Loving leftovers and plumbing finished

The best thing about making enough food to feed an army you get lots of left overs, and then you get to eat them instead of cooking a meal from scratch.

Which is a good job really because I had to feed the starving hero today - the heat exchanger works! We have a warm bathroom!

First of all he had to drill holes in the new fire - a bit stressful this, buying an expensive new fire then making holes in it.

Then the heat coils were installed inside and the copper pipes pushed through then attached to flexible hoses to feed through the living room wall to the bathroom to be connected to the pump.

To fix the coils securely a bar has been run horizontally across them.

Here they are inside the top of the fire box.











Complete with flames!

In an attempt to make the whole system automatic, another of the scrapyard finds comes into play, a thermal switch, which should activate the pump at 35°C with another on the return as a safety backup which trips in at 60°C.

But that should mean that we can throw a couple of logs into the fire and safely leave it overnight knowing that the pump is going to kick in and not just leave the water boiling in the heat exchanger.

Here is the very technical test to see that the switches work - one hot mug, one cold mug.  James May and his man lab have nothing on this!

There is also a mains powered override switch to turn the pump on and off should the thermal automatic switches not work.

So we are all watching the thermometer with eagle eyes - how many degrees difference is this new system going to make.

Here is the new bathroom layout, fire removed, radiator, and towel rail fitted.

The down side of being organised

The day I cleared out the wardrobe and nattily arranged all my lovely wools and cottons, I also sorted out all the knitting and crochet needles.

Then, yesterday when I decided to crochet myself a lovely new foraging bag for all my pine cones, I could not find the crochet needles.

They were not where my inner nerd had decreed that they should be, so I was completely flummoxed. Where could they be? You know it took me nearly an hour to track them down. Somewhere in amongst all that frantic nerd activity I decided that the best place for them to be was in the embroidery box. Don't ask me the logic of that because I really don't know. They are now safely ensconced with the crochet cottons.

Anyway while trawling around the web looking for inspirational crochet patterns I was astounded at the number of recycled material patterns there are around now, for rag bags and rag rugs.  I am utterly jealous and utterly entranced - Inpsiration has struck!

Well almost - I don't have any crochet hooks big enough, my largest is the No8 currently in use making my new bag.

So - take a piece of oak.

Introduce it to a mini drill, some sanding paper and then a smear of floor varnish, and there you have a HUGE oak, handmade crochet hook ready for some rag rugging.

Will have to experiment with the hook to see if it needs to be bigger but that is a good start for now.

Wardrobe refashion frenzy - converting skirts to tops.

When I was having my wardrobe moan recently (still not done that clear out I was going to do last week - must bump it up my to-do list), one of the things that prompted the whinge was the fact that I seem to have an inordinate number of skirts I don't wear taking up valuable wardrobe hanging space for all the other things I don't wear.


Most of them have come the car boot / charity shop route courtesy of my mum, but I am just not a skirty type of person.


So I pulled a couple out of the wardrobe the other day and decided that there was just too much source material there to waste and I simply had to use the fabric for something ultimately more wearable.


Converting skirts into tops - Part 1


Elasticated skirt to halter neck top.


(forgot the before photo AGAIN - must get that stamped in indelible ink on my hand)

LOL - what do think of my drawing - pretty good eh?

Anyway, remove the elastic waistband, and cut the arm hole shapes onthe front of the dress, I just used the skirts existing side hems as the starting point, then cut straight across the back. Hem the armholes.

To size the armholes I just held the skirt waistband to the base of my neck and in the mirror, marked with chalk where my arm holes needed to come down to on the side seams, then measured the distance and adjusted them so that they were identical depths down the seams both sides.

I hemmed the back to create a fold large enough to take a stretch of elastic.

Top tip:
- the easiest way to get a good idea of the amount of elastic you need is to consider it stretches to more than double its size, so run the elastic without stretching it across the area where you want it - here my back, then cut half the amount you have measured, the elastic will then stretch to the area you want to use it.

For the front halterneck, again I created a deep hem to take the ribbon that I had chosed to be the tie, threaded it through, and secured it with a couple of stitches to the middle of the front piece.

Tuesday - smocking / shirring tutorial - summer dress from a sarong.

Some time ago I bought a bargain piece of material on ebay.

Digression :- Got to love ebay and those buyers who don't try to rip you off for postage abroad. Just because I live in France I have not had all my brain cells removed and I KNOW one paperback book does not cost £15.00 to post!

Anyway back on track - this is the material.  It is hard to tell from the photo, but it is various shades of blue in a tie-dye style with sequin stars and dots.

It was a rectangular piece, 115 cm x 149 cm, in a nice light viscose but thick enough not to need lining for decency.

The first thing I did was hem all the edges to prevent fraying. Then I joined the 115cm sides to each other sewing about three quarters of the way down from the edge that will be at the bust line, leaving the last quarter open for a split on the legs.

Left with a tube, too big to wear as is even with a couple of shoulder straps, I decided to have a go at creating a smock (shirred) top to this dress.

I am sewing all of the smock section on my trusty sewing machine - the first time I have ever tried this.

Thread your machine as normal with a strong poly cotton thread, but not too thick.  Then take your bobbin and some thin elastic (I stole mine out of my jewelry making kit, it is normally used for beading bracelets).

Hand wind the elastic around the bobbin taking care not to pull and create any tension in the elastic.  I had to wind the bobbin about 4 times in total to finish the smocking, each bobbin did about 3 rows of stitching.

I opened  back the seam and used some pins to mark the spacing between each row of stitching.

To sew the smocking you will be sewing on the right side of the fabric, so that your thread shows and not the elastic.

Remember to reverse back over the start and end of each row in order to secure the elastic otherwise it will just pull straight out as soon as you tension it.

Then start sewing.  The first row is the easiest, as the material stays flat as your run around the full diameter of your 'tube'.

As you move down to the next row, you will need to pull the material out flat as you go around, don't let the material bunch up with the elastic.

 Sew several full rows around the top of the tube extending approximately 15 cms from the top hem line.  This creates a shorter smock effect top with an empire line dress falling below.  If you are graced with a more forgiving figure then you can continue smocking for another 15 cms to create a skirt that falls from the waist.

Now I think it is time to try it on, mix myself a cocktail and relax by the pool.

Take that Gok Wan!

Wednesday morning in my studio for a quickie.....

Before shooting off to work this morning I had a couple of hours to myself so I got out the materials and the patterns for the bags that I want to make in the next couple of days and started to snip away.

 This bag will be made from a pair of old black trousers, a shirt in abstract greys and blacks, and the lining from a skirt.  Here are all the layers when I had finished cutting. 

 While I was in the studio I finished off the top that I made the other day with some little belt loops in cotton ready for the satin ribbon that will tie around the waist to finish it off - watch out for the appearing in my shop in the next couple of days - when I can get my model to stand still for long enough to put it on so I can photograph it.

The first photo you see today is a selection of the treasures in my bargain buy of the car boot at the weekend.  A bag of miscallaneous sewing items for one euro.  In there were some nylon threads, some cottons, some wools, some hook and eyes, some mohair sewing thread, some elastic, some ribbon, some bias trim and of course some buttons.

Not that I am button obsessed you know - after all - doesn't everyone have a kitchen drawer packed to the gills with buttons?

Home made facial toners

Whilst a lot of my make do and mend projects revolve around the new frugal way of life we have through necessity alongside the desire to lead a more sustainable green existence, some projects are pure joy and are simply better than anything available commercially.

One of those is making my own facial toners.

I don't tend to wear a lot of make up these days except on 'outings' when I do indulge myself, as applying make up remains one of my great personal pick me ups.

But first thing in the morning, last thing at night and at odd moments in the day when I have once again wiped dirty hands across my brow I do like to cleanse my face. Soap and water are great for a wash but can be very drying, and my teen daughter likes something she can keep in her bedroom for those quick 'washes' too, as well as something for those occaisional outbreaks.

I make several toners dependent on what is available in the house and the garden, later in the year I make them with infusions taken from the flower buds of chamomile and lavender, but with an absence of flowers currently I also use tea bags - green tea, mint tea and chamomile tea.

Today I replensished my bottles of chamomile and tea tree toner.

I sterilise my receptacle bottle simply with some boiling water, remembering to sterilise the cork too. Then leave a tea bag to infuse for several minutes. Empty the boiling water from the bottle, add a few drops of tea tree essential oil to the bottle then pour in the tea, shake and cork, use when it has cooled. It will keep for a while before being opened, a month or two, and once opened you are more likely to use it up before it goes off, obviously depending on the size of your bottle, I use 150ml and 200 ml bottles that last about a month.

Chamomile tea by itself is also a fantastic treatment for sore eyes from hayfever, just make a cup up, when it has cooled, decant into a little bottle or jar, then use clean cotton pieces to dip into it to soothe across tired, itchy and sore eyes. I use the same treatment for my horse when the flies congregate around her eyes and they start to water excessively.

Speaking of make do and mend - today has been a bit of a patch up project day, as well as making my toners this morning, I have also had a pile of mending to get through, but now with that cleared away, and the sun out in force, there is just enough time to get out into the garden before I have to leave for work.