Improvised thread cone holder

So I thought I needed one of these which cost about $80 and have to be mail ordered.

commercially available thread cone holder with heavy base

What I really needed was to identify the function of the item I desired and look around me.

So I made this, for nothing, and don't have to add another unitask object to our home.

Lazy Kate threaded through the loop of a safety pin on the sewing machine's reel holder

Large sewing projects just became more efficient by not having to change the thread.  And this weekend I have half a house of curtains to make and then there are 14 or so tablecloths and several hundred metres of bunting for the wedding to sew soon, too.

Here I was winding bobbins and taking photos.  It sews better when the Kate is on the floor.

The old Husky has been serviced and is such a work horse for jobs like this.

Another improvised thread cone holder is documented here.  May give it a go as well.

Terriers Toil on Tea Towels

It's no secret that I'm a sucker for vintage linens, hand-embroidery, second-hand bargains and Westies (and Scotties). 

It would take a woman of more will-power than I to resist a combination of all of them.

Last Sunday at the R-Shop (Mitchell Waste Transfer Station), I spied this in a rummage box.

Sweet vintage hand-embroidered and cro***ed tea towel.  It's 30 inches wide and 28 inches long.  Crocheted on the bottom long edge only.

The worker of this was not an expert needle-woman.  The towel is selvedge to selvedge and machine hemmed on the top and bottom.  I assume she cut a 30 inch square of the fabric which is lightweight and unevenly woven. Mum says she'd seen nappies made out of it in her childhood.  You'd be constantly changing nappies made of this stuff, it's so thin.  The scalloped cro***et on the bottom is, even to my eye, unevenly executed.  The back of the embroidery is reasonably neat (always a test of needle-skill according to my mother when she repeatedly had me unpick mine at an early age).

I was delighted to find it and clutched it to my chest.  All TOF would say was "you know you want it".  He's a lovely man, but does nothing for my won't-power.

Imagine, then, my glee, when another browser said "Here, lady" and thrust a further 6 of them into my hands.  "Dunno what they are, but you seem to like them" he continued gruffly.

Sweet frugalling angels!  It was a Monday-Sunday set of hand worked teatowels and mine for the princely sum of $5 which included all our other purchases (Bodum ice bucket, Tupperware, jam jar, cricket ball for the kids).

I spent the evening wondering if I could transform them into anything.  Skirts, cushions, summer frock?  Then, laying them out together, it struck me - the most perfect cafe curtain, ever.

So each day for the next week, I'll post the toiling terriers and show you the finished curtain (eventually).

Hang 'em high

Sometime in the late 1980s I started padding coathangers.  Not the nylon lace knitted covers so beloved of my grandmother, but an improvisation on what was to hand.

I needed a wider hanger as my clothes were wider than most.  I needed a way to avoid the horrid "angel wing" effect of coathangers on clothes, I wanted delicate fabrics to maintain their shape and I needed to be able to do it for nothing or next to nothing.

So not much has changed, really.

I came up with a way of using materials readily available - wire coathangers available for free from clothes shops and the shoulder pads that were on the wane fashion-wise and available cheaply (or occasionally free) from op-shops.

The best shoulder pads to use are the fat, shoulder-shaped raglan pads.  If there is velcro attached, so much the better for gripability.

A pad is folded over the end of the wire coathanger and whip stitched into placed.  For extra width allow the padding to extend the hanger 1/4 to 1/3 the length of the pad. 

 To help the pad stay in place, stitch through the pad around the metal end.

On these hangers, I can hang wet shirts in woven or jersey fabrics to dry in small spaces and after ironing, rehang them to preserve the shape - no "angel wings" on my tops.

This week, I found a bag of raglan shoulder pads rescued from an op-shop. I whipped up six padded hangers using the last of the shoulder pad stash.