Upcycling

Have you ever wondered what to do with your empty goat, horse and chicken feed bags?

  

 Well wonder no more -  make tote bags out of them!  Today I'm going to tell you how.

Disclaimer: I can't take credit for this idea, my out-of-state, chicken-owning friend sent me one a couple of Christmases ago, and I love it.  It's perfect for my much-neglected knit afghan project.  Also, there are probably other tutorials out there for this, too but I need something to blog about, right?

I have a friend with a farm nearby and she has goats, sheep, alpacas and chickens.  She also has a friend/neighbor with horses, so there is no shortage of raw materials.  If you aren't so lucky, I've seen this done with wild bird food bags, too.  As long as they're made of thin woven plastic strips, they will work. 

I find it easier do to this assembly line style, but you can make just one if you're not stocking a farm stand.

 

Get your feed bag(s) and remove  bottom seams or bindings.  Sometimes they'll zip right off sometimes not.  If you cut them off, try to get as close to the stitching as you can.

Fold them flat, nice and neat along the existing creases and weigh them down for a bit to get them back in shape.  They're easier to work with if they aren't all crumpled.  I did this on my basement floor and stacked whatever I could find on them - cases of pop, paint cans, etc.

Once you've squashed them into submission, give the outsides a good wipe-down, then turn them inside out and do it again. Turning them inside out is probably the hardest part of this project.  It's noisy, too. The chicken feed bags are usually okay with just a damp cloth on the inside.  Some of the messier ones could use a dip in the washtub.  One of the senior horse food bags was particularly icky, so I rinsed that one.  

Next, grab your cutting mat, rotary cutter and a 24" ruler.  I turned my mat upside down and used a cutter with a blade that was too dull for fabric.  

Square up both ends and try to take off most of the big holes along the bottom.  I found the Scratch Grains bags were pretty randomly sewn along the bottom, so those bags are a bit shorter than the others.

Cut a 4" to 5" strip off one end to use for the handles.  One set I cut 5", but they felt a bit wide, so the next batch was 4-1/2".  I cut all of my handles from the top of the bag, but you can cut off the bottom, depending on the bag.

You can cut through or near the thicker fused section of the handle piece to make a long strip, if you want. I left them as rings, since they were easier for me to deal with and there was less chance of the ends fraying.

Fold the handle piece in half lengthwise with the right side out, then fold each edge towards the middle. You'll end up with a ring (or strip) that's a bit over 1" wide and four layers thick.  You can press this with a cool iron if you want, just use a piece of paper as a press cloth so you don't melt or separate the layers of the bag.  I didn't bother with the iron.  I creased them well and used quilt binding clips to hold the edges together.  Paper clips would work, too.  No pins!

Stitch about 1/8" from each folded edge. Don't sew through the fused part of the handle pieces - it's REALLY thick. Once both edges are stitched down, cut the thick part off completely. If you kind of curve the handles a bit, you'll be able to tell right where to cut.

After you remove the fused part, take the remaining strip and cut it half crosswise to make to make two handles.

Now, go back to the main part of the bag and fold about an inch of  the top edge towards the plain side of the bag.  Repeat to make a nice hem.

Tuck an end of one handle under the hem all the way to the top fold and clip in place.  I measured 3-1/2" from the side crease (about 6-1/2" from the outside edge) and put the outside edge of the handle there.  You can put them anywhere, except on top of that fused section. Place and clip the other end of the handle the same way, being careful not to twist the strips.  You'll do this on the front and back of the bag.



Sew about 1/8" above the lower edge of the hem to hold the handles in place. Fold the handles up, clip in place and stitch about 1/8" down from the top of bag.  When you get to the handles, you can stitch an 'X' on them, but I didn't. 
  

Sew a 1/2" seam along the bottom of the bag then zigzag in the seam allowance for good measure.

Mark a square above the seam line, at the edge of the bag.  The square needs to be half of the desired depth of the bag - the bigger the square, the deeper the bag. I used the measurement between the edge of the bag and the side crease for mine, to make them easier to fold up. On most of the bags, that was 3". Mark each end of the seam and both sides of the bag (so a total of four times).

The next part is a little tricky to explain.  Pull the front and back of the bag apart at the corner of the marked square and flatten it out, folding the seam allowance to one side. This will give you a triangle with straight line across it, perpendicular to your sewn seam, like this:

  
Now, sew on the marked line, being sure to back stitch at the beginning and end of seam. . Repeat for the other end of the bag.

Okay, you're done sewing!  Turn the bag right side out, pushing those gusset seams out to make a nice flat bottom. Fold it up like a paper grocery bag and admire your work!
 


The finished dimensions will vary, depending on the size of the original feed bag, how much you have to cut off to get rid of the old stitching lines and how big you make your gussets.
My bags are 21" to 22" tall (not including the handles), 15" wide and 6" deep.

Now, get sewing! 

If you'd like to have a bag, but don't want to make your own, you can buy one here.  They'll also be in the Flying Pig Fiber & Friends booth next weekend at the Great Lakes Fiber Show in Wooster. Which reminds me, I should be in the sewing room.

Thanks to Andrea for all of her kind words.  I didn't even have to pay her to say those things. :-)

 

We interrupt this blog

I had planned my next post to be about all those feed bags I showed in the last one, or maybe quilt camp which was last weekend.  But instead I'm going to tell you this.

I met the Yarn Harlot! 

 

Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

She taught some classes at River Colors Studio this weekend.  One my of my knitting friends and I took two of them on Friday - Knitting for Speed and Efficiency and Grok the Sock.  Stephanie is incredibly funny and a great teacher.

I learned a new knitting method - lever knitting [the video is kind of long and not from my class, but it is the Yarn Harlot].  I'm not sure I'll adopt that as my go-to knitting technique, but it was fun to learn and I plan practice on my latest 2-row scarf.

In the second class, I learned how to eliminate those annoying holes in your socks where you pick up your gusset stitches and that it doesn't make any sense to pick up the same number of stitches on each side of the heel flap, no matter what the pattern says.  There will always be one more on one side and if you just go with it, your sock will look much better.  And I will never pickup-and-knit my gussets again.  I will pick up all of my stitches on the needle first, then knit all of them. Much better.

In between classes, she signed my book.

And after classes, I got my picture taken with her.

Me and the Yarn Harlot (wish I'd had a better hair day)

 She'd been sick most of the time she was on the road, but you'd never know it.  Well, she was a bit hoarse, but she was still on her game. I'm so glad I took the classes.  Thanks, Stephanie, I had a great day.

Back to the old sewing room

I've been a on a bit of a sewing kick, partly because of my latest bout of tendonitis. I'm not positive that knitting aggravates it, but why take chances? So off the sewing room I went.  After several test layouts, I put together the Christmas sampler.

It wasn't easy.  I had trouble deciding on the alternate block design, and none of the neutrals in the stash looked right with the background fabric. The blocks were made in 2004, so the local shops didn't have it and I couldn't find it online.  Luckily, I'm a member of the biggest quilt guild in northeast Ohio.  I send a picture out the guild members and someone forwarded it the second biggest guild in the area. I actually heard from a couple of people who had enough for my purposes.

 In hindsight, I think I should have put a small border of the background around each of the blocks, so that they didn't run into the alternate blocks like some of them do.  Also, looking at the picture, I think I should have put triangles of the print in the outer corners, since those big open places look kind of weird to me.  But as the Dear Jane motto goes, "Finished is better than perfect," and it's only a Christmas quilt after all.  I'll only have to look at it a few weeks a year.

All quilts need a backing and I had 10 Christmas blocks that I got from an online block exchange in 1994 (!) that needed to be used.  There were supposed to be 12 of them, but a couple of people were slackers and didn't send theirs.  They sat in my sewing room all these years because I didn't know what to do with them.  Here's what I came up with: 

Most of the fabrics I used on the back were in my stash.  The only one I bought was the peppermint candy print in the middle. I just didn't have a red-on-white print that I liked for that section. 

I could have made two quilts, but who needs two Christmas quilts, really? At any rate, it's off to the quilter and should be back sometime next month, I think.


When the Christmas quilt was done, I turned my attention to these little guys. 

There are 500 of these units here

I pulled a bunch blue, green, purple and white fabrics from my scrap and fat quarter bins and started cutting.  When I was sewing, trimming and pressing them, I thought I'd gone a little overboard.  There are enough pieces there to make a full size quilt without borders.  If I put borders on it, I could make bed quilt and a baby quilt.  There are about a dozen ways to arrange these units, but I'm thinking of a pinwheel design.  I'll probably take this to quilt camp with me next month.

I made  this cute little reversible project bag for a knitter friend of mine, in part for her birthday and part as a token of my appreciation for an "above and beyond" kindness she showed me earlier this year.  She seemed to like it, which made me happy.

One side...

...and the other

Last, but not least, I spent some quality time with these, but more on that next time.

What did I do with a stack of feed bags?

 Blue helped me with the quilt back.

Everyone's a critic.

The knitting....

I mentioned last time that there has been some knitting, so here goes.  I've made progress on two pairs of socks.

Stepping Stones in Sensations Bamboo & Ewe, for Mom

Plain socks in Destination Yarn, Vancouver Five Rings colorway

I just started the heel flaps on Mom's socks, and finished the heel turn and started on the gussets of the plain socks.

If you recall, February was for Finishing, so I finished a sweater.

Shalom Cardigan, in Bernat Natural Alpaca Blends

The back

Close-up of the front

The pattern just calls for one color, but I had to add the extra challenge of using two. It was my first sweater, so why make it easy?  It really wasn't that much more difficult and took just under a month to make, which was pretty amazing to me. It seems to take forever to make a pair of socks but using bulky yarn on big needles makes a difference.

 

 

"It's not quite big enough yet, Mama."

"I think I look pretty good on this."

 The girls helped a lot with the sweater while I was making it.

Oooo, pretty!

I entered the project in the contest over at Life in Cleveland, and I won a prize! This is a lovely fused glass necklace, and along with it came a buy-one-get-one-free coupon for classes at Crafty Goodness in Lakewood.  I haven't decided what to take, but I'm sure it will be fun.






I think I've been bitten by the sweater bug.  I cast on this one on March 1st.  It's another knit along with some of my friends.  We were supposed to start on Leap Day, but it didn't quite work out.  I'm up to the second button hole, despite not spending much time on it.

February Lady Sweater, in Berroco Vintage, Juniper colorway

And since this is the first day of spring, I plan to start a sweater to go with the socks I started last year on the first day of spring.  The lace pattern looks the same as the socks.

Petal, in Misti Alpaca Hand Paint Tonos Pima Silk

And finally, Emma decided my knitting bag, with my Shalom sweater in it, makes an excellent kitty bed.

"Cozy!"

Now I'm off to swatch for the new sweater....

Quilt camp, February 2012

I went to quilt camp last month.  On the way there, we stopped at Calla Lily for some yarn shopping, because we are multi-craftual.  I had decided beforehand that I needed to make a sweater to go with my Spring Fern socks, and I think I found the perfect yarn for it. 

The colors look closer in real life

From there, we went to Somewhere Sewing, because we all need more fabric.  Hey, "need" is a subjective term, right?  Anyway, the shop has a great selection of fabric and tools and they sell sewing machines, but I think my favorite thing about it is the remnant bin.  Anything you can stuff into a quart size freezer bag for $5.  The owners say they have almost as fun watching us try to fill the bags as we have doing it.  You can fit a LOT of fabric in a quart size bag, if you fold it right.

That's about 3 yards total!

Once we got our retail fix, we settled in to sew.  First, I put together a few pillow cases for my guild. I didn't take a picture of them and kind of wish I'd left at them home, to be honest.  I wish I'd spent more time on other things.

Since February was for finishing, I decided it was finally time to finish up some blocks I made years ago.  They are from a $5 quilt program at Quilts & Kreations. The idea is, you pay $5 for the first block kit. If you bring back the finished block the next month, and sit through a sort presentation about a quilting notion, you get the next kit at no charge.  If you make it every month, you get twelve blocks for five dollars.  If you miss a month, you have to pay for the next kit.  There were three different colorways to choose from, and I picked both the Christmas and batiks. 

I'd done all the blocks, but managed to lose a the two star blocks shown here.  I put together new ones using bits and pieces leftover from the Christmas kits, and some batiks I had in the stash.  I made the little teardrop pieces for the blocks on the left and got the white ones sewn on. Then I partly re-did the Dutchman's Puzzle block on the right.  I had cut the yellow fabric from the kit wrong and replaced it with something I had in my stash at the time.  It was too bright, so I swapped it for this one.



Here are all the blocks. They're in the same locations, so you can see what a difference the colors make. If you look closely, you can see the old yellow in the top left corner of the yellow and green block.  I had the old piece sitting on top to make sure I liked the new one.

I think I know how I'm going to set the Christmas blocks, but I'm hoping to find some of the background fabric to use in the alternate blocks.  There are 180 people in my quilt guild, so I'm hoping someone has some they're willing to part with.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the batiks yet, but I have a couple of ideas.  I have lots of that background fabric, if I decide to use it.



After those were done, I pulled out some community service blocks for the guild and made an extra block to two. That will give me enough to make a two lap-sized quilts.  They will have white sashing and scrappy corner stones, when I get around to putting them together.



And finally, I made a couple of Sister's Choice blocks. They took longer to put together than you might think, since I was making them one at a time. There's lots of  stopping and cutting and pressing involved.  I think next time I work on them, I'll try to do more of an assembly line thing.

I've been doing quite a bit of knitting lately, but this is getting long, so I think I'll save the knitting for the next post.

It's been almost three weeks since I lost Ripley. Thank you to everyone who sent their condolences, in whatever form.  I do appreciate it.

I had the vet's office make an impression of her paw for me.  It was unbaked when I got it, and I thought it would be nice to put her name and dates on it.  So I pulled out my rubber stamps, stamped and baked it.  There's only one problem....

She was born in 1992, not '93.  Thoughts on how to fix this??

I haven't decided what to do with her ashes, but for now they're in the canister they came in, on a shelf in the room where I feed Blue.  Several times since I picked them up, I've found him here when I've gone in to get him.

Not sure I've seen him on that shelf before.  Coincidence??

Half a lifetime....

Half a lifetime ago, I was a young newlywed, living in my first apartment. Our cat, Lucky seemed lonely, so we'd been thinking of getting another kitty to keep her company. One day my DH called and said one of his coworkers had brought in a litter of kittens that needed homes.  After some discussion, he came home with this tiny little thing:



She wasn't very well socialized and spent most of her first night hiding behind the dryer shivering.  :-(  We got her into the second bedroom and she spent a lot of time under the bed.  She'd come out, but wouldn't let us get too close to her.

We couldn't agree on what to name her - I liked "Ripley", the DH wanted "Psycho".  We decided to pull a name out of a hat and got as far as writing the names on slips of paper one night before we had to leave for somewhere.  When we got home, she was chewing on one of the pieces of paper, and we decided she'd chosen her name.  Ripley it was (thank goodness!).

She slowly settled in, watching the wild life:

"I can see them, why can't I grab them?!"

 Mountain climbing:

Coffee table -> entertainment center -> air conditioner

Helping with my quilt projects:

"Looking good, Mama!"

And generally tearing up the place.  I don't know how many times I had to re-pot my spider plant, and I picked up one of the table lamps off the floor every night when I got home.  She did know how to kick back and relax, though.

Don't you just want to rub that tummy?

As the years passed, I got divorced, changed jobs and moved a couple of times.  Relationships came and went. We lost Lucky along the way, and added new furry family members.  But through it all, Ripley was there.  She mellowed a lot as she got older.  Back in they day, I had friends who would cat sit for me and never see her.  If you tried to pick up her up, you'd lose skin.  In the last few years, though, she became a regular lap kitty and would actually come and greet visitors, instead of hiding under the bed. 

Not completely antisocial

For a long time, she was my healthiest cat, even as old as she was.  She started getting recurring urinary tract infections about six months ago.  We suspected a tumor in her bladder, but couldn't actually see it. The vets told me there wasn't really much we could do about it anyway. She was too old for surgery and chemo doesn't work well on those kinds of tumors, especially in cats.  So we fought the good fight, giving her antibiotics to control the infections and generally trying to make her as comfortable as possible.

She was pretty happy, still eating, drinking, snuggling with me at night, etc. until a couple of days ago.  I took her to the vet yesterday and we were finally able to see the tumor, blocking her bladder.  We could have done things to give her a little more time, but it wouldn't have been quality time, so I decided it was time to let her go.  It  was so hard, but I think it was the right thing to do for her. I miss her already.  I hope she and Lucky are playing with catnip mice and napping together again somewhere.

This is the picture on the vet's calendar for March....

I love you, Ripley.