Snow Day and T Shirts

Snow days are great when you have nothing to do but stay home and putter. St. Louis has been pretty lucky so far this year, unlike some other areas so we were overdue for a good storm. Mondays are my regular day off and I have nothing much else to do. The picture is of my new back yard. I recently moved and managed to bring over my garden frames and compost pile. I have a much larger area to garden now (see the extra space in the back) so I will have to build new frames but at least I could salvage the old one. I can't wait for spring. This years garden will be the best one yet (fingers crossed and all that stuff).

I'm still unpacking boxes and arranging my craft room but I have been able to get some work done. I don't have internet at my new job (one of the many reasons I haven't been blogging) and don't have the freedom to cook or sew like I did in my old one. I still have a lot of down time and have been taking small projects to work on while I'm over there.

My son had given me a large bag of t-shirts he no longer wanted and it gave me an almost perfect idea of a project to take to work. I still had to make the t-shirt yarn at home but I could take it to work and make rag rugs with it. The picture is of one of them and I already have it up for sale at Deb Upcycles along with other rugs.

So, I've been unpacking boxes of fabric and purging. I put aside a lot of fabric I was pretty sure I was never going to use and took it to the Upcycle Exchange the other day. I was just planning on getting a credit to use at a future time because the last thing I needed right now was to be bringing anymore supplies home before I had gone through the 20 or so boxes I still have left.

The owner had just finished up a demonstration on how to make scarves from old t-shirts with several hundred people (yeah, that sounds like a madhouse, doesn't it) and had boxes and bags full of cut up t-shirts she had left over in the back.

I couldn't help myself, I just couldn't so I traded $5 in store credit from my fabric and brought it all home. This is only part of it. I've already used some to make another rug and am working on cutting the rest down into manageable pieces.

So that's what I'm doing, I'm cutting out the usable pieces of fabric and discarding the rest. I hate throwing out anything but really have no use for collars, seams, hems and the parts with pictures or writing. That's what most of the bulk is anyway so I should be able to store it all in one box when I'm done until I'm ready to use it.

So that's my plan for this snowy day, that and a nap. Naps are good, very good.

Updating, It's Been Awhile

So much has happened since my last post, I even had to close my Etsy shops for awhile. I've changed jobs and moved. Of course, I only moved next door but everything still had to be packed up and carried over. The worst part was moving my compost pile. I didn't know I was moving until after Christmas so it was full of finished compost waiting for spring planting. It was a great opportunity to move to a larger space and I couldn't pass it up.
I have reopened two of my Etsy shops even though I don't have everything in there. I haven't found all the boxes yet but it also gave me a chance to do inventory. I'm closing my pattern shop permanently, it was a decision I had already made before I decided t move. It was just too time consuming for what I got out of it. I'm still going to be selling patterns in my Deb's Crafts shop, but only ones I consider special, such as vintage, wedding dresses or crafts.