working with what you got
Sep. 2nd, 2019 09:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7via https://ift.tt/2ZDOgdA
I managed to get a truly amazing amount of laundry done this weekend, all around the rain– I was proud of myself today, I put a load in even though it was pouring, and the sun came out and i hung it up and it actually got dry (except one fully-lined dress and some socks, which are hanging indoors), and as soon as it got cloudy I took it all in, and now it’s pouring again.
I dislike using the dryer. It doesn’t smell as nice, it seems ridiculously extravagant of electricity, and it makes clothes wear out faster. The only thing it’s good at is making towels soft. I often tumble socks and towels for five to ten minutes while I do something else, and then hang them out the rest of the way.
The other big accomplishment of this long weekend is that I’ve put away a lot of clothes, done a great deal of tidying, and dude has been tidying. He went through his closet and removed over a dozen shirts that he doesn’t wear anymore, that don’t fit, that he should replace, that don’t spark joy for whatever reason. He cut hard, too– some of them, he wears, but only when he hasn’t got anything else. He figures getting rid of them is best, because then he’ll be inspired to pick up something he likes instead. I’m going to go through them; ones that are in newish condition will go to Amvets, but ones that are worn will be cut up for quilts. Oxford shirts are great quilt remnants. Now he’s going through his t-shirts, which live in a pile on the floor of the bedroom and mean I can’t actually reach the closet.
So that’s good. I also spent several hours in the basement actually cutting into some of my stash of discarded things and hoarded fabrics. I have several sets of sheets– some of my own, where I went through the linen closet and was like… I don’t need pink polyester king-size sheets that have begun to pill, this is not something I need to hang onto, I know they were hand-me-ups from one of my sisters when she downsized from a king bed, I never bought them and never wanted them. So now they’re the back of a quilt to cover the yurt’s screen door. There’s a layer of Insul-Brite in the middle, and then another elderly twin sheet, this one navy blue and worn to a small hole in the middle, which I think was a salvage from a different sister, and then there’s an offcut remnant of sun-resistant outdoor UV-proof fabric I bought in a remnant sale several years ago, sun-damaged and heavily marked down. So there’s my yurt door cover, instead of clipping a quilt to it like I’ve been doing for two years now. (And before that, it was a shower curtain, so.)
I don’t like to ponder how long that quilt took me to make just now, even though it was all whole-cloth and no piecing and only 60″ by about 35″, but whatever. It’s better than my pathetic roof-quilt attempts from two years ago, which are wildly poor in quality and have just loose edges with all the layers poking out.
I also found the roll of drapery insulation fabric, that sort of rubberized stuff that goes on the back of insulated drapes, that I bought to make insulated drapes with in uhhh 2006 and have never used, so– I’ve cut a length of that– I might attach it to the back of the quilt along the top edge, or might put grommet holes in it and attach it separately, but either way, it’ll be the vapor barrier and waterproof layer for the door. I figured I’d better not quilt through it; a vapor barrier full of needle holes wouldn’t do much of a job.
I have so much of a hoard of fabric, much of it salvaged and repurposed, and I need to just do the stuff with it. It’s just hard to do when you have only tiny scraps of time and no attention span.
I managed to get a truly amazing amount of laundry done this weekend, all around the rain– I was proud of myself today, I put a load in even though it was pouring, and the sun came out and i hung it up and it actually got dry (except one fully-lined dress and some socks, which are hanging indoors), and as soon as it got cloudy I took it all in, and now it’s pouring again.
I dislike using the dryer. It doesn’t smell as nice, it seems ridiculously extravagant of electricity, and it makes clothes wear out faster. The only thing it’s good at is making towels soft. I often tumble socks and towels for five to ten minutes while I do something else, and then hang them out the rest of the way.
The other big accomplishment of this long weekend is that I’ve put away a lot of clothes, done a great deal of tidying, and dude has been tidying. He went through his closet and removed over a dozen shirts that he doesn’t wear anymore, that don’t fit, that he should replace, that don’t spark joy for whatever reason. He cut hard, too– some of them, he wears, but only when he hasn’t got anything else. He figures getting rid of them is best, because then he’ll be inspired to pick up something he likes instead. I’m going to go through them; ones that are in newish condition will go to Amvets, but ones that are worn will be cut up for quilts. Oxford shirts are great quilt remnants. Now he’s going through his t-shirts, which live in a pile on the floor of the bedroom and mean I can’t actually reach the closet.
So that’s good. I also spent several hours in the basement actually cutting into some of my stash of discarded things and hoarded fabrics. I have several sets of sheets– some of my own, where I went through the linen closet and was like… I don’t need pink polyester king-size sheets that have begun to pill, this is not something I need to hang onto, I know they were hand-me-ups from one of my sisters when she downsized from a king bed, I never bought them and never wanted them. So now they’re the back of a quilt to cover the yurt’s screen door. There’s a layer of Insul-Brite in the middle, and then another elderly twin sheet, this one navy blue and worn to a small hole in the middle, which I think was a salvage from a different sister, and then there’s an offcut remnant of sun-resistant outdoor UV-proof fabric I bought in a remnant sale several years ago, sun-damaged and heavily marked down. So there’s my yurt door cover, instead of clipping a quilt to it like I’ve been doing for two years now. (And before that, it was a shower curtain, so.)
I don’t like to ponder how long that quilt took me to make just now, even though it was all whole-cloth and no piecing and only 60″ by about 35″, but whatever. It’s better than my pathetic roof-quilt attempts from two years ago, which are wildly poor in quality and have just loose edges with all the layers poking out.
I also found the roll of drapery insulation fabric, that sort of rubberized stuff that goes on the back of insulated drapes, that I bought to make insulated drapes with in uhhh 2006 and have never used, so– I’ve cut a length of that– I might attach it to the back of the quilt along the top edge, or might put grommet holes in it and attach it separately, but either way, it’ll be the vapor barrier and waterproof layer for the door. I figured I’d better not quilt through it; a vapor barrier full of needle holes wouldn’t do much of a job.
I have so much of a hoard of fabric, much of it salvaged and repurposed, and I need to just do the stuff with it. It’s just hard to do when you have only tiny scraps of time and no attention span.
