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july blog archive |
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7.31.2004State of the Brandysphere - JulySorta back on the wagon. I know this is hard to believe, but I'm finally cleaning my apartment. Having the exterminator (maintenance - happily no pests) in my apartment Wednesday was sobering. He was in the apartment no more than two minutes, but he had to tiptose like a mountain goat on along the narrow path of carpet to the kitchen between piles of stuff. As I said in the Me blog: I was telling Kent about how they exterminated the building yesterday. They must have started at the top of the building, because they knocked bright and early. In a bathrobe and sheepishly, I let the exterminator in the spritz the magic bug killing juice in the bathroom and kitchen. The apartment is still being rules by the laws of entropy, so this poor guy had to walk a narrow path to the kitchen past piles of clean and dirty laundry, books, papers and junk. I apologized and he said, "Oh, this actually isn't that bad." !!! Now, I know I am a slob. I know I never get to science experiment in the corner slob. I never get to complusive collector with 50 years of daily newspapers bad. It could be a lot worse. But I do live alone in a small spac and a bajillion projects. Kent said it best, and he lived with me about a year, "You're not too many cats messy. You're too many ideas messy." ---- BUT I am cleaning a bunch. And even though it's wasteful, I'm ditching a bunch of cardboard boxes and plastic bags. Better to purge and free up space than to retain it all, waiting for uses and ideas. But see what goes out into the trash, makes me more careful about what comes in. And I'll have several visitors in August that'll keep me on track. posted at 11:19:52 PM 7.18.2004Thrifty KnittingHere's a great tutorial on How to Unravel a Sweater, written and photographed by Ashley Martineau. posted at 6:53:23 PM 7.13.2004
Secondhand Joy! Lookie! Here's a beautiful old chenille blanket I won on eBay and just got in the mail today! A new home for a fantastic blanket that still has loads of life in it. I'm such a fan of chenille because of the soft cottons, the great patterns, the touchable texture and that these are the perfect weight fr summer sleeping. If you're thinking of finding one for yourself, three points of advice - 1. Search for "chenille cutter" for cheaper choices. "Cutter" is the terms for less than perfect chenille bedspreads sold to be cut up for crafts. Many only have a small hole or two. Check out the descriptions for details. 2. Keep an eye out for color. After searching chenille in different colors, I've realized just how out of whack peoples' colors are. I don't expect everyone to be a skilled digital photographer, or to have color correcting software. So, browse a bunch and you should be able to gauge what colors things are. There's a lot of the same colors and patterns, so you can sort of "read between the lines" to figure out what color you may get. 3. Watch out for smells! I usually only bid on auctions that specify no odor and a pet and smoke free home. For a bajillion different items, it doesn't matter, but textiles soak up smells and some can be too tough to get out. But since most of these are a few decades old, I expect that old cloth smell, but nothing more. Which reminds me of: The Four Smells I grew up in a pack rat's house getting many treasures from thrift stores. Nowadays, I rarely venture into secondhand shops because I got sick of that thrift store smell. I've categorized that there's four bad smells in the pre-loved category of stuff: 1. Chain Smoker Smell 2. Pet Pee Smell 3. Musty Basement Smell 4. Icky Pickle Smell I understand the first three, but I've gotten a few things with the fourth daunting smell. It's a sour smell that just makes me shudder. Ick. Sadly, I just throw that stuff away. Don't know the origins, don't know the solution. In the interest of a ending on a productive note, here's some links I fond about smell removal: 1. Chain Smoker Smell eHow's How to Remove Cigarette Smell From Upholstery eBay's board about removing smoke smell from books 2. Pet Pee Smell Thrifty Fun's Tips A lot of folks swear by Nature's Miracle "Dirty Litter Secret" and article on Slate about one woman's quest DoItYourself.com's Oops! When Your Pet Has An Accident 3. Musty Basement Smell eHow's How to Remove Musty Basement Smell from the basement 4. Icky Pickle Smell ??? My best advice - Sniff first and don't bring the stinky stuff home. posted at 1:59:51 PM 7.1.2004 Crafty & Recycled I wore out a pair of black cotton cargo pants. It always feels good to literally wear something out. In this case, with pants, it feels silly too because the crotch of the pants goes out way before anything else. Good pants minus one critical hole. So, I had a pair of black cotton cargo pants with a critical hole. With the two great cargo pockets, it was easy to decide to make it into a new bag. General instructions: 1. Cut off the waistband. 2. Cut the two legs apart by cutting the seam that starts with the zipper. 3. Down the inseams on the two legs to make two flat pieces. 4. Cut around the cargo pockets 2" out or more. Cut the two legs exactly the same way - Cut the line below the pockets first and save the bottoms of the legs for the strap. 5. Sew the two pockets together, with the right sides together. I actually used french seams to make it stronger. Sew three sides, leaving the top open. 6. Hem around the opening. 7. Cut the bottom of the legs into strips. My strips were parallel to the bottom seam and 3.5" wide. I squared off the ends sewed them together. 8. Fold the long strip in half the long way and sewed the edges together, making a tube. 9. Turn the tube right side out and iron it flat. I sewed the edges to help keep it strap flat. 10. Sew the strap to the body making sure that it's a good length for you to wear it the way so like. Ta da! My bag can hold letter sized stuff and the cargo pockets can hold lots. I'm lovin' the second life of these pants. Update: Here's a better pic of the bag while I'm wearing the replacement pants:  posted at 7:45:58 PM |
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