How To Save Money On Your Annual Lawnmower Tune Up

It finally quit snowing, and then rained and rained and rained. Usually I can get away with not mowing the lawn until Memorial Day Weekend, but not this year. Between the "organic fertilizer" and the rain, it needs mowed now.

So I go to start it up, and of course no. It starts but won't stay running. I entertained the idea of searching on the internet but opted for my usual method, which seems to work on anything. You just start taking it apart and find either parts that are broken or don't seem right and put em in a bag and go to the store and get the same parts and then put it back together. If it doesn't work oh, well, it didn't work before and at least I tried. But I've been real sucessful with this method. The dryer once, washer 2 or 3 times, refrigerator once and that one was major--a $45, non-returnable part. That's as close as I've ever come to gambling with my money.

So off to Meijer's I go. All they have is spark plugs, not this other thing I need, a filter of some sort. Well why stand in line for 1.97 spark plug when you have to go to another store, Walmart, to hopefully get the filter. A spark plug is a spark plug; how much can the price vary? Apparently 50% or so.

So off to Walmart. Filter, yep, Spark Plug 2.97. WT....hm, do I go back to Meijer to save a dollar? Not just yet...off to the automotive section I go. In with the spark plugs for cars is spark plugs for small engines, with the same number on the side as the the one for 2.97 in the garden section. So I leave the 2.97 one there and take the 1.78 with me to the register. Now how weird is that 2.97 in the gardent section, 1.78 in the automotive section.

Oh, I'm done with the quilt, pictures some other day, have started another, and work continues on the purple rug. The red and white will be the traditional Irish Chain pattern.

I spent Friday evening cutting instead of hooking. It seems I have almost as much left over, on the left, as I cut. Other than that it seems I've been busy accomplishing nothing while waiting for Spring. It's still Winter here in Michigan. I've cut out a skirt that probably won't fit, so it's all in a plastic bag where it will stay until the scale shows less than it currently does. There's hope it may fit by Summer. Heck, there's even hope we'll have Summer this year. Who knows, maybe I can make a small throw out of the remains.

This is the center portion of the quilt, hanging from the drapes. Who knew a window could double as a design wall. There's also a rug hooking pattern behind the quilt center, and pattern directions from projects I've been working on, as well as the quilt, are also pinned to the drapes. And the whole purpose of locating the sewing machine in front of the window was to enjoy the view. That's not happening so far. Everything has to do double or triple duty in a miniature house.

I also dyed some wool last week. I started with a dark oatmeal, a yellow and white check, and a pale beige with pale green stripes running through it.

A better Townsend Cutter carrying case

I've defeated the dogs once again--doesn't happen often.

When I got my Townsend Cutter, which I love, it came with a carry case with a webbed handle. On of the dogs promptly chewed the handle. I like this a whole lot better. You can find these all over in various conditions. This one was pristine and even had the keys that had never even been removed from the plastic.



All you need to do is make a few drawstring bags, perhaps out of quilted fabric or wool, to protect your cutters, lay em in the bottom and put your cutter on top.

I'm pretty sure the handle on this is dog proof. The case is for sure.

And there's plenty of room left over for your other bag or whatever that holds your hooks, scissors, magnets, and whatever else you drag along for hooking. PLUS, you don't have to take those black plates off to store though mine are off in this picture.

I highly recommend an old train case as a case for your cutter. I paid $10.00 plus postage for this one off Craigslist. Granted who knew if once I paypalled the guy the money if the case would ever arrive, that's the chance you take but I figured postage was cheaper than driving half way across the state to pick it up and I was in as gambling of a mood as I ever get.

The Purple Rug

This has got to be the slowest I've ever hooked, but then there is the other rug that just needs one or two more squares finished and it would be done.

While searching for a pic of the unfinished rug I came across these. These are little coasters done in 3 cut for a donation for the State's History Museum a number of years ago. AOL kept sending me those cds in the mail and I thought to myself, I'll use em for coasters. So I did state symbols. The robin, a deer, and I think those are apple blossoms and then the state. Is it my imagination or does the deer look dazed. I don't think i knew much about hooking eyes at that point and I wouldn't say these are high contrast either. Oh well, they were cute. I don't remember what they went for, but here they are.I think if you double click on the pic it gets bigger.

It's no wonder I can't find the rug, there are 14,32o pics on my hard drive, never mind cds and thumb drives.

So here's where I am on the purple basket weave rug.


I have corrected my error, if you notice on the last full row the horizontal row is a little thin? Yep, I got off count and there were only 12 strips of wool where there should be 14. So I backed out the beige/gold and the purple vertical and put in the needed two rows of purple.

So, I started it in July, have hardly worked on it since November and am now plodding along. Who knows, maybe I'll get it done by early April in time for the hook in. At this point I am really wishing I'd gone for the smaller version. I need to do either 7 or 9 rows for it to look right now that I made it 5 blocks across.

Back to the dye pot. I have about 8 yards of wool to dye this weekend.

What I've Been Dying

I've been dying wool, one yard pieces on request. I've been pretty much given free reign as to what color and values but they are for a customer that prefers their colors to have a tinge of gray whereas the colors I dye for my personal use are more vivid and I never attempt to dull the color

These are pretty much the wools I've been overdying. A creamy white, an off white with pale green/tan strip in it, an ivory/beige/gray plaid and these are the end result.

In addition to the pinks and greens I also did some reds and blues. The blue was a specific request. A very grayed light blue was desired. I started out with Cushings Blue. It looked purple and scared me, so I added ProChem Brilliant Blue 490 now I had blue but it was a bright blue so I added Cushings Orange to this vivid mixture. Then I only used a little over the white and the stripe ad additionally I had a heathery cream with flecks of gray in it. It was about the desired color but a little bright. So then I made a solution of just the Orange and overdyed it again in a very diluted bath of orange. Now it was dull enough (the white/cream) but not deep enough, so I overdyed it again with some of the original solution of the blues and orange combined. It turned out as desired, I wish I would have taken a picture of the 1" x 1" scrap I was given to match. So on the left we have the particular blue. The other two it wasn't as important and I didn't give them the final orange bath and they remained a little brighter and a touch more blue green vs blue gray.

I had much fun with the reds I dyed and finally hit on a red I like. It actually leans towards orange, but I'm ready to dig out one of my patterns with poppies that I dyed yards and yards of wool and never hit on a color I liked. So I've never finished any of the rugs with poppies in them that I have.

These are the reds. And they don't even look like they look in person. This picture is really washed out as the yellows are deeper. The pink is close to actual and than what appears to be coral on my screen is really more intense.

And next we have a terrible picture of the rug I started in July. Notice anything wrong here? I sort of lost my mind and ability to measure apparently but it's fixable. I've already ripped it out. If you count 5 horizontal stripes down, you can see where the two middle boxes of gold are larger than the others, I didn't make the purple stripe wide enough. It's easy enough to fix and I'd rather fix it now than later.

4 Yard of Wool

You'd of thought I would take a picture of the wool before I started dying it; but no, I just jumped right in and started dying.

This is the result. When next I go to the quilt shop I'll take pics of the bolts so the difference can be seen. In the meantime, here's a days worth of dying.

I dyed it twice, used 8 cups of dye in total. A whole package of Olive Green, a whole package Khaki Drab, and some orange, and a turkey red, and some chartreuse. This was not added to 8 cups of water, mind you. I made one (4c) solution using the Khaki Drab as the main color and the second using Olive Green. I started out loosely following numbers 50 and 57 in Lydia Hicks Triple Over Dye book which are geared to 7 x 9 pieces of wool in 6 separate jars. Well I had 4 yards of wool, so I started by dumping an entire package of wool into the jar and adding some of this and some of that and then some water and adjusting by eye and testing it on paper towel.


That's just what I ended up using throughout the day. As I couldn't find any of my dye spoons, imagine that, I just winged it. The person they were for was pleased and wants me to do more.

It's Growing, ever so slowly

I'm not breaking any speed records on this rug that is for sure. (There was the 13 day rug.) However, it is coming along nicely.

In the mean time, I needed some instant gratification. Hand hooked rugs are labor intensive and time consuming. So how to break the monotony and get a rug done now? Weave it.

I spent last Saturday cutting up old sheets with my brand new, worth every penny, killer, 12" scissors. Let me tell you, these babies are sweet. If you're aren't careful, you could literally cut your finger off with em. They are sharp, sharp, sharp; and it is so nice to have a pair of scissors that cut easily. They cut straight, they cut curves, they can even cut skinny strips of wool for rug hooking. Nancy from The Hen House ordered em for me, thank you, thank you, thank you. I just folded up the sheets and laid em out nicely and just cut my strips 2 1/2 inches wide.

I finally have a "cutting table" of sorts. I'm tall, I can't do this bending over the dining room table stuff, it's just too low and besides my house is really too little to have a 6 or 8 foot long dining room table for cutting fabric on even it it would be too low. So I've been dreaming and scheming and I think I've finally got it.

I took an old wooden baby bed with adjustable legs and set it up at the heighth that works for me. Then I took the hollow folding door off the closet, simple and easy enough, and put it over the top of the baby bed. Incredibly cheap ($10.00 for used baby bed), and it provides a ton of storage also. Almost all my fabric fits in it. Maybe some day when I get real bored or real organized I might actually put it all on bolts and make it real neat. For now, it's just in the baby bed, most of it anyway.

Sunday I went over to Allegan to Baker Allegan Studios and met and friend and we wove rugs. You pay by the foot. You can bring your own materials or use theirs. My friend took the loom with the off white/natural warp with a stripe at each edge, and I took the one with 4 different colors. I really, really, like her rug and it would not have looked good using the warp I used. How's this for a first rug. She used plaid and polka dots. Who says you can't mix plaids and polka dots. I think they look spectacular together.









My rugs are okay. They had changed the warp to a dark warp whereas I had been expecting to use a light warp. It turned out okay though, I have lots of scraps and whatnot to turn into rugs and, as you can see, using upholstery selvedges, you can't even see the warp. I just wish I'd made better color choices for that first inch or so that gets turned under and sewn for the edge, but I'm not going to fret to long about a rag rug that one of my dogs will just claim as theirs anyway. It's a rug. On the cotton one I think I should have used black. Blue/Grey? What was I thinking. I would say I quite obviously wasn't thinking. BUT I was having fun and I happen to think that's more important. And we all agreed the upholstery selvedges felt great on the feet.