Reusable Dusting Cloths

I LOVE dusting! No, really I don't, but it is a household job that is on  the top of my list of jobs I dread the least.  I remember growing up and dusting for my Maw Maw. She always had lemon scented polish and I loved it! That lemony smell was what I loved about dusting her house. Sadly, my sister loved dusting her house also, so we had to take turns each week with the dusting and vacuuming. I really dislike vacuuming in those days because my grandmother owned an extremely heavy canister vacuum cleaner and the crazy thing would roll under tables and into corners and it would get hung and no matter how hard I would pull the hose, that thing wasn't going anywhere. Needless to say, I don't own a canister vacuum cleaner.





To this day, I still love the lemony scent of furniture polish because it brings back the memories of dusting when I was a little girl. Yes, I use it in my home on a weekly basis because dry dusting has never done a thing for me except move dust around to land on the furniture again soon after I was finished with the chore.

Not long after I was married, I bought one of those Static Dusters. You know the one where you spun it around in your hands to open it and then rubbed it across the tv screen and then dusted with it. Nope, it didn't work for me.

Those cute little Swiffer dusters... yeah, I dislike those also, because they REALLY do not work and they cost money to replace. I'm not one to fork out money for a disposable dusting rag on a stick. I do love the wand part of the duster because it gives me a little more length to my reaching. I liked the idea so much, I signed up for a free sample just so I could get the wand. Shameless, I know!

I came across THIS tutorial on making your own reusable dusting cloths. I made a couple on Saturday using leftover flannel and sack cloth pieces. After using both, I have to admit I like the sack cloth one better. Maybe, because I normally dust with an old t-shirt and they both dust the same.

These pictures show the cloths after only one washing and drying. The sack cloth did not fray as much as the flannel, but after the second washing it frayed more.

The good things about making these: I use up scrapes of fabric I have no other use for because of their sizes. I'm not throwing money away when I take them off to replace them since I can wash them and reuse them until they are dead. I'm saving money! Who doesn't like saving money?

A Little Catching Up

It's been snowing and I've been sewing.



Old man winter has returned to our neck of the woods. We had been enjoying the most beautiful spring like weather anyone from around here could wish for. I was able to open the windows and even the back door to let the afternoon sunshine in. It was wonderful! I even "neener, neener, neered" a few family and friends on Saturday with temperatures warmer than those back in Georgia.  They say, all good things must come to an end, and well the warm weather did just that yesterday.

Sunday started out like the other days, warm and sunny. We even opened the back door and some of the windows. Yesterday afternoon the temperatures started to drop. Around 6:30 the snow started falling. I did get up and look out the window around 3:30 this morning and the moon was shining and the wind was blowing. My sweet husband worked last night, so I didn't sleep too soundly.

We finally got to see some of the real snow that falls in this area and not just the light dusting that gets deeper over time. Last night, I was a little surprise to open the back door and look out and find an inch of snow already on the ground after about 15 minutes.  This time the snow is a good, wet, snowball packing snow. Of course, with snow comes the colder temperatures although 20 degrees is not so bad, the windchill of -10 with 50 mph wind gusts makes it worse. So far we have about 4 inches of snow.  Yeah, the windchill makes it unbearable to be out and enjoy the snow.

The weatherman predicts we will get another 3 inches of snow by the end of the day. Then on Wednesday the temperatures will be back up near the 50's. :)  I'll believe it when I see it.

Here are a few pictures of our snow. The first two were taken last night when my husband was called out to plow, see the snow on the hood of the truck, that was after an hour of snowing. The rest I took this morning.

You should be able to click on the pictures to see them bigger.

With the wind blowing, the snow is like walls of white blowing. This is one of the warnings that are out for drivers at the moment. Out on the highway those white walls are truly hazardous to drivers.

I also found snowflakes on the windows and in the window sills. I just love seeing snow hanging on the limbs of the trees. All the trees around here with low limbs have a good many touching the ground.

Last week, Jamie and I took a week off from school. It was a planned break and since we are ahead in all our subjects, I thought we should go ahead and take it.  I did some cleaning in the living room and cleaned out Jamie's closest. I was quite surprised at how he packs the bottom of his closest so well, you couldn't find buried treasure in the mess that we went through. He promised it wouldn't look like that anymore once we cleaned it, but I'm not holding my breath.

I also sewed a good bit. I made several bread bags out of some of the flour sack cloth I bought in town a couple of weeks ago. I love how they turned out. I also realized that it is time to take my sewing machine back in for servicing. Just the thought of putting more money into an inexpensive machine makes my skin crawl.  I'm thankful I have my grandmother's treadle sewing machine. I was able to use it on the last bag and I have to say, that bag looks so much better than the others. The top stitching on the flowered strip I put on the front of the bag is more beautiful compared to the other two. After doing a little sewing, I may just service my machine and use it for stitches that the treadle won't do. With the serger for finishing seams this may just work out. I'd love to be able to tell how the items I sew were done on the treadle. Who knows, my 100+ year old sewing machine may be sewing a lot more for me in the future.

Well, we are back to school this week. Since my husband is working tonight, we are doing school work this evening. It gives a little different twist to doing school work and we like it every once in a while.

I also wanted to add that I made some changes to my CHICKEN AND DUMPLINGS recipe and added a picture. I made a pot the other day and was shocked at how good those dumplings turned out with the changes.

 Also, I'll be writing about my Feverfew tea I took on Saturday for a migraine later this week. You don't want to miss that post, because I have learned so much about this special little herb.

My Kindle Cover

Yesterday, when I wrote about sewing my Kindle cover, I did not expect any questions or comments on it. What a surprise for me when I opened the comment notice in my email.

This is the inside of the cover. When I sewed this, I kept thinking that there was a lot of extra room in the tabs. So I did what any good seamstress would do ~ I got my scissors and I began cutting. Actually, the space would have been taken up when I sewed all the pieces together and finished with the top stitching. This flower fabric, is something that I have a ton of  and I totally love it! It's so hip! yeah, right...

 As you can see in the picture above, the Kindle sits very snug in the tabs. I really like this, since I have a fear of it falling out. Now that I have this and am using it, I think the next one I make will not have the extra flap. That flap was suppose to be the home of a pocket, but since I cut the cover to where it would close snug, I left the pocket off. Since I whipped this up rather quickly, I used round velcro since that is what I pulled out of the basket first.

 In the last picture, you can see when it is closed that my cutting was not completely straight, but I was flying blind on this project. I love denim! It's one of my favorite fabrics to sew with and I'm a denim kind of girl. Nothing fancy schmancy for me. I finished it off with a pink button that goes with my contrast fabric.

As for selling these in my shop... I'm still thinking about it. With a little arm twisting, I might could be persuaded into listing a few.  If you are seriously interested in one, let me know and I'll be happy to come up with something for you.

What I Have Decided ABout The Quilt

A couple of readers asked what I decided to do with my husband's quilt.

I decided to work on it and find a quilt rack to display it on. And make a new quilt to be used.

I love sewing, so this is going to be something that I enjoy doing. Quilting is something that I am still learning as I go. As soon as I finish repairing the quilt, I'll post pictures. When I get the new quilt top finished, I'll post a picture of that as well.

I'm going out to see if any of our pecans have fallen from all this wind we are having. Oh YUM! A pecan pie, sure sounds good.

Have a great Saturday.