When life gives you scraps, make quilts

It's like "when life hands you lemons, make lemonade." My aunt had lemon, orange, and grapefruit trees in her SoCal yard, so they weren't the bad things the homily would suggest. Neither are scraps if you're fortunate to have the skill or inclination to use them.

Well, I've recently been handed a lot of sour bits and pieces.

A close friend's cancer metastasized. An in-law's cancer is more resistant to treatment than previously. One of my nephews isn't coming to Christmas this year. I got another diagnosis that requires permanent lifestyle changes to help ensure an active life; this follows a probably-unrelated diagnosis 11 months ago. Let's not get into talking about "fair."

One of the Lemonade Quilt designs I've discovered is to think about possible positive outcomes and reminders to cherish what's good now.

The recent diagnosis is a very strong incentive to create a healthy lifestyle for myself. It has immediate numerical feedback and some dire consequences to avoid. I can do this.

The several-day hospital stay that just ended (in itself a set of scraps of a totally new color that will hopefully become a nice quilt in a couple of months) produced another sour fruit: the night nurse spotted a probable sleep disorder. It's treatable and treatment would likely result in more energy and clarity.

All of these sour scraps are scary yet at the same time provide some opportunities.

And did you know that the phlebotomists use a new giant rubber band on each patient to prevent spreading germs? I brought home a couple of mine to open jars, pull needles, stop skids, etc. They're a less bulky and more useful memento than the pink plastic tub and curved vomit basin, for sure.

Multitasking

Recently I got a vintage Schwinn exercise bike and rediscovered that time slows incredibly when watching the timer, even with the radio on. So I built and installed a simple book shelf for the handle bars.


The scrap of plywood is bolted to two smallish L braces which in turn are clamped to the handle bars with hose clamps. It's easy and requires no permanent modifications that might degrade the bike's collectability. LOL Just kidding; you can barely give these things away anymore.

Scrap of rubbery drawer liner keeps my book from sliding off. Now I can read and pedal until either 1) the timer sounds or 2) my rear goes numb. When it's the second event (which it usually is now that I'm building up a tiny bit of stamina), I get off the bike, march around for a minute, and get back on.

I'm exploring options and experimenting with available materials to prevent NBS (Numb Butt Syndrome). I'll report if I find a solution that doesn't involve temporary dismounts!

Surge Protectors Serge Cleaning Cloths

Paper towels last a long time at my house (a couple of years, at least, per roll) because I use these 99.9% of the time: Those are well used, fraying towels cut down to approximately washcloth size. The edges won't fray because I do the cutting and hemming on a serger. The advantage to this size is that dish rags, washcloths, and my cleaning cloths fit this handy cleaning tool... ...purchased at a thrift store. No disposable Swiffer cloth has never crossed my threshold. If you noticed all the dangling thread chains, well spotted. The last two steps in cleaning cloth creation are dabbing on Fray Chek to lock the threads, and after that's dry, cutting the threads off. Some of the cloths are much smaller—as small as 3x5 inches—because I had to work around holes or tears. These mini rags are also handy; one resides with my spinning wheel. I see a number of other knitting bloggers post about knitting swiffer cloths, but I bet if they had a serger they'd be using it this way, too! Here are more swiffer options that Google revealed. My cleaning cloths collection does include several old knitted dishcloths which do fit my swiffer and do a great job. Cheerios for now!

Wooly Garden and Triangular Dolly

Sometimes I get a kick out of being weird. Well, most of the time. LOL For example, my vegetable garden started out on wheels. Now it's on the old pickanick (remember Yogi?) table where it will be easy to find those baby zucchini before they become monster-sized.


After planting a zucchini, several lemon cucumbers, and a cantaloupe (which I hope will recover from my letting it dry up too much) in potting soil and compost, I covered the dirt with wool.

What! you say? Wasting wool on gardening? Not really. That wool wasn't going to do anyone any good for crafting anything nice. The batt was dyed with something that bleeds profusely even after a dozen washes. It was also felted, probably accidentally judging by the various thicknesses and holes in it. As mulch, it will hopefully be keeping the soil moist and the roots warm. Water flows right through. It was easy to install.


See those buds? Baby courgette will hopefully follow.

I mentioned wheels. Because I did nearly everything bass ackwards, I had the washtub planted before I moved the table to the best location. So the washtub was on wheels for a while so I could move it around easily. The wheels? An invention of my own:


Three salvaged swivel casters pinning three sticks into a triangle. The sticks are about 20 x 1 x .7 inches with holes in both ends. The holes are barely big enough for the caster stems, and the slight angling caused by the over/under layering of the sticks puts just enough pressure on that it stays together. I hope. I did play it safe and wedged a small nail alongside each stem. Have you noticed how it looks kind of like a recycle symbol? LOL This simple little project definitely qualifies as Reduce (back strain) and Reuse (sticks, casters).

Now that the wash tub is on the picnic table (thanks to Louise and Mattie who went for a walk and passed just in time to help lift it onto the table), my triangular dolly is under a stack of tires. It is so much easier to move stuff around with wheels!

Fridge Magnets: Take 14357

Not a very original topic, crafted refrigerator magnets are nonetheless useful and fun items to make. I find it especially satisfying to make something new out of bits and pieces already on hand. This time my goal was strong, unobtrusive magnets for the refrigerator.


No, that's not my refrigerator; it's origami paper ON my refrigerator so you could see the magnets better! Here's a crisper picture using the flash that shows the back of one of the magnets.


My button jar has housed these Mother of Pearl buttons for many years. They were "too nice" to put on clothes that go through the wash. LOL I used pliers to pop the metal shanks off. Then applied silicone cement to attach the rare earth magnets. During the day it took the silicone to cure, the magnets were stuck on a tin can lid on the counter to prevent the buttons and magnets from getting out of alignment.

I'm especially happy with these magnets because the button is wider than the magnet, making it easier to get a grip on them.

Returning with 'Poo-free Hair

Last May, Kathy at A Vast Amount of Spare Time posted about not using shampoo to wash her hair. Hmm, I thought. Maybe this will cure those little bumps I get on my scalp. After some experimenting, denial, and accidental or unavoidable use of shampoo, I've settled on a variation of her baking soda and vinegar regimen.

In my shower, I keep a former shampoo bottle (well rinsed!) that has a small dispensing hole (a dish detergent bottle would work, too) with baking soda and water. I start with 1/2 soda, but as the level falls with use, I add water. The quantity of soda isn't critical and depends on how much hair and how big a head you have. If you don't have a funnel for the soda, mix the solution in a pitcher or big measuring cup and pour into the bottle. I also keep a spray bottle filled with water and vinegar (Kathy suggests apple cider, but I had white on hand), about 1/4 vinegar.

To clean my hair, I wet it well, shake the soda bottle (finger over the hole) and apply a spiral on my hair (usual two circuits starting near the edge and finishing near the crown), massage into the scalp with my fingertips, rub all over with my palms and fingers, and rinse well. (You'll get some dribble and you can use it to clean behind/in your ears or even your face and neck. It's mildly abrasive which can be good.) Once the soda is rinsed out and my hair is still very wet, I grab the vinegar spray bottle, close my eyes, spray a few times (maybe 4, again, your mileage may vary) around my head, rub it around around a little bit to distribute, and rinse. You can, if you wish, use the vinegar rinse on alternate days or even less frequently. It does ensure there's no soda left in the hair and makes your hair shinier than with soda alone.

I found the measuring cup method to be cumbersome and much prefer the premixed solutions. And it did take a week to get my scalp and hair used to the change. Those little scalp bumps don't appear when I use the soda and vinegar, either. Even baby shampoo causes them. Additional benefits of this system are its very low cost and small environmental impact.

Regarding knitting, I'll have posts about completed projects (including my Mystery Stole 3), my new-to-me spinning wheel and an incredible fiber purchase via Craigslist, and so on soon. I've been a bad blogger.

Acci-dental Stitch Markers

The replacement heads for my electric toothbrush come with rings for color coding family members' brushes. They make good and free (if one doesn't buy the brushes to get the rings!) stitch markers! Shown here on a size 8 US needle.

BTW, an electric toothbrush is a simple tool for improving dental health and saving money. Since I got my Braun several years ago (less than $25 for a rechargeable model, and replacement brushes at 1/5 retail via eBay) my gums are healthier, my teeth cleaner, and no new cavities. Your mileage may vary. LOL

Simple Fix for a Small Annoyance

Every morning I make "hot cocoa" for breakfast. While water is heating in the microwave, I mix dry milk, cocoa powder, soy protein powder, and stevia powder in a cup. Then I add the hot water, stir, and add a few drops of vanilla extract and maybe almond and coconut extracts since I'm an Almond Joy fan.

The annoyance is that when the stevia bottle is full, there's nowhere good to put the micro-spoon that doesn't make a mess. My simple solution:


Tape would work as well as (or maybe better than) the elastic band (yes, it's a hair elastic band; my hair is short, but I keep them around to use as sturdy rubber bands. Remind me to show you my graphics tablet's pen hair-banded to a Bic Stic.). An empty lip balm container or lipstick tube cap would work as well as the plastic vial I found.

There's another small annoyance regarding the stevia: when the level gets down to the bottom of the label, it's harder to spoon out the powder. My solution so far is to pour the powder into the top of the new bottle, which kind of compounds the where-to-put-the spoon problem. So right now, the new spoon lurks hidden in the stevia and the old spoon keeps spooning along.

Oh, and my rather grubby penpen held together with once-matching blue elastics.

No ordinary rubberbands would last long in this application.

Getting the Angst Out: Knit Voodoo Swatches

Redshirt Knitting Blog » Free Pattern: Voodoo Swatches

This is a great idea. Like writing a journal, only no one can read it! For particularly intense or large swatches, I'd be tempted to burn the swatch on completion.

Magical Comb Binding Trick!

I recently dug out my "home" comb binding machine for a project, and its lingering presence on the kitchen island inspired the creation a new, tough price book out of 3x5 cards for my purse. The results looked good, but didn't work so good because it wouldn't lie flat when turned inside out. Bummer. After a few days of trying to ignore the problem, a possible solution made itself known.
I cut the comb binding apart into individual rings! They hold the cards together fine, and any page can be on top without being bent around the binding. The plastic comb (named because if you could make it lie flat it would look like a giant comb) just needs its spine to make the rings faster to attach and easier to manage. I doubt I'd want to put individual rings on very many letter-size reports, but a few custom note books is absolutely no problem.
Now instead of copying info into a new notebook, I can just take the notebook apart, recycle the unwanted/used cards, add some blank cards, and keep going. I could even insert 3x5 photos, pieces of greeting cards, or whatever fits in the comb binder's punch.
What's in my price book? Mostly lists: window measurements, lists of things I'm thinking about buying, shopping lists, price comparison info for my "regular" purchases, phone numbers, ideas, things to put in my "master" planner, etc. It's rather like a PDA but doesn't need batteries and is less likely to break when dropped.

Filter Update

The gravel-in-a-jar filter I made last week is performing better after a minor modification. The standard airline was smaller than the narrow end of the funnel, but not by much, so the stream of exiting bubbles was intermittent (glub, pause pause, pause, glub, pause, pause, glub, ....). I added a length of micro tubing to the airline, and now the bubbles are flowing in a gentle, steady stream.

Yesterday the glub-pause-glub started up. Oh, no! On inspection, one of the snails tried to go into the funnel, blocking the opening temporarily. LOL Everything is back to normal now that the snail got out of the way.

Here's a quick picture. You can't see the bubbles and the fish are blurred because I used ambient light...

Making a Filter for a Small Fish Tank

Needing an inexpensive, small, and effective filter for my White Cloud Mountain Minnows' 2.5 gallon tank (which is really an antique pickle jar inherited from my grandmother), I searched with Google for instructions, finding this article from the Minnesota Aquarium Society. In summary, you can build a combination undergravel and box filter using a funnel, flowerpot (without a drain hole), a bit of filter material, gravel, air line, and an air pump. Being genetically resistant to following instructions, I modified them to fit my situation. My filter went together like this:

1. In the bottom of a squeaky clean Trader Joe's bean dip jar (sans label) from the recycle bin
2. I put a layer of filter material from my other aquarium's filter (like polyester batting) and
   
3. then added a small plastic funnel found in my kitchen, wide part down. The wide part of the funnel should fill the width of the jar but not so tightly that water can't flow through the gap. The narrow end of the funnel should be about twice as wide as the air line so bubbles can easily escape. Mine fit well with only a little shortening that also widened the opening. The point is to get the air into the funnel, so you can put the airline into a second hole in the side of the funnel or, (this is untested), run it down into the filter and up into the funnel but not out the end.
   
4. Then I filled the jar, burying the funnel but leaving the end poking up about 1/4 inch, with clean aquarium gravel.
   
5. Next I filled the jar with declorinated water and put it into the tank. It is nearly invisible because the glass reveals mostly gravel that matches that already in the tank!
   
6. Next I stuck an airline into the funnel and turned on the air, adjusting the flow appropriately.

The minnows and snails are happily investigating their new "boulder," swimming around and climbing on it.