A month of traveling - and lots of sewing!

We've been away for most of April, one way and another.  We had two weeks' with Martin's parents in Whangārei, followed by 10 days at home then a week in Taupō and Napier.

Here are a few highlights from Whangārei...

Kamo fizzy spring

What to do with an unrepairable tent?

Back in 2022, I bought a new-to-us tent - it arrived looking in excellent condition, but it quickly became apparent that all the white portions of the fly were perished.  They looked fine, but ripped on very minimal stress, and the rips weren't really mendable due to the fragility of the fabric :-(

I cut it up, and was left with some blue waterproof fabric from the fly, some heavy-duty waterproof fabric from the floor, and a fine mesh from the inner.

What to do with it all?

My most ambitious clothing alteration yet

Last summer I bought a dress on TradeMe.  It turned out to fit OK, but to hang like a sack :-(

Face maks that didn't hurt those who made them

In New Zealand we're now required to wear face coverings on public transport, and they're also recommended in many other contexts.  Many people are turning to reusable masks in an effort to reduce their waste footprint, but cotton fabric often has a pretty hideous human cruelty footprint.  Which masks are most likely to be good for the workers?  I'm after masks that:

• have supply chains free of child and slave labour;
• are made by folk earning a living wage, working in safe conditions etc.;
• didn't involve polluting the local environment where they were made.

Handily, every year Tearfund puts out the Ethical Fashion Guide, which ranks common clothing brands on these kinds of ethical issues.  This year's guide isn't out yet, but many brands that ranked highly in 2019 are making masks.

Abiding in God

As I said earlier, I've been lower in energy since our holiday in mid-June - although the reduced energy is carrying on so long it may be simply because of winter, rather than the holiday.  The last 2-3 weeks, though, I've been much less frustrated about it all - I've been mostly content, albeit punctuated with the odd patches of extreme panic!

One thing that has made a huge difference is a 'breath prayer' I've been praying.  If I wake in the middle of the night and can't sleep, I start saying "You are the true vine, help me to rest in You."  If I find myself fretting during the day, I do the same.  God has used this to really transform my attitude :-)

A cycling cap for me!

Over the years I've made several cycle caps for Martin, as well as one for Sarah.  Now there's one for me, too!

front view - and yes, that is violin music in the background :-)

An Amish puzzle ball

I've had fun making an Amish 'puzzle ball' for some neighbours who've recently had a baby.

Stained glass for Father's Day

For Father's Day this year I had a bit of a stained glass theme :-)

Stained glass biscuits.  I basically use this recipe, although these were made with aquafaba rather than egg and the syrup left over from candying citrus peels rather than molasses.

Papier mache bathroom bin

A bit over a year ago I realised I found our bathroom rubbish bin rather ugly.  I decided to replace it with a colourful home-made papier mache one and started collecting supplies.  A few months ago I made a cardboard form and then started the actual papier mache maybe a month ago.  Yesterday it received its final coat of varnish and this morning I installed it in the bathroom.  That's a crazy amount of time to wait for an new rubbish bin, but I'm really pleased with the result :-)

Bicycle rain poncho for Project Glow Wear

I've just finished a huge project: a rain poncho for Martin to wear whilst cycling :-)

It was prompted by Project Glow Wear: a competition put on by the Greater Wellington Regional Council to encourage people to make clothing and accessories that include reflective elements.  They provided reflective fabric to all entrants (something I'd never even thought to investigate how to buy) which was definitely what tipped me over into deciding to enter.

A sashiko sunhat for me :-)

I realised a while back that my sunhat, whilst fun and very me, doesn't actually shield my face from the sun very well.

What to do?  I thought it'd be a fun challenge to try and make myself a new one from things I already had lying around the house.  It felt like it'd be a great use of  resources, too :-)

Three great sashiko aids

My sister-in-law recently introduced me to sashiko: a Japanese embroidery style based on running stitch.  I'm really enjoying it: I love the geometric patterns, plus it doesn't take too long to make something lovely :-)

Sashiko bowl cover for my friend Michi - it's about 25cm across and took me 2 weeks to make.

Over the months I've been doing it, I've come across three things that have really helped me to get good results without too much stress: leather thimbles, a 'frixion' pen and liquid starch.

Soft plastics recycling bag

Since late last year, it's been possible to recycle soft plastics in Auckland.  As well as actual plastic bags, you can recycle all sorts of things - small things like muesli bar and sweet wrappers and bulky things like bubble wrap.

The recycling is collected at supermarkets*, rather than with the other kerbside recycling, so we needed a separate container to accumulate it in.  Initially we used a plastic bag sock, but that wasn't very suitable: small things fell out, and transferring the contents into a plastic bag to put into the recycling container was a pain.  I realised I wanted a way to accumulate the recycling in a container that could itself be recycled (to eliminate the double-handling we'd been doing), was quite capacious (to accommodate bulky things like bubble wrap) but that had a firm base and a tight top (so little things didn't fall out).

*find your local collection site here - they're in Auckland, the North Shore and Hamilton, with hopes to expand throughout the country over the next few years.

Inspired by the rubbish bin we had when I was a child (which held heavy paper bags securely in place by folding the top of the bag under a rigid ring), this is what I came up with.

   
A bag that contained a regular supermarket plastic bag, with the handles of that bag folded over a rigid ring and secured by a loop of elastic.  When the bag is full you tie the handles of the supermarket bag together then remove it through a zip at the bottom.

How to make a solar box cooker

A few years back, I made Martin a solar box cooker for his birthday.  It still seems 'magic' to me: who would have thought you could make a real oven that really gets hot using only the sun and a bunch of 'rubbish'?!
Recently I was asked for some guidance by someone else wanting to make one.  My reply is below.
Note that there are three main kinds of solar cookers (box, panel and parabolic) - these notes are for a box cooker.

2015 Christmas gifts

Knowing it was going to be a busy Christmas this year, I had to keep my gifts pretty simple so I'd have time to rest-up well before all the visitors arrived.  That meant that many more people than usual got simple things like preserves or got bought presents.  Still, I did manage to make a few things: here are some of my favourites.

Beard bells for Martin's brother-in-law Chris (based on beard-baubles, but made of tiny jingling bells instead).  I couldn't resist after I came across the idea :-)

New Zealand-themed bags for my niece and nephew (patterns here and here)

Bill the Cat-themed gardening gloves for Martin. I broke a number of needles sewing the motifs onto the gloves - next time I'd glue them instead!)

Psalm 92:1-4 framed for Martin's Mum.  The verse is printed, not hand-written, and the motif was cut-out using a cool cutting machine Martin borrowed off one of his colleagues.

Trekka-themed tea towels for Martin's Uncle Mike.  Trekka is the only car actually designed and made in New Zealand.  The photos on the tea-towels are pictures of the actual Trekka they owned (the same car, with and without it's bolt-on fibreglass top).

Onion skin dyeing

I first come across the idea of dyeing fabric with onion skins in one of my childhood favourite books, The Endless Steppe: an account of the Siberian exile of the author and her parents during WWII.  One way in which they made their hut there more cheerful was to dye their kitchen curtains with onion skins.  Earlier this year I decided to have a go myself, following these excellent instructions.

Over several months Martin and Sarah saved onion skins for me in order to get enough to largely fill our big preserving pot.

Boiling the skins to make dye

Filtering the skins out of the dye.  This was the most physically challenging part for me as it was hard to hold the muslin bag open at the same time as pouring liquid from the huge pot.

Two tea towels in the rich orange dye.  Isn't it a gorgeous colour?

Tea towels after boiling.  You can see I lost most of the water which led to uneven dyeing.  If I do this again I'll add more water to the dye before boiling.

Rinsing the dye out of the fabric.  I think this was the second rinse and there was still plenty of colour.

Drying the tea towels (and the muslin bag I'd used to separate out the onion skins).

The finished tea towels, complete with embroidered borders.  They turned out a lot more brown than I'd expected.  The dye is a bit uneven, but I'm still pleased with them.

The back side of the tea towels.  You can see that the synthetic labels on the towels (at bottom right) took up much more dye than the cotton fabric!

DIY Yuba "Go-Getter" pannier

For Christmas 2014 I decided to do something I'd been dreaming of for ages: make Martin a pannier for his cargo bike.  Several panniers for the Yuba Mundo are commercially available: the Baguette, the Go-Getter and slings.  I decided to model my pannier on the Go-Getter: it has more capacity than the Baguette and better suited the materials I had available than did a sling.  I finished it in February and now it gets a work-out every week fetching our groceries from the market :-)

Here's how it was done :-)  Regular blog readers might not be that interested in what follows - it's long and detailed!

Upcycled Christmas presents

This year I was delighted to be able to make a lot of my Christmas presents from things that had been discarded, or buy discarded things for re-gifting.  I love doing that because it's frugal and because it forces me to be creative, but most of all I love doing it because it's a gift to some of the poorest people on the planet, not just the recipient.*

* to see what I mean, read this earlier blog post.

One resource that's really helped with that is the website 'get textbooks'.  Despite the name, they're a website that helps you find books of all kinds second hand.  They search zillions of other websites for your book, then present the results sorted by how much it costs to ship the book to NZ.  It's awesome!  I spend a lot of my time listening to audio books and keep a note of those I particularly like.  After choosing titles from my list that I thought would suit various people I entered them into 'get textbooks' and was able to find every one I wanted, in good condition, for only $10-$15 each (including shipping).

Many other presents were hand-made from discarded materials: something I chipped away at as I was able between June and November.

When we got our lounge curtains we got 'remaindered' ones, many of which were too long for our windows.  We duly shortened them and I kept the offcuts, some of which I have now used to make a toiletries bag.  The curtains are thermal-backed so the bag will be waterproof.

I've used 5 of Martin's old T-shirts (along with one of mine and one of Sarah's) to make 3 Christmas presents: two scarves (instructions for tying the square knot they use are here) and a bathmat.

The bathmat is backed with hessian from an old coffee sack: if you don't back these mats, when you wash them they just turn into one big knot :-(

 

From off-cut bits of felt from other projects, I made a set of tropical fish fridge magnets.  The actual magnets were culled from surplus 'self denial' boxes from Tranzsend's 2013 appeal.

 

From felt offcuts and the same magnets I also made some magnetic pincushions; other felt offcuts turned into a baby ball.

Lastly, I made an 'eco travel lid' for my cousin: a food cover you can use in place of glad wrap.  It looks like a large shower cap and can fit quite a range of bowls and plates.  The outer is fair trade cotton and the waterproof lining is gore-tex(!) from a cycling jacket of Sarah's that got damaged beyond repair.

Finally, just to show off, this set of tea towels are the Christmas present I was most pleased with.  They're not upcycled (the actual tea towels are brand new and the cotton isn't even fair trade), but I just love them!  The borders are fabric paint and the flowers are crayon (ironed into the fabric so it'll survive washing) edged with stem stitch.

Eye pillows

I've been doing a lot of sewing recently, but most of it has been making presents for people who read this blog so I can't put up pictures.  However, yesterday I finished these:

An eye pillow for my namesake Heather's 19th birthday and another for Christmas for my cousin's wife.

I haven't done much beading before and I'm very pleased with how they turned out :-)

Bicycle inner tube woven chair

See here for an update from March 2017 on how the chair has survived three years in the sun.

The plastic 'cane' on one of our outdoor chairs recently started to snap all down one side:
 

The chair was still usable, but clearly wasn't going to stay that way for much longer!

Inspired by my success with our bathroom stool, I decided to weave a new seat for it out of old bicycle inner tubes.

It took:

• 4-5 inner tubes cut into 1 inch strips lengthways (they came in two different widths, so some gave two strips and some gave three).  I forgot to count the tubes before I cut them up so I'm not exactly sure how many I used!
• 7 'sessions' of 30-45 minutes each (two to prep the tubes, two to cut off the old cane, one to thread the length-ways parts of the chair seat and two to do the actual weaving);
• scissors (to cut the strips of inner tube), a bucket and rag (to clean the tubes - the insides are powdered with talc), secateurs (to cut the cane), a stanley knife (used in joining strips of inner tube together) and sellotape (to secure the tubes while part of the work was in progress).

And now it's done!

As I couldn't find any tutorials online for doing such a thing, below are some notes on how I went about it.

Please note, the chair lasted about three years (in full sun, in New Zealand where the the sun is uncommonly harsh) before it needed 'recaning'.  Click here to see the deterioration in the rubber that had occurred after three years.