Let There Be Light!

We've lived in our house for twelve years now. (Unbelievable--where does the time go?). When we bought it we were poorer than any church mouse--we were probably as poor as the church mouse's poorer cousin, shack mouse. (How, then, did we buy our house? Bought it from my parents, who are kindly, generous souls, and then scrimped like mad to pay the tiny mortgage each month. I'm frugal for a reason!) We've lived through quite a few changes since then: renovations as we could afford them (two years without a master bathroom, tile purchased a bit at a time) ; landscaping (sort of--sorry, sweet neighbors!); ; the birth of five children (the reasons for much of the renovating, which you understand if you, too, have children); etc.

In spite of the time span, and the changes for the better, I still remember how thankful I was to own a house--and how excited I was to buy the very first item specifically for that house: a lamp (on sale for $9.99!).
This lamp:

It's a little tired looking now--but so would you be if you'd watched the whirlwind this household can be for twelve years. (Come to think of it, I'm a little tired looking! I think the lamp has aged better.) So, I thought it was time for a little spruce-up, provident style. (The lamp, not me. That'll have to come later.)

I have some wallpaper that I fell in love with a couple years ago, and which I used to redo our kitchen table:

(The marine varnish I used to seal the table has a deep yellow stain to it; that's why it's such a different color--but that's okay, my kitchen is yellow, too. Serendipitous!)

I still have a lot of the paper left (and I'm seriously considering which small wall to cover it with), so why not use it to recover the tired old lamp? The leafy motif is perfect for the family room, and the stiffness of the paper would make the recovering process easier--far fewer wrinkles to worry about.

First I measured the circumference of the lamp shade, and added a half-inch to top and bottom and one side as overlap. Then I measured and marked on the paper where the shade support wires were. I notched paper out at those places with scissors and a hole punch so the paper would wrap around the wires and not tear. Then I placed the paper around the frame, matching notches to wires and folding the top and bottom "hems" over the rim supports. I glued the side overlap and the hems, and clipped it all securely to let it dry.

 

It was just a simple project (no cost, because I used only what I already had on hand) but it made a big difference. I hope we get another twelve years of use of of this thing!

Rescue Operation

Miss Elle is hard on her clothes. I realize this is most likely normal, since I hear a lot of mothers complaining about the various atrocities committed on clothing. Still, to see a perfectly innocent t-shirt lying stricken in a laundry basket--having done nothing to merit the punishment inflicted on it, beyond maybe straying too closely to the freshly-painted wall or the nail sticking out of the door jamb--my heart bleeds. "That," I say, to no one in particular, but hoping my children are listening while in instructable frames of mind, "is a waste of perfectly good money. Just look at it--good for nothing more than the rag bag now. Poor t-shirt, to have its promising life cut tragically short." (I throw in the extra pathos in the usually vain attempt to play on my children's otherwise steely heartstrings. Perhaps I think shedding a tear or two for the lost of the laundry will prevent them from committing clothing-related barbarities later in the day. Hope springs eternal.)

In months past I would have cut the shirt up for weaving fodder--I have a lovely collection of t-shirt strip balls, just waiting for the day I can clear a path to the loom and finally put them into the rug I've been planning for nigh unto five years now. But I have more than enough material for this projected rug, and a good non-holey t-shirt should have another chance at life, whatever its past sins may have been. So lately I've become a salvager of shirts--creatively trying to overcome whatever damage has been done in the names of education, entertainment, and/or high-explosives experimentation.

A while ago, Elle dumped into the laundry a shirt which had somehow been stained with paint. Red acrylic paint, on a white t-shirt. And I knew it was acrylic, because a dried glob of it was still there, clinging with almost child-like stubbornness. "And what," I thought in despair, "am I to do with this?" Two stain treatments and a bleach wash later, the stain was just as present (but the spaghetti stains had faded somewhat--a minor but gratifying triumph for me.) Time to break out the odds and ends from the studio (hahahahaha).

It just so happens that my sister, ever thoughtful and somehow prescient, had given me several spools of eyelet trim in assorted colors, and I had been a amasser of useful buttons for years (Cheap, folks, I'm cheap!). I was going to save this shirt, so help me Hannah!

I wanted the eyelet to look as if it had been there originally--not like I had attempted a salvage, so I opened up the shoulder seams, inserted the eyelet, then closed them again. Simple.

I once heard the statement that you should never trust your sewing project to something as dumb as pins. I figure sewing glue is smarter, so I basted the eyelet down with it, then pinned. Two methods are better than one--and I hoped their collective IQ would assure success here.

Once the glue was dry I sewed the eyelet down, making sure to tuck the lower edges back under the hem. 

Then I brought out the button jar--reds and pinks to match the eyelet, and to better disguise the red paint stain. (That's me, always thinking!) I didn't want a formal, graduated arrangement of buttons--too staid, so I mixed several shades of pink and red, and multiple sizes of buttons randomly.

Once I sewed them on, I permanized the buttons with  a dab of glue on each--no unraveling stitches here.

I like how it turned out, and Miss Elle has been told her "new" shirt is "cute" by the ultimate fashion authority: another seven-year-old. A win all around.

Since I used items pulled from my stash the total cost for this project= nothing. That's a price I can live with.

The First Project

It's not like I've never worked on projects from the studio (hahahaha). I do, frequently--mostly during the sewing seasons: Christmas and Back-to-School. But the rest of the time the studio (hahahaha) is a dumping ground. "Where should I put this whatchamacallit?" "In the Studio! Hahahahahaha." Once a year or so I valiantly try to organize the  space--but where DOES one put the scrapbook paper, the red and green fuzzy pompoms, the odd snippets of ribbon, and the approximately 659 sewing patterns (few of which I use, and all of which I alter.)? Not to mention the costumes saved from a checkered past of dance recitals, Halloweens, and bargain finds. (Need a Dino-bot costume made from duct tape and bubblewrap? How about a good replica of a Regency-period dress for your Jane Austen-obsessed teen? I have both.)

But NO MORE! My sweet (and persuadable) husband agrees it's time to switch the locations of the kids' playroom and my studio (hahahahaha). That means more space for me and my stash! I could move it all now--boxes and boxes of miscellaneous stuff, variable in its usefulness and desirability. Or I can clean it out by putting as much of it to use as possible, and moving the rest when the chaos has been somewhat tamed. What would you do?

And have I mentioned that I'm frugal? Practical with money to the point where I not only count my pennies, I actually roll them up in those little paper tubes and take them to the bank. ($23 and counting!) So I'm into using what I already have on hand, buying as little possible to complete each project. New thread? fine. New fabric? Nope. Unless it's a major bargain. Adapt and overcome, people.

So, on to the project. My daughter, Elle, was starting back to school. Apparently, the average American family spends about $800 on clothes right before school starts. ULP! I want my daughter to look fabulous--still, let's face it, kids grow out of clothes, but before that they play in the sand during recess, paint during art, and eat spaghetti at lunchtime. $800 for things that are essentially drop cloths for educational endeavors. So I sew. Not with expensive patterns and fashion fabrics. (Hello Kitty must be raking in the dough, judging by the prices on "character prints" at the fabric store.) I use what I already have--even if it means using fabric previously used in a project of an entirely different purpose.

The main cherry and daisy fabric was given to me by my sister, who had used the bulk of it making bulletin boards a few years back. The large red and white polka dot was left over from Elle's Minnie Mouse Halloween costume from last year. The yellow was a snip left over from a quilt. I did buy the checked fabric I used as bias trim at armscye and hem. It was a remnant, and cost two dollars; I still have some left. The best part, to my mind, was the pattern. It had belonged to the lady who lived across from us when I was a child, then she had given it to a lady down the street, who gave it to me a few years ago. Vintage '70s pattern, free. Call this project a pass-along jumper, if you will.

Project cost:
red and white check fabric--$2
elastic (I always need more)--$2.19 (but I only used 12 inches total)
Total:                                     $4.19 (with both fabric and elastic left over)


THAT'S a provident project!