I remember as a kid my grandparents had this long white, deep chest freezer that was in their basement with a single naked light bulb hanging above it. I imagined it would have been a good place to hide anything you never wanted someone to find. Inside the freezer were bags, and bags of tin foiled covered food that was older than I was. Layers and layers of freezer burned meats that had been on sale and vegetables from seasons ago. My grandparents grew up during the depression, so saving every last scrap of food was imperative to their survival even though they now were going grocery shopping every week. There was a an old metal coffee can next to the stove top for them to scrape their bacon fat into. And when it was full, it was placed carefully into that chest freezer in case the end of the world was tomorrow.
In their 'root cellar' were countless Bell jars full of preserves. I'm talking countless. Many shelves high and stacked to the back wall like a grocery aisle. I can vividly remember my grandparents working together like a machine to seal up jars and jars of pickles, beans, tomatoes, corn, everything from their huge garden every summer at their Winnipesaukee lake house. I don't know when they were planning on eating all that food, but it was there "just in case." It must of been done out of habit. I remember thinking that I was never going to waste my time preserving food, or freezing it. It seemed to silly when I could just go to the store and get a fresh rotisserie chicken, and a bag of pre-made salad.
I grew up on a dairy farm but was very uninterested in the business and concepts as a teenager. My mom spent hours in her gardens. She has the greenest thumb. She knows how to sew anything, cook everything and has a mean creative edge. I was never interested in what she was doing but certainly retained most of the information through what must of been osmosis.
I've come drastically far since I used to think those silly thoughts and now am more interested in all the things I didn't like as a younger woman. I don't know if it's part of my dna, or if all that work my family did in their gardens and craft rooms was imprinted onto me.
Because, I am in love with the idea of freezing food for later, canning for gifts, sewing, glue gunning, and stretching myself creatively.

I created this blog for my future and because of my past.

Saturday, August 27, 2011

Then there was this chair....

On Saturdays I scoop dog poop for money.  It's pretty great.  I get to be in the sun, make money, check out the landscaping, and make money.  I drove by this chair on my way home a few weeks ago that some family had decided was ugly enough to get right of finally.  It had a 'free' sign on and everything.  As if being put to the curb wasn't humiliating enough, they were literally giving it away.  I drove by it, liked the shape, but figured it must be broken because why give such a cute chair away for free?  I saw a car coming in my rear view and figured they would stop for such  cute chair so I attempted to turn around on the worst corner possible because I'd rather try to kill myself with these driving maneuvers than let them get that chair!
I backed up onto someones lawn (just a little bit) andI lived to make the turn around,  raced back to the chair before that car made it.  That car just drove by, it didn't even slow down.  Ha!  I win!
I got out, and looked right past the faded orange and green 60's floral fabric and looked at this chair for what it was.  A cute, curved bottomed, wooden peg footed chair.  I didn't sit in it - I'm scared of bed bugs.  I had to have it.  And it was free.  And when I lifted it to put in the back of my car I got a whiff of barn.  mmmm.  Rustic storage spaces are my favorite.  And then there was a spider on my hand!  Eek!  Not my favorite. 
I brought it home and let it cook in the driveway till Tom could carry it inside for me.
A day or two later Tom had rearranged the entire living room set so my chair could be predominating feature when you first enter the room!  Ew, that fabric.
It's a comfy chair!  Tom and I are both tall, and it fits us great.  But, ew that fabric.  The smell and the spiders are gone but the orange flowers and green floral background were not so faded once it was in our living room.  I just kept staring at the chair thinking about how amazing ugly it is.  I wish I knew how to make a slip cover.  Because of one of my clients - I have enough fabric upstairs to clothe the entire royal wedding guest list.
After two weeks of living with the ugliest, best chair ever I ventured upstairs to see what kind of fabric I might be able to piece together in 100 different ways to attempt a slip cover.  I did some research online on how to make one.  And found two huge pieces of fabric that I loved, and forgot I had, that I thought would make great chair coverage.  I layed, pinned, cut, and pinned some more out of this fabric (inside out) on the chair and went upstairs to sew it.  It took me about an hour and a half to complete.  I put it back on the chair, pinned it where it was bunchy and sewed again.  The arm rails where the hardest to figure out, but I managed to make it work.  Then I stapled the shit out of it to the bottom of the chair, making sure to accentuate the curved back that I love to much.
It's not the best slip cover in the world, not the straightest, not the best fitting, but it's one that I made.  The FIRST one I've ever made.  And, I love it.






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