harvest photos, so here they are.) We had the potatoes and peas for dinner, along with a pumpkin we harvested a week or two ago. We're getting closer and closer to a truly home grown meal!

Recycled Planter Box

You may remember from July's Unfinished Projects Challenge, that I mentioned a mysterious planter box. Well, here it is, FINALLY all finished. When I went back to find the initial photos of putting it together, they were back in my MAY folder. This is one project that's been too long in the finishing. But now, finally, my little raspberry plant has a safe home, where it can't take over my yard or grow out of control. Hopefully now it will provide us with lots and lots of fresh raspberries.

It's made out of two old pallets that were left behind (or rather, snaffled with the overseer's permission) from our house building. These were the ones that the bricks were on for the house.

And, just in case anyone has a hankering to make one of these, here are some photos and basic instructions.

First, cut both pallets in half. We used the chainsaw for this. You want to end up with a piece (well, two actually, but you'll only use one of them) like this for the base.

And two pieces like this. They will make the sides.

Pull the back board off each side. These will be cut up to make the ends.

Attach first side with these hammer on connector thingies. (I'm really good with technical names.)

Then attach the other side. Then let it sit and weather for 4 months or so. Or, if you're the sort who likes to finish jobs in one go, you can skip this step...

Then cut the boards you pulled off into two pieces (one slightly shorter than the other if you have an angle like ours), and screw or nail them onto each end.

I then moved the planter to it's final place in the front garden, up against the fence, near the compost heap. Of course, it's not finished yet, since it's hardly going to hold soil like this.

I lined the planter box with weedmat on the bottom (left over from making DD's sandpit), and shadecloth on the sides (recycled from DH's parents pergola).

It's attached on the inside using the staple gun. Doesn't look too tidy, but it's about to be covered in soil anyway, so you won't be able to see it. Using pretty much all recycled materials or stuff we had lying around, all up it cost nothing more than the price of a few screws and staples. Can't go wrong there.

Then add your soil and plant your plants! It took quite a bit of soil to fill this up. Half the compost from my compost heap (on the bottom since it's still quite fresh), and about 4 bags of compost/potting mix from the garden store. The raspberry only takes up half of the planter for now, so I'm thinking I'll plant carrots in the other half until it grows a little.

A Crafting Day

After picking up my new overlocker after a warranty repair yesterday, today was lined up for some serious sewing. I had prewashed all the pretty material I bought from spotlight a few weeks ago (to preshrink it, it's cotton), and was all ready to go. Of course, I then didn't want to cut up said pretty material straight away, in case the pattern I tried didn't work. So a quick search through my recycled fabric stash revealed this pretty purple floral material. It was an old granny nightie. Much more useful now don't you think? And I was glad I didn't cut up the expensive stuff for this, since it was MEANT to be a dress, but was far too short! The addition of the shorts makes it a very cute little outfit regardless though.

Next I had a go at making a dress following this tutorial (from memory, since my computer wasn't turned on). I'm pretty happy with how it turned out (again from an old granny nighty that I posted about here). I've always wanted to know how to do that elastic gathery thing, so was really excited to find out how it was done (and it's very easy, check out the tutorial). Unfortunately DD has already broken one of the gathers from her habit of putting her knees up inside her dresses/shirts and stretching them. Oh well, no doubt I can fix it if I get around to it.

And finally, I took the scissors to the new material to make this skirt for me. This was actually my least favourite of the material, but I really like how it has turned out. After taking the photo, I added two pockets, as I hate wearing things without pockets. Nowhere to put my keys, and they always get lost in the bottom of my handbag. The pattern for this dress came from my "Stitch House" book, a great book, translated from Japanese, with measure and cut patterns for a great variety of clothes. For those who've seen them, it's very similar to Enid Gilchrist's books, only more modern (it's from the 80's I believe). I think I'm going to be making a lot of clothes from this book (and the other two from the series that I have) because most of the clothes can be made with 2m of fabric or less, unlike the paper patterns I have (and I have lots) that seem to need 3-4 metres for everything. Far more frugal, and usually easier and faster to make too.

So it seems like I've made a good start on our summer wardrobe. I am itching to make more, and have my next pattern already planned out. Well, I might have to make DD a skirt like mine first, as she's already requested one. Luckily I have enough material left over from my 2m to make her one!

And yes, for anyone who is curious, I did do all these in one day. Most of them only took 1/2 an hour to an hour to do, so I even managed to cook some johnny cakes, and do some craft with DD too.

We made these flower collages from cutout scrap paper and other bits and pieces. I helped cut bits out for DD, but she stuck all of it on herself. She's really enjoying these sorts of crafts lately. We made a pirate hat at the library yesterday, which she even cut out herself. While I'm at it, here are some other crafts DD has done in the last few days (not today!)

DD cut out and stuck these dinosaurs all by herself last night from some scrapbooking paper we bought her for her birthday. The one on the left is a velociraptor, and the one on the right is an apatosaurus.

These little paper envelopes she also made herself. The paper is some coloured squares, again bought for her birthday. She did it all herself, just asking me to get some masking tape off the roll for her. All the folding and sticking she did herself.

Her manipulative skills are really taking off right now, so I think we're going to be doing a lot more of these sorts of activities around here.

Laura Ingalls Wilder - Quilted Memories

This is the first time I've participated in one of these blog world games, but I just couldn't resist. Miss Sandy over at Quill Cottage is having an "I remember Laura" blog-a-thon, in honour of the author of "Little House in the Big Woods", Laura Ingalls Wilder.

I loved Laura Ingalls Wilder books from a very young age. I think we first read Little House in the Big Woods in school, maybe grade 5 or 6? And as usual when I loved a book, I searched out all others by the same author. Her writing is beautiful, and her story of a family living simply in as they travelled further and further west was inspiring. In fact, I think I might just start re-reading them.

This weeks theme for the blog-a-thon is Quilted Memories. Quilts have always been a big part of my life. My sister and I both have memories of choosing out material, and arranging squares (or triangles, that one drove my mum mad, but I loved it.) Now my mother makes the most beautiful crazy patchwork quilts, I'll have to get a photo of one some time. Personally, I haven't done much quilting (except for the velvet ones I've posted about before, which are very simple quilts really), except for this one.

The history of this quilt goes back 14 years, to the year I was eighteen. I appliqued the 9 squares in this quilt, by hand, and sewed them together interspersed with pink floral squares. Each square was embellished with ribbons, ribbon roses, lace, and embroidery. It took ages to sew them all.

I think you can probably guess what the common theme of the quilt was? An impressionable 18 yo, I was obsessed with love and romance, and showed this by appliqueing hearts in one form or another on every square.

This was the very first square I did, and since I hadn't decided on the hearts theme, I embroidered some on later.

This is my favourite square. The original bird was a peach silk, that has long since worn away, leaving only the outline and embroidered roses. The blue colour is painted on.

I took this quilt with me when I moved out of home, and it adorned my bed for many years, until it started to grow tattered and worn (you can see in many of the pictures how worn the origional squares are), and I was well and truly over the hearts stage. In a big clean out, I was going to throw it out, but my mum, who was visiting at the time, asked for it. A few weeks later, she gave it back to me like this! She had taken apart the original quilt and saved my carefully constructed squares. She'd mended what was able to be mended, painted the spaces where applique's had worn away and pieced it back together in colours that fitted my decorating scheme at the time.

She added new appliques of dolphins (my obsession at the time), butterflies, teddies, and even this castle which she traced and painted.

This little girl she said reminded her of me as a girl, waving at the bird. (Although I don't have blond hair.)

It is still worn, but it is holding together. It doesnt normally live on our bed like this, normally it is folded at the end until bedtime, when I unfold it, and put it down the side of my bed for me to cuddle up to. It's the perfect weight and size for this, so it had better not wear out any time soon. It would be very hard to replace.

To Darn or not to Darn?

No, I'm not swearing, I'm talking about mending socks. Most of the time, socks will develop a hole at the heel or toe, long before the whole sock is worn out. I used to just throw these out and buy new ones, but as part of our quest for simple living, I've been mending them instead. It doesn't take long really, and there is an immense feeling of satisfaction in making something last that little bit longer, rather than just throwing it out. Believe it or not, I actually enjoy darning socks, and seeing that hole disappear under a neat tapestry of stitches.

One of the main reasons I never mended socks (other than sheer laziness, which certainly played it's part), was a lack of knowledge. If I had thought about it, I probably would have tried to sew the two damaged edges together, which would have made a big lump on the sock. And seeing as I'm rather sensitive, it would have driven me mad, so I never even tried. This is where the wonder of the Internet comes in. Darning instructions are easy to find, and probably a video or two if you really want. I used http://www.wikihow.com/Darn-a-Sock, But don't get put off, you don't really need a 'darning mushroom', I just used an old glass bottle, and it works fine.

It is also causing me to look more closely at the socks we do buy. Some socks are flimsy, and the material will thin and stretch before it even gets to the stage of holes forming. These sorts of socks really aren't worth wasting our money on, so in future, we'll be buying stronger, better quality socks to start with.

And no, just for the record, I don't need to mend socks, I could very easily go out and buy new ones. It's a conscious choice DH and I have made, to make do with what we have where we can, to repair, reuse, recycle, instead of buying new. To grow cotton takes an enormous amount of water, and lots of pesticides, by making our socks last twice as long, we are halving the amount of new material we need, and though it might be only a drop in the ocean, I believe every little bit adds up.

A Weekend in the Country

OK, so technically it's not the weekend, but since DH works every second weekend, and has Monday and Tuesday off instead, it was a weekend for us. For many city folks, a weekend is a time to relax, to pick some entertainment out of the many on offer, or maybe just stay home with a video. For us, it means a chance to catch up on all those jobs that have been building up during the week.

Black Sapote

First order of business was planting. This poor Black Sapote (chocolate fruit!) that has been sitting out the front of the shed for nearly a month now, finally rests in it's new home in the orchard.

Bowen Mango

I finally managed to find a Bowen Mango at the markets this week. I've checked the mangoes each week, but they're always names I can't pronounce, so I leave them. This week I got lucky though. This one is a seedling, not a grafted one, so we'll see how it goes. It's right up in the back left hand corner of our place, where we discovered what looks like sandstone! OK, not really, but it's sandy, and as hard as a rock! We dug a whole MUCH larger than the pot, and filled it with compost and broken up soil, so hopefully by the time it hits that solid sand stuff, it will be strong enough to break through! I'm going to have to keep the water up to it though, which means carrying watering cans about 50 metres back and forth!

Paw paw

I also bought three paw paw trees for $6. These are the old style variety, where you need male and female trees to get fruit. With three, I stand a good chance of getting one of each.

Blueberry

And finally, my blueberry bush. I'm not sure that I've every tasted a blueberry, they're usually about $6 a punnet in the stores, so I'm looking forward to this one getting big enough to try our own.

Combine these 6 new fruit trees/bushes with the ones we already had: Washington Navel Orange, Valencia Orange, Mandarin, Lemon, Persimmon, Black Fig, Black Mulberry, Tropical Peach and Tropical Nectarine, and we now have 15 fruit trees! Of course, I think I still have a list that long, if not longer, of ones I still want to get!

Bambusa Textills (var Gracilis)

On top of the fruit trees, I also planted out one of the two bamboo plants I bought at Bamboo Land while visiting my mum. I've been considering bamboo for a while, and a visit to this beautiful nursery convinced me that I really needed some. They have a beautiful garden of mature bamboo that you can walk through, and pick out your varieties from. Then you go back to the nursery to take your pots home. This particular species grows up to 8 metres tall! You can find pics of the mature plant here. And before anyone asks, yes, it is clumping. It's planted up the back, where it will give us shade from the western afternoon sun, and not be in the way. I also have a smaller bamboo plant that we have yet to plant, that I can't remember the name of right now.

All the new plantings were watered in well, and fertilised with some 'Rooster Booster' (aka chook manure pellets). I didn't have a scoop, so I made this handy one with a cut down milk bottle. We have a similar one in our bag of chook pellets for feeding the chooks. Waste not want not!

DD thought it was great that we were fertilising the garden with rooster poo, and went around talking about it all afternoon! "When I make my garden, I'm going to plant my flowers, and put rooster poo all around them!" Aren't kids cute?

You would think that all that planting was enough for one weekend, wouldn't you? But no, I also ended up putting up 50 metres of chicken wire on our fence to stop our chickens from wandering into the neighbour's yard where their dogs are. (And to keep their dogs and chooks out of our yard!) So far, it seems to be working, although there is still a lot left unfenced.

Autumn Leaves

Autumn is such a non-event in Australia. Surrounded by evergreens, the season passes with little notice other than the fact that it's getting cold. Since it rarely drops below freezing here in Brisbane, the beginning of cold in autumn is only a little milder than the mild winter cold. Which is why this liquidamber tree at my mother's inspired me last week.

I wanted to make a patchwork rug for DH like this one we made for DD last visit, but the colours we had in the velvets were limited. That's one of the problems with sewing from recycled materials, you can't just go out and buy what you need to finish a project, you have to work with what you have. Not that I've had much luck with finding what I want in craft stores when I go looking. Anyway, as you can see when we made DD's quilt, most of the velvet was pinks and reds. I slowly pulled out a pile of other colours, browns, reds, and a tiny bit of orange, and eventually picked out all the other colours I had, and was left with a beautiful array of autumn colours, that inspired me to send DD out to pick an autumn leaf from the tree.

This is the rug that eventually worked it's way out of the materials, and I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out from a bunch of velvet that initially looked all pink. Because of all the agonising over colours and patterns, it took most of the day to complete this one, unlike DD's rug, which only took a few hours.

We used the bitty leftovers of the velvet to piece together the back, since none of the colours that were big enough to do it in once piece fitted in with the autumn theme.

These appliqued leaves added the perfect finishing touch I think, even though my Mum and Dad kept saying they were stars! Hopefully when we pull this rug out next autumn, as it starts to get cold, it will help us feel a little more autumny. Hopefully the little liquidamber's that I plan to dig up from around the base of my mum's tree and plant in our front garden will help as well.

Craft Retreat

DH has been working long hours completing a course for work this week, so DD and I headed up to my mum's for a visit, some R&R, and of course, some crafting! I had these shirts already cut out, and DD had painted the pic (it's 3 flowers, 2 butterflies, and a bee if you can't recognise it), and we sewed them up pretty quickly. All made from recycled shirts from the $3 rack at the local second hand shop. Even the ribbing is from a second hand rib t-shirt.

These were made from a flannel nightie at my Mum's local second hand shop. The ribbing, again, was from a second hand t-shirt. The top pattern is adapted from the same pattern used for the t-shirts above, just with longer sleeves, and ribbing at the bottom as well. The pants were a new pattern my mum had, but when we did our first try on, they were too tight around the waist, hence the pink ribbing gussets on the outside of the legs. They look great though, as if it was intentional!

OK, I have to admit it. These were made from new material that my mum bought when DD was little, and I've been waiting for a chance to sew up. It is patchwork flannel, and very bright and colourful. The ribbing is second hand though! We only had a limited selection of colours, no blue, and the only yellow we had just wasn't bright enough, but I think the red works pretty well. And no, we didn't just like the side gussets so much we repeated it, we cut both pairs out at once, so had to make the same adaptations to both!

Not bad for about 4 days of sewing is it? There is one more sewing project, but it deserves a whole post to itself, so you'll have to wait till tomorrow to see it!