Sweater Wreath Redux for Christmas

I am resurrecting an older post from earlier this year because we now have these wreaths out for Christmas. I thought I would throw out this tutorial from earlier in the year and add photos from the Christmas wreaths we made and are making. We started, as before, with thrift store sweaters of a very high wool count. By washing them in very hot water (I know-it made me cringe at first, too!) and drying them on high heat, the sweaters felted down until they could be cut without unravelling.

Chunkier, thick wool

Softer, cashmere-type wool

Squares of felted sweater

To make this project, you need:

1. Several wool or high-wool content sweaters in colors you want for your wreath. Wash and dry them (as above) before starting.
2. Embroidery floss.
3. Tapestry needle.
4. Cutting mat and rotary cutter.

* Here begins the previous post:

The youngest child and I started to tackle more of the big sweater pile in the craft room. She decided that she felt sorry for her big sister since we found out her new cast has to be on for four more weeks.

“I want to make her a wreath to cheer her up since she can’t play softball for even longer,” she said. “And she can use it as a ‘keep out of my room’ wreath and hang it on her door when she doesn’t want anyone in her room.”

Can you argue with that logic? I certainly couldn’t.

Although the girls had used the rotary cutter on fabric before, the thick, felted wool was a bit trickier to get through. I decided to do the cutting of the squares myself. I asked her to back up because she is a huge allergy sufferer and a by-product of cutting wool is a million tiny wool fibers floating through the air.

“What are fibers?”

“Well, they are the long strands of hair or cotton material that get woven together to make threads or yarn and then fabric.”

“What are strands?”

“Well, they are the tiny, thread-like, itty-bitty strings that make up a plant or an animal’s fur.”

“Oh, so those would get in my nose and make me sneeze?”

“Yes, basically.”

“Gross!”

Raw sweaters

Cutting strips into squares

 And on we went from there. I became a sweater butcher: cuffs in this pile, arms get whacked off at the shoulder and go over here. The thinner sweaters got parceled into large squares to be made into roses, while the thicker sweaters were cut in strips and then tiny squares for wreaths. I cut until I had a sizable mountain of squares to choose from.

Time for the youngest to step back in.

“Wow, you have a lot cut already!” she said.

“I already have a pattern I want to use,” she said. “Purple then pink and repeat all along the wreath. I am going to use purple because of her softball team, and pink because you have to put something with the purple,” she said.

I threaded a larger, dull tapestry needle with embroidery floss and tied one end to a pencil to keep the squares from sliding off the thread. She dug through the pile for the pinks and purples she needed then held up a purple square and squinted at it closely.

“Is there a darker purple and a lighter purple in here?”

“No, just the one.”

“Okay, because I was like, if there are two purples in here then my pattern is messed up!”

I grabbed a needle and thread of my own and started digging through the pile for slightly less-purpley-toned squares. I settled on some boring, tweedy greens, tans and maroons for my wreath. She observed my choices with a look but no comment. Tactful, even at six.

“Have you ever poken yourself with a needle?”

“I have poked myself with lots of needles, but not this kind,” I told her.

“This must have taken you a while to snip up all of these sweaters.”

“Yes, it did.”

“I am going to make this a surprise so don’t tell her until I finish,” she said quietly.

“Okay.”

“I was going to make it for her birthday, but now I feel bad about her arm,” she said. “Her birthday is kind of far away so I will wait until the middle of April to start making her birthday gift.”

We sat there for a little while, threading and chatting. I can see the value of older times and the circles of women who quilted, knitted and sewed with neighbors, friends and daughters. The quiet moments of steady work, the accomplishment and pride at showing others your progress, the good conversation.

Once the wreath was finished and we tied off a knot and loop to hang it, she decided there needed to be a bow.

“Can you cut a strip of purple?”

“Yes, and I’ll sew it with a sharper needle and thread.”

“I need to see how you do it because one day I want to do lots of projects with my kids and I need to be able to show them how.”

Maybe I don’t need to live in the older times. Seems like now is just fine.

Here is a link to the CSI Project for other crafters! Have fun!

One Balmy Evening

It was a balmy evening. Okay, although it was topping out at about 75 degrees on the December evening in which I am discussing, I don’t mean the weather here. I mean, we were making lip balm. 

Ba dum bum! 

Sorry for the bad pun, but it was just there, waiting for me.

Anyway, The middle child had been furiously perusing YouTube videos about cosmetics, how to apply them, how to make your own, etc. So much that at dinner one night, she regaled us with “How to lose a guy with ten bad makeup mistakes.”

I kid you not.

I was laughing too hard to hear much more than:

“Number one, sticky lips. Number two, pasty face. Number three, spider lashes. Number four, clown cheeks…” She was terribly serious about it, but when you are eight, it is hard to get that type of information across without inciting giggles.

Another example of this cosmetic craziness was a few weeks ago at the local Walgreens. She was closely inspecting the makeup wall, telling me about this “Great Rimmel quad of eye shadows” that had an “awesome assortment of pigments.” The lady behind the cosmetics counter was listening. As we went up to pay, the lady politely asked the middle child if she was interested in makeup.

“Yes, I like to learn about it,” she said politely. “Also, I’ve been hearing some really good things about these Just Bitten lip stains. Can you tell me about them?”

The woman’s jaw dropped. 

Welcome to my world.

On to the balms. One of her favorite vlogs is a young teen girl who makes her own cosmetics. In one post, she shows viewers how to make lip balm from petroleum jelly and cooking extracts like vanilla and peppermint. Oh, how she had hooked the middle child (who has started to carry the youngest child along in her wave of cosmetic obsession).

I “just had to” watch this balm post. “Please, can we make these? Please?”

I said the characteristic “we’ll see,” and went on with my day.

Later that night I started Googling lip balms and supplies and containers, etc. While we could have gone with the super-basic supplies in the vlog, I was interested in something that might actually be good for our lips, last longer than 10 seconds and wasn’t recommended by a 14 year-old.

I discovered a great site that sold a lip balm base of shea butter, cocoa butter, vitamin E, etc. And it wasn’t pricey. They also sold vanilla flavoring designed to be mixed into an oil-based base (cooking vanilla has too much water in it) and little containers to pour in the finished balm.

I said nothing and waited for these goodies to arrive. They did, along with the month of December and the aforementioned warm temperatures. I went ahead and kicked on the Christmas tunes anyway and called my little cosmetics expert.

“Oh. My. Goodness!!!! You didn’t!” She squealed. “Look what Mommy got us! Can we make it now?” They danced around and around the kitchen.

We laid out all the supplies and set ourselves to make a batch of vanilla and a batch of peppermint (I opted for the extract on this one for experimental sake).

We began with one pound of base. It came in a big tub in a solid form. We wanted to make half of the tub and divide that half into two flavors. This was a great chance to sneak in a little math.

Me: “If one pound of base needs 6 tsp. of vanilla, how much vanilla do you need for ½ of a tub?

Youngest Child: “Twelve!”

Me: “Think about it again.”

Youngest Child: “Oh, wait! Three!”

Me: “Very good! What about half of that?”

Youngest Child: “One and a half.”

Me: “Awesome! The pipette is marked with milliliters, though, so we need to convert that 1 ½ tsp. to milliliters. Here is our kitchen chart. It shows 3 tsp. equal 15 ml. so what do we need?”

Middle Child: “7 ½ ml.!”

Bingo

So we dug out ¼ of the tub of base and put it in a Pyrex cup. They took turns adding 7 ½ ml. of the vanilla flavoring to the base and put the cup in the microwave.

“We should put it in 30 second intervals,” said the middle child. Seriously, that’s what she said.

*Oh, here it should be noted that the girls both asked me not to tell their friends’ moms about this because they wanted to give out a few of these as gifts, so hush-hush, okay?

After warming and stirring for about a minute and a half, we were ready to pour. I handled this part because of the hot liquid and glass.

“I have 14 containers out for you, Mommy.”

“I took the lids off for you.”

What awesome helpers!

Almost immediately, the balm began to cool and harden and change from clear to a creamy white.

I capped the containers and slid them to the side to finish cooling.

“Now peppermint!” said the middle child.

We followed all of the above steps again, but when it came to using the pipette to get the peppermint extract, we all nearly choked on the fumes. Peppermint extract is very pungent.

“Oh, that is WAY too strong!” said the middle one.

“What about adding a little vanilla to the peppermint?”

“Great idea! 1 ½ of vanilla, too?”

“Yup.”

And on we went until we had 12 containers of peppermint/vanilla all lined up cooling.

The youngest said, “I bet there are only 12 and not 14 because we used less peppermint.” Why not?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Interlude for sweet dreams~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next morning they decided to try the balms.

“Oh, the vanilla really helped tone down the peppermint,” said the middle child. “It balanced it out a lot.”

“This feels really good and smells outstanding,” she said. The youngest nodded, smushing her lips together and rubbing in the balm.

Now we know we can do it and it works. What flavor combos will they come up with next? Oh, and stay tuned-she may launch her own elementary school cosmo-vlog!

Pick a Peck of Pecans

 Today I am thankful. Thankful for God’s love and grace, thankful for my family and thankful for my freedom. I am also thankful for the wealth of blessings around us. We live in a unique, amazing state that provides plenty of entertainment, beauty and stories to keep life very interesting.

One of the best things about living in Texas is the abundance of fresh fruits, veggies, nuts, etc. just growing wild. Blackberries in June, plums in July, pecans in November. Not even at famers markets or roadside stands-just out there free for the picking. The biggest problem with this wild abundance is that every year the places to find them get fewer and fewer.

The best blackberry patch I ever saw as a child is now a Super-Target. The great old pecan trees left over from two family farms nearby are now fenced in behind a construction site. The plum trees that grew along every fence line are now barely clinging to the few fence lines that are left.

You can, obviously, go to one of the myriad of “pick-your-own” farms in East Texas. Peaches, blueberries and figs are perennial favorites. There is just something about foraging for your own fresh food that feels a little more satisfying.

I’m not going to say that blueberry cobbler is less delicious because somebody planted the blueberry bushes in rows 30 years ago and they weren’t growing wild in the woods. It would be a bit more satisfying if that’s how you picked them, though. You Maine folks (Downeasters?) know what I’m talking about.

Anyway, the reason this is the subject of my post today is that we wound up with a great Thanksgiving pie from our spoils. It looks awesome and I can’t wait to throw some Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla on top and dig in!

But before we get to slice it up (stop drooling) we have to have a backstory…

Doodly doodly do…

Doodly doodly do…

Doodly doodly do…

*you should absolutely be visualizing Wayne and Garth saying this and waving their hands around, by the way.

I started noticing that the squirrels were deep into kamikaze street streaking-Frogger style. I saw that they were going from pecan tree to pecan tree. Aha! Pecan time. There are many pecan trees in our area that are natives, growing in common areas, greenbelts, empty lots and medians. I snagged a box and a few bags and stashed them in the car. Periodically I would pull over and hop out and gather a few that had fallen to the ground.

One day, I had the younger two girls with me. I asked if they wanted to go for a pecan hunt with me and they agreed. We advanced on a stand of pecan trees and started gathering. They were quickly excited as they counted out the ones they picked up. Not satisfied with the pecans we were finding (they were pretty small as most native pecans are) we moved on to other trees.

We finally found a bunch that were decent sized and we started gathering like crazy. At one point, we had to take the middle child to a birthday party and the youngest and I went back to our harvest.

“This is quite fun and we are quite successful,” she said. “We should do this again!”

We found a lot that had fallen in the wind still in their green cocoons. We peeled the casings back and tossed the nuts in the bag.

“I’m like a monkey peeling a banana,” she said.

I showed her my fingers and told her to look at her hands.

“Oh, they are so stained!” she said. Pecan juice turns your fingers a lovely brown shade.

We kept picking up pecans until we had a huge bag full.

I said, “So after Abby’s party do you want to come back and get more?”

The youngest child looked me in the face and said,” I’m good. I’m done.”

I guess we reached our limit.

Later that week, while the kids were in school, I decided to drive up to Muenster, Texas. About an hour north, the German-heritage community has a fabulous meat market-Fischer’s-and a place to have your pecans cracked. I decided to stop at the aptly named The Pecan Shop on my way to the meat market and see if I could drop off our pecans. Silly me.

I walked into the building and came face-to-face with who I am now calling “The Pecan Jerk”.

I said, “my daughters and I picked up these pecans and I was wondering if I can have them cracked.”

He looked in the bag and said, “Honey, I wouldn’t even turn on the machine for that few pecans.”

Grrrr.

“Hasn’t that tree got any more nuts on it? Come back when you get more,” he said. “And tell those girls I’ll pay them $.55 a pound for any they want to sell.”

“Yeah, right! So you can sell them for $8.50 a pound? I wouldn’t even turn on my car for $.55 a pound!”

In my head.

In real life, I said, “thanks anyway.” And I left.

On my way home, I saw another pecan shop in Gainesville. I pulled over and the lady there said, “Sure we’ll crack eight pounds. Just set them there and we’ll get them done.”

Yea!

So, back to today. We have apple, pumpkin and pecan pies ready to roll. The pecan is all our freshly found and gathered pecans.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!