Saturday, December 28, 2024

What's Old Is New

A few months ago, I was given a tote full of these squares that k-ster's great grandmother had crocheted and given to his mother. I didn't look carefully at them the day she gave it to me, but I knew there were a lot of squares in there that needed to be put together.  She said she included the string they were made from and that she wasn't sure how many were there, but it was a lot.  She said she didn't care what I did with them but she didn't want the bedspread that her grandmother had probably intended them to be.

An idea started brewing that maybe I could make a couple of throws out of the squares and give them to his mother and aunts and uncles for Christmas.  

In case you're new here, one of the many things I learned how to do on Aunt Mildred's porch (this is where the blog name originated, by the way) was crochet and I was pretty sure that as long as all of the squares were done, I could put them together to make something.  If I had had to actually make more squares, that would have been a bigger challenge since there was no pattern included and I haven't done this specific kind of pattern before.

I also like to take on challenges because I'm a sucker for complicated things.  This didn't appear to be complicated, but they never do.

I planned to work on it in the summer, when I could work outside and let everything air out because everything was pretty musty smelling.  Imagine my surprise when it was November and I realized I had never taken them out of the box, let alone aired them out or put them together.  

Or even looked at what was really in the box.

I decided I really couldn't do anything until I at least washed all of the squares once.  This would start to get rid of the musty smell and mold spores and also tell me if they were going to survive or if they were too delicate.  I had a feeling they'd be just fine. 

I put them through one wash and dry cycle so the initial mold spores would wash and dry out but the smell lingered.  It wasn't awful, and I knew I could work with the squares and still breathe, but I had to also figure out a way to get more of the smell out.

I was shocked to find she had already sewn most of the squares into 5 square strips.  This made things much more clear and I knew it would make the whole thing easy to put together.  The first thing I had to do was decide how big I would make these throws so I could figure out how many it would make.

               
Three strips made a pretty narrow throw.  Something you'd literally put on the back of the couch, but I couldn't imagine anyone putting it over their lap.  Four strips was better but now it reduced how many I could make.  And left me with strips I didn't know what to do with.

I finally settled on 3 blankets:  two would be 5x5 and one would be 4x5.  This left me with one strip that had 2 stains that I couldn't get out.  I decided to keep that strip and put it across the top of my piano.  Maybe over time, the stains will come out.

After everything was washed and dried and I knew how many strips to put together, I had to figure out what size crochet hook she had used to put the strips together.  You can see the stitches are very tiny.  I have a lot of hooks but even my tiniest one wouldn't do anything that small.  I'm a pretty tight crocheter but my smallest hook and tight hands made stitches that were too big. 

I went to the store and found a 5 pack of extremely small crochet hooks.  I figured one of them had to be the right size.  Just for comparison, I put it next to my "typical" crochet hook that I use.  The tiny one is like the size of a sewing needle at the tip, but it's exactly what I needed.


When you put crocheted blocks together, some patterns say to get a tapestry needle and sew them together and others say to crochet them together.  Since she had already crocheted together all of the squares for the strips, I wanted to do the same.  I also thought it might be stronger and last longer than if I just sewed them.

Some of the blocks were a little stretched out, so I got a little inventive as I crocheted them together so everything would fit.

After I finished each blanket, I draped it over my drying rack on the patio and let it sit in the sun and air all day.  Then I put them all through the laundry one more time.  This helped a lot with the smell.  There's still something there but it's not offensive.  Over time, they will each take on the smell of the house where they now live and as they get washed and dried and used, the original smell will be gone.

When all was said and done, I gave one to his mother, one to his aunt and I kept one.  I originally thought I might dye ours a light blue to go with the living room colors and to make it a little more colorful than just the off white.  Now that it's been in the living room (and well used during last week's super cold weather), I'm not sure I'll bother.

I imagine her original plan was to put these together in a bedspread.  But, with this many strips, it would have been much bigger than a king size bed and it would have been very heavy.  Even these throws are surprisingly heavy when it's just "a bunch of string".  This is another reason I think crocheting them together was a better idea than sewing them.  When you move the blanket around, it's a lot of pulling on the seams.

One of k-ster's uncles said I "sewed" together 3 generations by putting these together, which is true.  And if they make it to any of the grandchildren, that will be a 4th!  



Sunday, December 22, 2024

From Nightgown to Night on the Town

I used to be a huge fan of these floor length flannel night gowns.  I had two of them and I remember wearing them in the winter, under the duvet, and not being hot.  Somewhere along the way, I must have changed the duvet and it's much warmer because I can't even imagine wearing a flannel nightgown to sit on the bed, let alone to sleep under the covers with it on!

Those two sad nightgowns sat in my drawer for years and eventually made it into my sewing room where I was going to dismantle them and make something else out of them.  I like the flannel a lot, and it's hard to find a good flannel at fabric stores right now, so I didn't want to give these away.

I took apart one of them but this red one remained a favorite cat bed for a long time in my sewing room.  I'd look at it and think I should do something with it but then I'd see the cat hair and think I should wash it before I do anything and the cycle went on and on.  

After making a couple of Rhapsody blouses and dresses by Love Notions this summer, I got it in my head that I needed to make these nightgowns into dresses and the Rhapsody would be my pathway.  There are so many options with the Rhapsody.  I have a couple of tops that I made iwth sleeves of my own doing, a couple have ties and a couple don't.  

I also took the top of the Rhapsody and wanted a tiered dress so I found a pattern that had the measurements for tiers and I went crazy.  There's a pink and white striped seersucker dress around here somewhere that makes me feel like I look like a cupcake but I love it.

 I like the length of the Rhapsody dress but I don't like elastic at my waist.  I'm so short in my torso that anything at my actual waist makes me look even shorter, so I hunted for a pattern that I already have that had the right shape and length, without an elastic.

When I was a pattern tester for 5 out of 4 patterns, I tested the Savannah in the dress length which had the exact waist shape I wanted.  The two patterns are similar but the Savannah has a very difficult binding on the V and a dart, so the Rhapsody is easier, by far.  They both have a yoke that is part of the armscye so I wondered if it was possible to start the Savannah shaping below the Rhapsody yoke.  

The picture shows the back view of the Savannah.  On the back of both patterns, the yoke stops in the same place, so I just took the Savannah back, placed it alongside the Rhapsody back and made sure the part that goes into the armscye was the Rhapsody one and drew from there.  It ended up narrower than the back for the Rhapsody which is what I wanted because I feel like my last top was very billowy in the back.  I still gathered a very tiny bit but not as much as I normally would with the size I have been using.

On the front, I started right at the end of the armscye for the front on the Rhapsody and drew the Savannah on down.    My last Rhapsody blouse made me wonder if I should go down a size, especially for the back.  It's a very comfortable top, but it's not as shapely as it could be. I was a little worried that because the shaping at the waist is deeper on the Savannah, it might throw off the fit of the Rhapsody.  And since I was adding the button placket and my math is sketchy, it is entirely possible that the whole thing would end up too tight.

When I made the flannel blouse, I had already taken apart the sleeves from the other nightgown, so I laid the sleeves out flat and cut the upper edge to match the upper edge of the sleeve for the Rhapsody.  With this one, I didn't open up the seams on the sleeves because I didn't want to also interrupt the cuffs.  I debated trying to finagle the upper edge of the sleeve so I could cut it to match the pattern and then I decided that since it's such a generous sleeve, surely I could make it fit.  

I made sure to match up the side seams with the sleeve seams and keep the front going toward the front and the back toward the back.  I think they went in pretty well.

I am not much of a fan of big, luscious sleeves, and because this had been a nightgown, they sleeves had plenty of room.  They are much more full than I would choose for a dress but I think they work just fine.  And I was short on time the day I made this, so it saved a lot of steps not having to redo the sleeve seams and the cuffs.

I really like how this dress came out.  I barely had enough to squeak out the dress length because the front of the nightgown had those pintucks and the button placket, so I didn't have as much fabric to work with as it seemed.  The bottom of the side seams is less wide than my pattern pieces were but I actually like this width better so I didn't lose anything.

I ended up having enough fabric  to make binding for the neckline and the hem.  Because the hem is curved and I was short on time, I knew a deep hem was going to be a nightmare.  People say making binding is a pain and I agree, but I think it was less aggravating to make the binding and sew it on than it would have been to fiddle with the curve of the hem.  

I feel like the neck is a little naked in this.  I could wear it with pearls as people suggested but I think pearls are a little much for a flannel dress.  I debated doing something else around the neckline but nothing made sense to be.  I still have the collar from the nightgown but it looks like a nightgown collar so I know that would just be weird.

My initial intention was to make this early enough in December to wear it once or twice before Christmas.  I don't get dressed up for Christmas day but I do usually dress nicely for work.  I managed to start taking the nightgown apart in plenty of time to get this made but then other things came up in between and knowing I had to actually draw out the pattern, I couldn't get to it early enough.  If it were any other color but red, I'd wear it all winter, but I think it might questionable after Christmas.

Maybe I can get away with it once in January.
















Tuesday, December 10, 2024

That One Time She Turned the Christmas Tree Around

I haven't told a story on this blog in so many years, anyone reading this probably doesn't even know that's what I used to do, almost daily.  

As Christmas comes closer, there's a memory that comes rushing to the forefront of my brain because it was so startling but also hilarious in the end.  This involves a little setup before I can tell the actual story, so sit down for a minute and enjoy.

I live next door to my parents, about 100 yards or so from their door.  I grew up in this house and when I was in high school, my parents built a new house right next door and we lived there and rented out the house I'm currently in.  After college, I moved in here which is  helpful for my parents in the summer when the campground is open.

My parents are still pretty spry and both still have all of their faculties (do any of us really have ALL of our faculties at any age?) so they don't need anyone "looking after them" or checking in on them.  Days, weeks can go by and I don't go over or see them, and it's not weird.  They never come to my house because THAT would be weird.  

This is not Everybody Loves Raymond with the irritating in-laws next door who are always in everyone's business.  

I'm over their house a lot more than they're at mine, and that's really important for this story.  Like, they never come to my house unless it's to look at something that needs fixing, or to feed the cats if we are away.

Another important piece of information is that this house is really old and I sometimes I think I hear things but it turns out to be nothing or just the cats.   My sewing room is upstairs, kind of tucked in a back corner.  I like to listen to music and the radio is in one room while I sew in another so it needs to be kind of loud.

I'm sure nothing I have here in quotes was actually what was said but it's so much more fun to read something in quotes and imagine it was really what was said verbatim, right?  It's all true, it just might not have had so much color.  Or maybe it had more.  It was a wild 45 minutes.

One Saturday in December, I was upstairs sewing my brains out.  When I have music on and get caught up in what I'm sewing, I'm pretty oblivious.  I have no idea where k-ster was, and I knew I was alone.

Sometime mid afternoon, I heard a noise. I thought it was a cat meowing so I didn't pay attention.   I heard it again and realized it was my mother.  

My mother!  

IN MY HOUSE!  

Yelling my name.  

In distress.  Not feeble old shaky lady voice, but not her usual voice either, like maybe she had been crying.

Who fell? What's on fire? Who died? What is so urgent that she had to come over here and not just call or text???? 

I jumped up and got to the top of the stairs to find her standing at the bottom of the stairs in what we call in my family "a lather".  Worked up, distraught, in a dither.  Almost wringing her hands.  Not crying, but she was amped.  You get the picture.

"What???" was all I could say.

"I knocked the Christmas tree over and...."

"Where's dad?" I said.  

"Out and I can't get it back up.  Do you think you can help me?"

I grabbed my shoes and a coat and we walked back across the driveway, my mother still in her lather, me thinking I would just pop the tree back up and get back to whatever I was fervently sewing.  

She was being a awfully dramatic about knocking the tree over.

We walked in the door and well, there was the tree, laying down.  Partially naked, partially decorated, what ornaments were on there all askew.  Ornament hooks everywhere.

She had the tree about half decorated and when I say decorated, I mean with an assortment of ornaments, many very old and delicate. I'd noticed for the past decade or so that some of those heirloom ornaments had seen better days.  Paint was missing, faces no longer had a mouth or eye paint.  

But they were sentimental, so I hadn't said anything.

One set of ornaments is all different parts of the nativity, each its own ornament that someone had made for her.  They're pretty heavy and always want to slide off the branches.   

There have always been lots of "typical" round ornaments, the kind that are now often made of plastic but in previous decades were made with some kind of thin material, like glass, that explodes on impact.  And by impact, I mean the hardwood floor that has a tree skirt but those things never fall on the soft, cushioned tree skirt do they?

And many of those orbs are red.

She had already wrapped the lights around it.  I can't remember if they were turned on, but for effect, let's say they were.

Boxes and boxes of ornaments were set up in front of where the tree fell and some ornaments were already broken on the floor.  Several had "exploded" on impact, a few were missing parts and a lot were unscathed.  The old ornaments seemed to have suffered the most.

She was still grumbling about the mess and how we were going to pick up the tree and how mad she was.  I was busy doing the math to figure out how two 5 feet tall women were going to pick up this 6-7 foot tall tree and set it upright.  I wasn't worried about the weight, it was a cut tree, but if you are short, you know that physics plays a mean trick when you try to stand something upright that's taller than you.

Did I mention there was a plastic base affixed to the tree?  The kind with the 3 screws that sit against the trunk?  That you put water in so the tree doesn't dry out?

This base is round, not the square kind I've seen in recent years.

There were also towels on the floor.  To sop up the water that had spilled from the plastic base as the tree fell.

To recap:  on the floor were wet towels and still some open water, ornaments in varying conditions from totally fine to smashed to smithereens, ornament hooks all over the place, balsam needs from the tree, boxes of ornaments bearing witness to this mayhem, some assortment of extension cords and the tree itself.

This scene was not OSHA approved.

Regardless of how tall you are, have you ever tried to stand up something heavy that's plastic, on a hardwood floor?  And that plastic happens to be a round disc?  

I'd stand behind the tree, grab it around the middle and somehow swoop it upright and get it set on its base, all in one smooth movement.  I couldn't see any way for her to actually assist without one of us falling down, so I told her to move out of the way.  I figured if I did it fast enough, inertia and gravity would help me.  More ornaments would probably fly off, but there were already some broken, so what's a few more?

I stood behind the tree.  I leaned over and grabbed it around the middle.  I picked it up with a mighty heave and it started to come up.  

And then the plastic base, which is round at the bottom, caught the floor and instead of standing straight up, did a pirouette around itself and me and fell back to the floor, now exposing its other side, flinging ornaments right and left.

Lights subtly blinking as the dust settled.

Physics is such a bitch.

There was shattering. 

There was screaming.  

We were both screaming.    At each other, at the tree, at the destruction.  Screaming in fury, in astonishment and probably on the verge of hysterics.

I looked up to see my mother standing, inexplicably, with the vacuum wand in her hand.  I realized the vacuum was running.  How had I not noticed that in the 60 seconds I was dancing with the tree, she had started to clean up the mess?

My mother cannot stand a mess.  

Now she was screaming over the vacuum, with the wand still in her hand "Oh my GOD what are we going to do now???"

I usually start with "what if you..." "can you..."  "I think you should..." "Maybe you could..." but in chaos of the vacuum running, the tree on the ground for the second time, water now creeping through my socks, bits of ornaments all around, I said "You're going to put that down and sit in that chair while I turn off the vacuum and try to pick this up again."  

I resumed my position behind the tree, grabbed it in the middle, pulled and used the strands of lights to assist, and finally it was up.

But the carnage it revealed on the floor was astounding.  The shattered glass, balsam needles, ornament hooks, chipped ornaments detritus that was slowing getting wet from the water that the towels didn't pick up.  

And a dustpan.

Two or three more ornaments met their demise as I surveyed the scene before me, quietly exploding like the last couple of fireworks on the 4th of July.

My mother was sitting in the chair I assigned her but somehow had a broom in her hand, pointed at the mess.  How did she find a broom that fast?  

We had to clean up but do we sweep or vacuum or just scoop up everything into the wet towels and throw it all out?  No solution was going to be ideal but we needed to clean up before more slipping and falling and breaking happened.  

I vacuumed, she swept and somehow another ornament crashed to the floor and exploded into the mess. 

At least one of us screamed.

The bubbling hysteria in my body was about to boil over at this point.  I wasn't sure if I was going to laugh, cry, scream or throw up.  What should have been a quick 5 minute trip had turned into a wild afternoon.

In the middle of cleaning it up, deciding which chipped ornaments should stay or go and my mother being disappointed that so many of the old relics had bit the dust, I stepped on another ornament that we either hadn't seen or had just rolled from somewhere. 

I don't think either of us had the energy to scream.

I leaned down to pick it up a piece and there was a RED STREAK on the floor.  We both thought one of us was bleeding and leaving streaks of blood on the floor.  

Another round of freaking out and yelling ensued. 

Out of concern for the person bleeding or the now permanent streak of red on the floor, I can't be sure.

No one was bleeding.  

An old ornament had smashed on the floor and we inadvertently ground it down to powder during the cleanup.  The red coloring made a nice red powder, that when combined with the dampness that was still on the floor led to a nice streak of red "paint" that no amount of rubbing or sweeping would remove.

With the floor clean, except for the red streak, and things quieting down, my mother dismissed me so she could finish decorating in peace. 

On Christmas day, I sat on the floor near that red streak and told the story of how it got there.  Over time, it faded away, though in the crack between the floorboards you can sort of detect a smidge of red.  It makes me smirk every time I see it.