Windows to the World

Now and then I’ve been looking online for fabric so to sew new living room and dining room curtains.  The rooms are open to each other, bisected by the upstairs staircase, so the rooms need coordinating decor.  The wine colored swag valances, which we’ve had since we moved in now remind hubby of a funeral home!  So, they need to go into storage, aka the too small linen closet.

We both like the Waverly Charmed Life and Rustic Life toiles, but I actually found it to be far less costly to just buy the curtain panels and tie backs, then the fabric, to sew them myself.

Amazon has the curtain panels reasonably enough.  As they didn’t have a 54” length, which we need to clear the top of the long radiators under the windows, I bought the 84” length, which I’ll trim and re-hem. This will also give me extra fabric for pillows and whatnot.

Caveat:  The listing says the color is cornflower.  It isn’t, it’s much closer to navy.  I have this toile in cornflower, which is much lighter.  The color isn’t what I prefer, but hubby doesn’t mind it, so I’ll live with it.

They are unlined, but a heavy enough fabric which doesn’t necessarily need lining.  So, I’ll press, cut and re-hem and hang them as they are, BUT, 4 of the 5 windows face south, with no trees out front to block any of the sun.  The 5th window faces west, so is only slightly less sunny.  Sun = fading. 

Even the curtains on the east-facing kitchen window and kitchen door window have all faded, and that’s just east light!  SO, one pair at a time will come back down and get a muslin lining.  It will be a less onerous task to tackle that project a bit a time instead of lining all 10 panels at this particular point in time.  Sewing is done in the dining room, which is warm in the summer with no AC in that room, so, small doses of working there is preferable.

As the sewing machine was coming out anyway, I figured I’d tackle all the other windows that needed a redo.

I began with the bathroom cupboard, which stores toiletries and medical supplies.  The sink is a pedestal, so there’s no built-in vanity to put all this stuff.  I’ve been wanting to make a Swedish blind for the cupboard for quite awhile, ever since I sewed new bathroom curtains and a shelf topper in this blue, white. and yellow plaid fabric.

So, this was the first project to get done.  Swedish blinds are great – they only need a face and lining fabrics not much wider than the window, which can contrast or coordinate, a couple of 1” plastic O or D rings, some cotton cord, a window cleat, and about a 1/2” dowel or scrap length of narrow wood for the bottom of the blind.  As the blinds use far less fabric than a pair of panels, they are less costly to sew.

Traditionally, the blinds were attached to a wood batten and secured to the top of the window frame, as shown in "Swedish Style" by Katrin Cargill.

I prefer something more impermanent, so I just hang the Swedish blind from a tension rod.  This makes it super easy to take down, vacuum or wash the fabric and cording.

The cotton cord on this blind, and the 2 coming up below, was some soft cotton 2-ply yarn I had no other use for.  I ran it through my spinning wheel, adding a lot more twist, then cabled it back onto itself.  Although I have some proper cotton cording, I find it to be rough on the hands.

Next up was revamping my bedroom curtains.  I sewed plain, lined panels with ties several/many? years ago, but not only did I get tired of tying the curtains up every morning, then letting them down at night, but, even with the double layers of fabric, they still let in too much light at this time of year.  

So, they came down, got washed and pressed, then cut down to size.  The face fabric then became the reverse side fabric, and I added a darker allover print to the face, then sewed tabs from the wide selvedge.  As we were all out of scrap wood or dowels, I temporarily used the rollers I saved from the old living room and dining room roller shades, when the vinyl went kaput and we needed to replace them.  

As you can see, I need to take the shade down and resew the tabs at the top that hold the 'O' rings.  I should have sewn the tabs down much closer to the rings, to the tabs don't pull over, as you can see in the photo.

I am seriously no fan of vinyl, and avoid it if I can, but I share the house with hubby who needs the living room as dark as possible at night, as he’s needed to sleep there since the first of the recent bout of surgeries, with more to come.

Next up is making new curtains for the kitchen, the toughest project, as the kitchen window is 70” wide x 33” deep.  This window needs a plain, light blocking panel that ties up at 2 places, as the window faces east.  All that light is far too bright in the morning, especially for someone (not me) who tends to wake with a massive headache.  So, it needs to tie up and then be let down at night.  It’s too wide a span to easily have a Swedish blind.

Whatever I sew for the window, though, also needs to coordinate with the kitchen door window and the valance for the sliding glass doors in the breakfast room.  LOL, all using just what I have on hand.

All for another post!

Onward!
Dawn

June Update

Every season except a couple months in winter seems to be rife with time-sensitive work and projects – so much has been in the process of needing to be done, with no time to blog.  So, finally, here is what I’ve been up to, and how things are progressing.  Naturally, it’s all interspersed with the usual cooking, baking, laundry, and cleaning, esp. the spring cleaning, which is still in progress – my bedroom and the entire upstairs still need doing.  It would help if I had the 6 arms of the Buddhist goddess Vasudhārā.

I weeded then manured the 2 raised beds, made hills, and planted Italian zucchini in one bed, which is coming up well,

and Ronde de Nice (French heirloom) zucchini in the other bed, which isn’t coming up well.   As you can see, our picket fence is sorely in need of repainting, though not sure if hubby will be able to get to it - his hands are now both needing surgery.  We'd just get them replaced, but the fence sections are 10' wide, not the 8' wide which seem to be all that can be bought now.

I grew this variety exclusively back in the mid-hudson, and it flourished, but not so much here, so yesterday I added enough Italian zucchini seeds to fill out that bed.

The pine of these beds *really* needs to be ripped out, as they’re rotting, which means ant fodder, but that will need to wait until autumn – springtime is just too busy!

8 heirloom tomato plants are planted in amongst the heirloom roses, where I hope they’ll be happy.  I rigged up simple bamboo pole teepees around each one, which I may need to reinforce with some thicker bamboo poles, if there’s any left in the bamboo patch in the back yard.  I used to have a slew of them, which have magically disappeared!

The 2 gutters hanging on the stockade fence have been seeded with Five Color Rainbow beets.  They won’t grow large in their shallow beds, but there’s no other place to plant them, and at least their colorful leaves will brighten up that area of the fence.  One of these years, I’d love to plant some kind of flowering vine along the entire stockade fence, as it’s just a long, tall, boring brown wall.  It’s screaming for a living adornment.

Pots of chives and parsley seed on the back deck railing.

The 2 hydrangeas I planted a couple years ago, on both sides of the front of the house, seem to have taken well, but not the 4 azaleas which flanked them, so I’ll need to rethink what to plant there next spring.  Buying bulbs and plants seems to be as iffy a proposition as buying veg from Stop and Shop!  LOL, which is why we don’t, we only get veg from Shaw’s.

 

Remember these 3 white begonia plants? 

I bought the 3 begonia bulbs when I bought the gladiolus, astilbe, ranunculus, and lily of the valley bulbs for the driveway bed.  As I posted to FB last year, “Like race horses, one shot out of the gate at breakneck speed, one can’t get out of second place, and one remains firmly in last place, dragging its butt.”  

Well, Mr. Dragging Its Butt went kaput.  Mr. Second Place has been on the way to kaput, leaving just Mr. Breakneck Speed remaining.  Fortunately bulbs cost a lot less than plants.  So, I am adding that to the List - find other bulbs I can grow indoors. A plus would be if the flowers are scented.  Unscented flowers always seem pointless to me, though showy flowers make up for it.

Adding to the scentless flowers is this waxed Amaryllis, which was a Christmas gift from a neighbor.  Not wanting to throw it out, after the flower died, as many do, I googled and found this video that walks through the process of removing the wax and planting it.  Susan also points out that these Amaryllis really aren’t, they’re Hippeastrum.  And the bulb is re-growing, so I'm very pleased!

They’re rather pretty shown together in the softer colors, so I’ll be looking to get some – the house needs more plants!

Speaking of which, after the scent of lilacs and lily of the valley filled the air for several weeks, the air is now redolent with roses, especially wild roses!  Hubby gave this bush a massive haircut a few years ago, which the bush seems to have not minded at all, as it’s blooming wildly now!

He also gave this rose bush a huge pruning last fall, which I’m sure was necessary, as everything growing on that side of the house was planted too closely together (by previous owners), and it was all getting tangled up.  

The huge, ugly holly bush took awhile to cut down and out, but now the rose bush gets the sun it needs.  As it was all so overgrown, we couldn’t see the *form* of this rose bush until now.  Its canes are tall and arching, so now I need to think about a trellis of some kind to anchor the canes.  Come autumn I will need to re-prune it and try to root the cuttings.

The small honeysuckle I planted 2 yrs. ago by the arbor is finally growing.  I think it was just an inexpensive qt. size plant, so I knew it would take several years to grow up into the arbor and the adjoining picket fence, so I’m pleased that at least it hasn’t gone kaput like the azaleas and a couple of the white begonias.

The driveway bulb bed is mostly flush with green and buds, esp. what looks like hollyhocks at the front of the bed, that I thought I had all pulled out last year!  Summer is so humid here, that the hollyhocks get a fungus and die off, eh, like my heirloom roses.  BUT, I searched for natural DIY anti-fungals and have a batch mixed up, awaiting several spray bottles (in 3 diff. colors) to come from Amazon, for the anti-fungal spray, and for the bunny-stop spray!  So, we’ll see if I can keep the hocks and roses looking healthy this year. 

 I can't wait until the astilbe bulbs below get to their full width and height - their feathery flowers will be a nice textural change from the gladiolus and hocks.  I've not seen many ranunculus come up yet, so they might not have survived, despite the 4 layers of frost cloth on the bed this past winter – will see!

 

Indoor work is no less busy!  The very long (70”) kitchen window, kitchen door and sliding glass door in the breakfast area all need new curtains.  The kitchen window faces east, and the morning light is blinding, esp. if one needs to get up to pee at 5 am and through half-closed eyes one gets a shock of unwanted bright light, making it hard to return to sleep.  So, the color and thickness of the fabric for that window is critical.

The other issue with curtaining that long window is the type of rod.  The current tension rod is wimpy.  Even being supported midway, the rod sags on both sides.  I don’t want a surface mount rod, which hangs the curtains 2.5 to 3” from the window, so I’ve begun the search for a better tension rod, whose ends will fit the 3/4” available for them.

For this project, I’ve pulled out every unused curtain and valance we either had or bought at local thrift stores, along with my small stash of fabrics, and am in the process of seeing how to rework what I have into something pleasing yet situationally functional for all these windows.  My vintage Brother VX-710 still plugs along sewing straight and zigzag.

 

After that is tackled, I need to rework my bedroom curtains, as this time of year lets too much early morning light in as well!  The 5 windows in the adjoining living and dining rooms also need a rethink, although I may just buy all new curtains, instead of getting a 20 yd bolt of fabric, which is about what would be needed to sew 10 panels, not counting lining fabric!  I really don’t want to be glued to the sewing machine for weeks on end.

Now, this is more enjoyable - knitting a pullover design sample in heavenly extra-fine merino, from Yarn Undyed.

It’s listed as DK wt. and has the exact same yardage/100 grams as the Nature Spun Worsted, in the first design sample, but I am finding that both yarns also knit rather well at the usual 5 sts/1” worsted wt. gauge.  I never judge a yarn by the words ‘worsted’, ‘dk’, or ‘bulky’ in its name or its suggested gauge, as I’ve seen enough yarns that are mis-classified.  

Both these yarns have 70 yds/oz. which screams DK wt, They both can easily knit a dk wt. gauge, but, perhaps its their 3-ply construction, making rounded instead of flattened sts, which also allow for a worsted knit gauge.  Whatever the reason is, I’m happy with the fabrics, which is saying something, as I’m rather fussy about knitting good wearing fabrics, which usually means more snugly than recommended.

The merino also still smells lightly of the sheep it came from, which I love!  Every now and then, I stop and take a deep sniff of this lovely wool.  

And knitting it?  Stitches seem to just fly off the ndls.  It does only come in the one natural white color (hence ’Yarn Undyed’), but I am sorely lacking in white sweaters, as in I have none, so in addition to this v-neck pullover, I definitely see a cardigan and perhaps an aran design in my future, not to mention that it would also be fab in hat, scarf, and cowl designs - SO much to dream up!  

Onward!
Dawn

Repurposing Space

Many of us live in constrained spaces.  Finding ways to store our essentials, preferably without spending $, can be a challenge.

My studio space (everything for spinning, weaving, sewing, and ALL the shipping accoutrement) is in our dining room. The room is only about 13’ square, and has 2 (space wasting) built-in corner cupboards, 3 windows, a doorway and a large opening to the stairwell and living room.

I am constantly trying to eek out a bit more storage.  The largest bugbear to this room has been this keyhole desk above. We bought it years ago from the local Restore, long before I bought the new-to-me floor loom, as my office was originally in the dining room, but is now squeezed into my bedroom.

I’d have sold it already, and put a 4’ wide tall metal rack in its place, except it was a Project getting it into the dining room in the first place.

All our interior doorways are a bit too narrow, so the door moldings had to be removed first, so the desk would squeeze through, then the moldings had to be put back and the paint touched up.  So, this baby isn’t going anywhere, until we cut the desk’s overhang off the back of it, so it can go through the doorways and out!  

Last night, as I continued plans for spinning and weaving projects I need to start soon, the dilemma arose as to where on earth was I going to put a bump or 2 of wool top, as well as the things I will be weaving – more rag rugs and wool afghans.

So, I gave the desk a re-think.  Both the large lower drawers hold files.  But as we also keep files in the basement, I decided to move all the files out and stash my fabrics in the drawers.

Some people save jars (I do too, and plastic bags, and, and..), but I also save boxes.  I have a bunch of PM Regional Rate C boxes, back from when they actually offered a rate C option.  I use them on occasion and just Sharpie over the ‘Rate C’.  But, it turns out they are also the perfect width for the desk’s metal file holders to hold all my files. Taped the bottoms for strength and cut off the top flaps.  Now I just gotta haul them into the basement.

Both drawers stuffed to the gills!

Onward!
Dawn







 

What Makes Me Tick

(originally posted on WP 8/11/20.)

tick·ing
/ˈtikiNG/
noun: ticking; plural noun: tickings
    1.    a strong, durable material, typically striped, used to cover mattresses and pillows.


Many of us are familiar with ticking fabrics.  I’ve loved their country-style simplicity for a long time.

Some ticking fabric samples, from my sewing cupboard, and the remaining yardage from some curtains and a shower curtain.

But, do we really know ticking?

Turns out that the ticking fabrics we usually come across in the typical fabric store aren’t *woven* ticking, they are plain weave fabrics *printed* with a ticking pattern.

I’ve noticed this before, of course, but didn’t think too much about it, never really wondering if ticking was *always* printed, or if, in its history, the pattern was ever loom-woven.  But, as I am weaving again, I am noticing things which escaped attention before, like fabric construction.

Now, this is woven ticking.

And, BTW, that French mattress is to die for!  Especially if it is stuffed with either a feather/down mix or organic cotton.  Just makes me want to curl up on it under a cozy  handwoven or handknit afghan, and take a nap.

SO much nicer than the 10 or more old mattresses we had to haul down and out of the 2 attics in the Saugerties antique when we moved there in ‘94 (yup, 2 attics) and into one of the 2 huge dumpsters we had to rent to clear the crap out of that house.

If you’ve ever seen 'My Favorite Wife’, with Irene Dunne and Cary Grant then you’ll know what those old mattresses looked like.  

Unfortunately, I have no photographic evidence of those mattresses, which were surely covered in real ticking, as I was far too busy also pulling up 10+ rooms of musty old carpets and pulling hundreds of nails and carpet tacks.

Is it a big deal?  No bigger a deal that most things which we can need to not really pay much attention to, because more important matters are always begging for our attention.  But once we begin to notice something, we can need to keep delving (LOL, or at least *I* can need to!), to discover as much of its story as possible.

Sites mentioning bits of ticking history:
http://www.lorangerieshop.com/2016/09/26/mattress-ticking/
https://www.debrahalllifestyle.com/its-all-about-ticking-stripes/
https://www.textiletrunk.com/ticking

Then I found this site – possibly more than you’d ever want to know about the humble ticking!

(Fustion is mentioned being woven with a linen warp and cotton weft, when cotton is so much easier to warp and tension, than linen. The yarn placements could be reversed, at least in a balanced plain weave fabric, where warp gets no more emphasis, and hence wear, than weft.  One reason Swedish weavers warp with Cottolin, then weave with linen.  No-one needs a warping battle on their hands.)

Here’s some more tickings, *very* few of which are made here in the US.

Ralph Lauren (woven) ticking, linen and cotton, made in India, $156.80/yd.  Ha, couldn’t it be made here in the US for $156/yd??

Ashton ticking, polyester and acrylic (ugh), made in China.

Waverly, 100% cotton, made in China.

Waverly tickings are made in either the US or China, depending on the colorway. Regardless, they are printed, not woven patterns.

Charlotte Fabrics, cotton/poly, made in India.

Even before I did this bit of digging into ticking (say that fast 10x!), I had already decided to add ticking to the To Weave list.  Either cotton warp with linen weft, or more likely using Cottolin for both warp and weft.  LOL, after I buy another 500-600 heddles, because wowza, about 40” of width at 24 epi (ends per inch)…

But what a simple yet beautifully classic fabric that would last (almost) forever, to cover throw pillows, be sewn into curtains or valances, and cover chair pads, as well as tea towels.  I may need to live forever, to get to all I want to weave!

Onward,
Dawn