FuoriBorgo

crochet mending

Now, would you look at those slippers?  Who would ever want to keep them?  Well, guess who!  I kept them partly because they were not cheap felt slippers, and partly because I was curious to investigate further why I seem to be walking elf-like in the wintertime, with my toes upturned (otherwise, how can you explain why perfectly good slippers would wear through only at the big toes?)  

I kept them, alright, but they naturally disappeared inside the ever-fuller box of outgrown shoes and slippers.  Just the other day they resurfaced.  And I thought, time to mend them now, or say goodby to them forever.

Naturally, I went the first way: I crocheted two wool snowflakes as patches.

(By the way, I don't yet have a link here to my Raverly page - will do soon - but I'm trying to be diligent about updating it with all the projects, and their patterns, that I mention on the blog).

And a pair of double-warm, mended and upcycled slippers was created! 

On the subject of warm slippers, I have a post at the coop today on "Keeping warmer".  Happy weekend!

my hanging crochet baskets

Where do you store all your yarns and your works in progress?  In our small home there's no better place for my crochet supplies than hanging, neatly out of the way, from the railings of the staircase that leads up to the house proper (we live on a steep hill, so the ancient front door that doesn't open properly (here) is one floor below the main living area of our home).

You see? It doesn't look half-bad even.  In fact, the staircase is a blessing when you live in a small house, because each and every stair can be packed full to overflowing with stuff neatly organized to store shoes, school packs, beach towels in the hot season, and firewood and fruit & vegetables in the cold one (the staircase isn't heated).  

And of course, the lovely wrought-iron bannister can also be used to store things, in baskets hung from the iron motifs, dangling out of the way, off in the void - when you live in a small house, you have to be a little creative and search out space, as with my under-shelf jars.

Maybe hanging baskets aren't quite as pretty or convenient as cabinets where yarns, fabrics and all crafts supplies can be stored and displayed, but it's a system that works very well for me: my crochet work and yarns are out of the way, but not so far away that they could go forgotten for months.

Now, if I could only find a way to hang a table and a chair out there, floating fairy-like in space, I'd have my own little studio.  A hanging studio!

a spot of sewing and refashioning

What do you think is the right length for summer dresses?  (Ok, so that's a tough question on a Monday morning!)  Personally, I'm not too fussy, and my decision depends mainly on the occasion and the temperature. When I garden in the summer, for example, I like to wear a short, above-the-knee dress, because I don't like a lot of fabric on me in the heat - I have a bunch of old dresses, short and loose, that I use almost exclusively for gardening. Besides, gardening in a short dress makes me feel I'm doing a good job of blending in with the rest of the female population in the fields in our village: women who wear practical dresses in summer and winter alike (I confess that I only wear a dress in the summer), and with sickle or hoe in hand (yes, yes I've got those!) and a handkerchief on their hair, tied with a knot at the nape (I'm not much of a head cover lover), all working by hand in the fields.

But I have two linen dresses, formerly pregnancy clothes, that are just a touch too long to be comfortable when I garden.

Way below the knee, and just below the knee!  Not comfortable for gardening.

I still wear them, but usually I have to make a knot on one side, and with my dress gathered up this way, and sickle and hoe in hand off I go to my garden.  Last week, though, I decided to fix the length of those gardening dresses, and do a spot of refashioning, too.

To do this, I got some lace at the street market.  The choice was limited, but here's what I came up with:

Taking the dresses in a couple of inches and adding the trimmings took no time at all.  Not a glamorous kind of sewing, just simple hemming on old dresses, but refashioning and turning those old dresses into something that I actually can comfortably wear again was very satisfying.  Besides, they make me feel I'm doing a pretty good job of blending in with the rest of my fellow lady farmers in the village:

Well, sort of.

sewn for the garden

I'm not sure how it happened, but even though I had one less child to look after this week, and I didn't have to cook dinner twice because we got invited out, I've been so, so busy.  And will be until Saturday.  But then there's Sunday, when I can finally tackle the following:

-    Take one of our new upcycled deck chairs - the frame of which we picked from a neighbor's woodpile (by now they know we're a little odd, and given to collecting garbage, like ancient wine demijohns and broken-down sewing machines, or decrepit rakes ...), and for which I sewed fabric pieces almost a month ago, but which we've never really had time to use.
-    Open the chair.
-    Sit in the garden doing nothing.
-    Sweet nothing, except for chatting with my kids:
-    The boy whom I haven't seen in a whole week, and who's flying back on Saturday from his tennis adventure in some Baltic country or other (here)
-    And the boy whom I haven't really seen in several weeks now, as he's had his nose deep in his school books in preparation for his state exams, which finish on Saturday afternoon (who knew Saturday afternoons were working days in Italy?)
-     And my girl too, whom I haven't seen in ... two, or perhaps three, seconds.

Yes indeed, this weekend I'm finally going to sit in our new upcycled deck chairs, and do nothing except for be with my family.  And I'll ignore the three more deck chair frames sitting in the barn, waiting for their fabric pieces to be sewn.

But first, I'll have to choose which deck chair to sit on.  Decisions, decisions ...

Happy weekend!

My twenty year old gardening basket

I'm very attached to this particular basket of mine, which I bought almost twenty years ago in a hip decor store in London, and brought it back to my minimalist black, white and gray that remained my favorite look for many years.  This was a time in my life when gardening and digging in the soil couldn't have been farther from my mind.  I filled it with store-bought dry flowers, my first step towards a new decor and lifestyle that has ended up far, far away from that minimalist London apartment (though I still do love black!).

It did take a long time for this basket (and its owner) to come anywhere near a garden, but when it finally did, it stayed.  And although I have a couple more baskets that I use in the garden, this remains the one I use most: even if it came from an interior design store in a big city, it was clearly made for gardening, and is perfect for carrying hand tools and fresh-harvested vegetables.  You've probably have seen it many times in my garden photos.

But years of hard use had taken their toll on the wicker.  The handle, especially, was giving way.

One day, without any clear plan, I took some hemp rope and started wrapping and knotting it around the frayed-out handle.

And I was so surprised to see that in the end, I'd successfully and effortlessly repaired - and refashioned - my twenty-year-old wicker basket!

Off I went to do some gardening, the first time this year.  After a difficult winter and a tough period of family illness, it felt so good to be out there, in the company of my London basket and my few faithful hand tools, digging out old roots, and planning new growth.  

My farmer's calendar does warn that it's not gardening season yet, and not to be fooled by a few days of sunshine in February.  But just as you can't judge the garden-worthiness of a wicker basket at first glance in a store, maybe this little primula I found while hoeing is a sign that you can't always judge the season simply by looking at a calendar.

Keeping warm(er): felt curtain

This is one of the most fun projects I've ever done.  I took a second hand wool blanket I bought years ago for next to nothing, and I dyed and felted it in the washing machine.  The dye I used was a combination of dark plum and bright scarlet, which produced a rich purple that I absolutely love, and that changes its tones with the light.

My new felted blanket has become the curtain for the glass door that opens onto the terrace where we eat in the warm season (here) and hang the laundry year 'round.  I don't actually like curtains, and we don't have them in our house (except on that same terrace door in the heat of summer to keep the sun out - I can't quite picture that kind of heat right now, it's so cold).  Instead, we have shutters at nighttime, and because we don't have any neighbors we can do without curtains, and enjoy the unobstructed views of the outdoors throughout the day.    

But that terrace side is the coldest of the whole house, and even though this doorway is double glazed, its big enough that a lot of cold gets in, and goes straight into the kids' room.   So, in an attempt to find new efficient ways to keep the cold out and the warmth in, I decided to add this extra woolen layer of insulation to that door.  

My felted blanket curtain required minimal sewing, as the beauty of felt is that you can leave the edges raw, and do without hemming too.   All I had to do was make the loops for the curtain rod, which took all of 15 minutes to do: I just cut off a strip of the blanket lengthwise, then I cut that strip into eight equal pieces, and sewed them as loops to the top of the blanket curtain.   

I must say, it's kind of cosy every day to draw our second-hand felted blanket curtain at nightfall.  What's more, it actually works: I'm convinced that it's a lot warmer in that side of the house now.  

Oh, I forgot: I also discovered that this large felt blanket is the perfect canvass on which to experiment with more needle felting.  Since taking the above photo, I've added a few more floral details, and I'm thinking of doing a needle felting embroidered border all the way along the bottom and the sides of the blanket.

beyond nonna's magic egg

Would you take a look at that?  How could anyone ignore that hole?  In fairness, Tom didn't ignore it.  This is his favorite sweater, which he's had for decades.  But because he didn't know how to mend it, he asked me to try.  I looked at it with horror, and then ignored it, for a long time.  A little too long, by the size of the hole.

That hole had clearly grown way beyond help from nonna's magic darning egg, and my first attempt at darning it with needle and a brown yarn I had on hand, by simply weaving in and through what was left of the sweater, resulted in a mess. 

So I trimmed away the darning and cut the loose ends, making the hole neater.  Then I started again.  (Yes, it's the same sweater in all photos, but because I hardly ever have the time to start and finish a project in one go, the photos were taken on different days in different lighting conditions)

And I think in the end I got a good darning system for large holes.  First I made long horizontal stitches across, anchoring them on the solid borders of the hole, about two per knit stitch.  Then I turned my work sideways and stem-stitched, working first left to right, keeping the working yarn below the needle, and then back the other direction right to left, keeping the working yarn above the needle.  I filled the hole with stem stitching that looks pretty much like knit stitching (for a specific tutorial on the stem stitch, check out Mary Corbert's video).

Not perfect, but I think nonna would approve of my attempt.

Simple Christmas : upcycled wire tree

I've learned that when you make your own Christmas tree by hand, you have to take the rest of the family's wishes and ideas into account.  Which is only fair - after all, it's going to be their Christmas tree too.  Our tree this year started as a simple tree silhouette, made with rusty wire I found at my friend's shop.  Simple in shape, but not in the making:  straightening, flattening and shaping that rusty old wire took quite a bit of effort.  But I discovered that I love the plasticity of metal wire, and the worn, seasoned look of rust.

After I'd made the outline of the tree, everyone pitched in with different suggestions for decorating it:  a trunk, Candles, Ornaments, a star on top  ... and it's still evolving!

I crocheted the ornaments, then stiffened them by soaking in sugar starch.  The lovely snowflake patterns come from the amazing little Japanese crochet book I bought at Retrosaria in Lisbon.  That book has given me so many great project ideas!

It's a very simple handmade tree, but it fits with our ideas and feelings about Christmas - that the holidays are less about exterior appearances, and more about what's inside.

Pillow case gift-wrapping

When the time finally came to give Rebecca her African Flower Blanket for her birthday, I was adamant that it be properly gift-wrapped.  A present that she'd seen around the house for the last several months, and she even did some work on (here), really had to be wrapped, in order to create at least a little sense of anticipation.

What better way to gift-wrap a blanket than in a pillow case?  I took her favorite pillow case, and spruced it up a bit.

I used this wonderful tutorial by You Go Girl! for crocheting edgings on pillow cases, suggested by a reader a while back (thank you Margo!).  It's a very quick, clever method.  In the past I've always crocheted the edging separately, then hand-stitched it onto the fabric.  In this tutorial, the edging is crocheted directly onto the pillow case, on a blanket stitch foundation row.  The blanket stitching look must appeal to you, of course, because the stitching is part of the edging, and very visible; in the past, I'd always made the stitching blend with the fabric as much as possible.

Personally, I love the look of the blanket stitch, and how the pillow case turned out.  I suspect my boys probably aren't into crocheted pillow cases, or I'd be sprucing theirs up, too!

Making Christmas

I've overslept for two days in a row, which is quite unusual for me, as I'm a morning person.  I've always been a morning person, and if anything I've become even more so since I've had children: I really enjoy (need?) the quiet time alone early in the morning when the house is still asleep, and my kitchen smells of freshly brewed coffee.  And the last couple of days, instead of feeling more rested because of the extra sleep, I've been feeling more tired for all the running around I've been doing, trying to make up for that lost time!  Does this make any sense?

But we've enjoyed some quiet time all together, while making the Christmas elves we use to decorate our Christmas presents (here).  Except that this year I'd saved a small branch from the generous birch tree in our lane, and we also made a batch of silver birch elves.

To be honest, I'm a little unsure about them.  I think I prefer my traditional style of elves, with the snow-white beard and brown bark body:

They seem more ... elvish!  These more elvish elves are made with laurel wood.

It was Rebecca who insisted that we make them immediately, after patiently waiting for days for the just-sawed wooden pieces to dry out properly.  Immediately, despite the fact that I've been running short of time these days, and although I typically start doing Christmas things at the last possible minute, instead of now, at the beginning of December.  She's very much into Christmas this year.  She's noticing all the decorations in our neighborhood, and is coming up with all sorts of ideas for things to make: elves, stars, trees and sparkling things of all sort.  And you know what?  I think her child-like enthusiasm and anticipation of the magic of Christmas has started to rub off on me.  This year we're going to start preparing and celebrating at the beginning of December, and try to get the most out of the Christmas season.