Aren't I Clever?

I love wearing skirts in the summer. And I don't mean fussy, girly skirts although I have some of those too. I also like grungy, comfortable skirts that I don't worry how dirty they get and the more wrinkled they get, the better. When I cleaned out my closet a few weeks ago I looked at a pair of stained, torn jeans that had seriously seen their better days and decided to recycle. I had no pattern, no experience and no plan.

Beat up jeans went from this::

to this::

– using only a seam ripper, a pair of scissors, an old pair of shorts, my sewing machine and a little bit of imagination!

I cut off the legs around knee length and carefully picked out the seams up the inside of the legs. On the front, I ripped the seam up to the bottom of the zipper and on the back I went all the way up to the yoke. Smoothing out the pieces that were left, it easily went into an A-line "skirt shape" with lots of overlapping material. I then carefully re-sewed using the old, clearly visible seam lines.

In trying it on, I realized that there were some serious coverage issues in the front that needed to be addressed if I didn't want to be arrested. Thinking it over I first thought I would use the leftover legs to fill the gap. But I wanted more color. So I cut up an old pair of madras, patchwork shorts that had seen better days and used that instead!

A quick zip with the machine around the bottom of the skirt lets it fray just a little without raveling out of control and it was done. Less than an hour and I had myself a new skirt!

And yeah. . .I think I'm pretty clever!

Building a (green)House

Yesterday was one of those spectacular spring days full of energy, blue skies and improbable good luck. The late morning found us in Bluffton where we were snapping photographs for a secret project I'm working on. We were slowing walking around town, noticing little details and ducking in random shops looking for small treasures. As we were ready to head home I wanted to go in the direction of the University to take a couple of stills. Turning the corner onto Lawn Avenue I nearly threw us both through the windshield of the car putting it into park as we both saw a pile of old windows leaning casually against a telephone pole.

Now, I've never been too proud to take other people's junk and Ali is quickly overcoming her reluctance as I coax her over to the dark side. (I'm quite sure this little personality quirk comes from my dad. He made regular trips to "the dump" when I was a kid and came home with all kinds of treasurers that he repurposed* around our house and yard!) As we hopped out of the car, making a beeline for the windows, a man was come out his front door smiling at us.

"Are these your windows?" I asked with a grin.

"They sure are!"

"Do you still want them?"

"Nope! That's why they are out here. I hear that crafty-type people love old windows so you're welcome to them! If you want to drive by again tomorrow I will have some single pane ones out here if you want them too!"

Before he had even gotten those three sentences out of his mouth we already had all seven windows safely in the back of the Mountaineer and were headed out of town – giddy with our good fortune.

After some measuring, painting, drilling, screwing and three (yes! three. . . we're constuction rookies!) trips to the hardware store we now have this::

Three of the four "wall" windows were four inches shorter than the fourth one. We solved that by cutting three sections out of a 2x4 and painting them white before attaching them to the bottom of the windows. That evened them up with the fourth larger one. The top is hinged in place and all the windows are secured together with large "L" brackets.

Not only are we excited about using it to start seeds in the very early spring, I'm imagining fresh lettuce in February, basil all year round. . . oh, the possibilities! Oh yeah, we're also quite proud of our construction skills! And as an added bonus – the whole thing cost less than $10. . .if you don't count the cost of three trips to the hardware store!

*repurpose - squeezing extra and/or clever things out of everyday objects. Lifehacker is one of my favorite inspirational websites for ideas.

Upcycling

Upcycling ::

1. a practice to prevent the wasting of potentially useful materials by making use of existing ones;

2. the practice of making functional items from waste materials often on their way to the landfill

{the new shower curtain, as seen through the bathroom mirror}

{the old shower curtain, as seen on Sunday afternoon}

{the old shower curtain, upcycled!}

{the gratuitous cat photo – because no project is ever complete until it's covered in cat hair!}

The fun in this sewing project wasn't that I had to do it. . .it was that I could. . .

Recycling

One of my methods of operating is to bite more than I can chew. I start projects that are far too complex for my limited skills. I start an exercise routine that is much too ambitious. I dream up plans and ideas that can't possibly be implemented. And, when my grand plans and schemes don't turn out the way I dreamed they would I get frustrated and never finish.

I like to think that I've curbed that little quirk as I've matured. I think we shall soon see. . .

I fell in love with this quilt:


It's made up of alternating 7" squares of a single pattern with squares cut from vintage sheets. Ever since I saw that picture I've been scouring second-hand stores for floral sheets from the 1970's and earlier. I have 27 different patterns. It's recycling at it's most fun!

Here's the start of my vintage sheet quilt:


I really don't have much of a clue what I'm doing. I do know that it will be 98x84, the dimensions to hang over the edges of a queen size bed. It will have 14 rows of 12 squares each. Cuddling up on the couch with a big warm blanket is my idea of a perfect winter evening so I didn't want to skimp on the size of this thing!

Of course I've never made a quilt before so I don't have the slightest idea how to bind it, or even quilt it for that matter! But I'm sure that I can figure it out.

The other reason that I'm excited about this quilt is that, in the past, I would have started my quilting adventures with something like this:


This time, maybe I'll have enough sense to make that my second quilt. . .