Mostly forward progress

I made myself a ruana-style cloak from a tablecloth.  I like it, although I am not as gracefully proportioned as my children are and I look rather clunky in it.  I may add a bit more length to it with a fringe, and I am looking for something better than a clothespin to fasten it with.

I pulled some other items out of storage and found good places in the house for them, such as an old table top that is now leaning against a wall to protect the internet cable, and a little cabinet that fit nicely into the bathroom.

This summer I braided up a few of the corn husks that the children left lying around.  These braids dried and faded in the kitchen.  I then took them, played around a bit, and eventually braided the braids and tied them with a piece of wire to make a mini-wreath for the front door.

I also made a quick visit to the Habitat for Humanity ReStore, which has tripled and re-arranged their retail space since the last time I was in there.  I found a flat-woven wool rug for $45, which turned out to still have the tag from the rug cleaners on it.  I've been thinking of getting a rug to unify our three rows of seating around the family computers, and if this rug doesn't work there, there are other places in the house that I can try it in.

The reason I was at the store was to find a new light fixture glass thingy for the ceiling fan in our library, to replace the one that broke just as I was finishing up washing it.

I had another mishap with glass, which involved a glass jar unbalancing the recycling bag and tipping it over.  The jar then rolled out, and down onto the step at the back door.  At that point it took a right turn, and proceeded majestically down the basement stairs, ending with a smash on the rug at the bottom.

Putting the rug (dry) through the dryer on Air Dry to get the little tiny shards out worked well, and got most of the wood shavings out of it as well.  I left the dryer lint from an earlier load in the dryer's lint filter to help capture these bits.

I also found that our reel mower not only needed several missing handle bolts replaced (children are suspected in the loss of two of them), but also needed to be re-aligned and oiled. And of course there was one adjustment screw out of the four that I can barely budge, but most of the adjusting needed to be done on the other side, so I managed.

Draped children

My children were getting cloak ideas from this video (which has a recap of the different styles discussed, in the last three minutes), and requested ruana-style cloaks.

The ruana cloak is a simply a long rectangle, slit up the front to the place where it will sit on the back of the neck.  Some people cut out a neck-sized circle at that point, see here for example.  I prefer the look of a straight edge coming down in front.

In use, the front of the ruana can just hang down, or one side can be thrown over the shoulder.  It looks much more elegant than it ought to.

I found enough large pieces of fabric to outfit all the children who wanted one.  It helped that a relative unloaded a bin of linens on us while we were on vacation.

So far this has been all no-sew, but the children all want hoods on their cloaks, and will also need the ends of the slits reinforced.