What’s New?

A few things. DH decided that he couldn’t “make due” even with all the work he’d done on the wallboard in the niche, so he’s in the process of tearing out the not-square, straight, or supported correctly wallboard, and replacing it, so it’s square and adequately supported.

This house is a weird mix. The guy who built it bought top-notch materials, like solid-wood doors, then did really bad workmanship, if there was any, with them. Why bother? This means every time we try to upgrade or just replace something, it becomes a demo/replace because the apparent, initial problem is only an indicator of what’s lurking under the surface. This place looked great ….

The other thing is that I finally decided I had to make the living room rug. I won’t spend the $500+ for a rug I like. I can find cheaper rugs, but they’re plastic and we’ve spent a lot of time/money taking plastic out of here because I’m allergic or sensitive to much of it. So, I’m knitting (that’s a shock, remember this and that?) a rug in 5′ long panels from old tshirts. I’ve made rugs from tshirts before (see pics below). The biggest one, in the laundry was 4 x 6 . I never took a pic.

The little one (the colorful one below) which had been in the bathroom got taken apart when I discovered I couldn’t get it the stains out of it. I dismantled it, then washed the strips, still couldn’t get them clean; they were trashed. The black and white one was made for someone and given away. The laundry room rug got mildewed when our old washer developed a leak, and I couldn’t remove the stench from the pieces, so most of it went to the dump too.

I’ve started other rugs, but the strips got mixed with the mildewed strips, before I realized how bad the mildew was (I’d washed them of course!) and 95% of the tarn I had prepared got trashed.

This was so discouraging I quit working with tarn completely.

The new living room rug, will be 5 x 8 feet, knitted from tarn. If all  the pieces are the same size as the piece I’ve been working on, I need to 17 strips,5′ long. I don’t think it will take that many as I intend to do something in between the knitted pieces. If it works? I won’t have to make 17. I hope!

The first piece has 15 tshirts worth of material in it.  I need to make the 2nd piece (or part of it) and try my joining idea. If the joining works, then I’ll refigure how many knitted strips, and tshirts needed.

Conservatively? If I just make the 17 pieces, at a shirt rate of 15 per 5′ strip? It’s 204 shirts, that’s all! Making the tarn actually takes longer than the knitting, no surprise.

Rug #1

Rug #2

Rugs, Again

I’m making a new tub “mat” only it’s not a mat, it’s a rug, or will be. At the moment it’s 5.5″ across, needs a lot of work before it will be the 3′ across needed. I figure this will take me a week, or more. Also, it will use up the 7 skeins of yarn I currently have set aside for it, and maybe 2x that. I will NOT make another rug of this type from yarn, it takes too much effort. The mat which will go in front of the sink? I’ll make that from tarn, if the door will open over it. If not, I’ll get still more yarn and crochet one to go along with the thick tub mat.

The rugs/mats we have in the bathroom I made, about 3 years ago. The sink one was crocheted, the tub mat was finger crocheted into thicker strands, then were braided and the braids stitched on edge together. Made a nice, thick tub mat.

The new mat will be denser and thinner. I’m very pleased with the way it looks, but it IS a lot of work! I suppose the other mats were a lot of work too, but it’s been long enough that I don’t remember. . . .

I have decided on the technique I will use and the backing for the hearth rug. I do not have all the tarn, or warp thread in the colors I will use. The materials I bought were enough for me to make a sample and figure out how I’ll make that rug. The rug backing is left over from a project I think I started in high school, ’bout time I either used it or pitched it! The tarn hasn’t been made up yet, and I’ll have to buy more t shirts to get enough of the right colors.

I had a large lot of tarn get wet a while back and it mildewed, and got pitched. Ick. So my tarn stores are much lower than they’ve been for some time!

In the meantime, I’ve worked some more at freeing up the attic rug. It’s too big to go into the hearth area, but will do nicely in my office if and when. . . .