Waste not, want not

 As part of our pandemic homeschooling I read the American Girl Kit story collection to my older daughter. Kit is the character set during the Great Depression. They didn't have a Pandemic of 1918 character so I figured this would be the closest I would get to a fictionalized story that's relevant to current events. And it has been great, talking about history in an accessible way and tying it in with current events.

Naturally, one of the biggest themes of the book is waste not, want not. The family has fallen on hard times, and they end up doing many of the things that our family already does: gardening, canning, repairing things rather than buying new, taking in boarders. (We rent out the basement apartment in our house, with my brother-in-law currently living there, and my brother lived with us for the winter.)

At the same time, for my own reading I read a book about people who were consciously living in the waste stream, trying to buy nothing new, all while building a homestead in the desert of New Mexico. It's really inspiring to see what some people can do, and while not all of it is applicable to my life it certainly helps to inspire creativity and to think about what in my life I could fix or reuse.

I loosely think of the year in two main categories: inside chores and outside chores. There are, obviously, chores which span the year. Laundry. Sweeping. Cooking. But the unusual chores? Those fall into the two categories above and saved for their appropriate season. With the cool, rainy weather over the winter it was time for inside chores. These were a few of the inside chores which reused items that most people would have trashed.

Masking up

I figured that it was about time for a mask refresh, so I finally got my act together to make some new masks. First, you should know that I'm terrible at sewing. Really, this is not false modesty. I made microwavable rice bags for the family last year out of an old pillow case, and I couldn't even do that well. Its a rectangle that you stick rice into and sew up, but I managed to do it badly. Making masks was intimidating but becoming a better sewer has been on my to-do list for a long time so I decided to go for it. And once I'd done the first one, it was actually pretty easy after that.

I followed this pattern, and watched this video for help. For the main fabric I cut up an old curtain that I'd made when we lived in Alaska, which I've been carrying around because I like the fabric so I wanted to reuse it but not as a curtain because it doesn't go with any of our stuff. Ten years I've had that and I finally found its calling.

I went one step farther, too. I actually made our masks out of three pieces of fabric, with the middle piece being cut from an old sheet. One of my kids decided to take scissors to sheets belonging to my brother, and I stashed it for some reason instead of recycling it. But it came in handy now! The reason for using old sheets in masks is that they tend to have a much higher thread count than most fabrics, and are therefore denser. Fewer particles can make it through. And you can still add a coffee filter or shop rag to filter even more from the air. Having a third layer makes a noticeable difference but not so much that it's hard to breathe.

Finished masks with two styles
of ties

Since the pattern I followed doesn't have a nose piece I added one myself, to keep the masks tight to the face. I found among the sewing items I inherited from my mom a bunch of bias tape, and we've had pipe cleaners kicking around our house from various children's art projects for way too long now. The video shows how to add a nose piece using bias tape, and even how to make your own bias tape from fabric. However, the pipe cleaners were a bit of a bust. They'd work their way out the sides, which I'd left open so I could remove the pipe cleaners before laundering the masks, and then the metal would poke our faces. I ended up just buying specifically made metal strips with adhesive and those are working much better, though the adhesive isn't very durable.

I was able to make enough masks for the whole family, including the adult siblings living with us. Unfortunately I ran out of elastic (which came from other things, naturally) so I need to order more before some of them useable. I used some bias tape to make ties for one of my new masks, which I actually love. Putting it on is more of a hassle but it fits to my face much better so it's what I use if I'll be indoors for a bit, such as on the hospice visits with my mom. It's also easy enough to pull down and pop back up again if necessary, such as when walking or biking through areas that might have other people.

It was easy to customize the masks to fit a variety of faces, including the Munchkin's. I was not, however, able to make it small enough for my toddler. But she's still got such a little squish face that the flat masks work well for her.

Curtains

It's been just about four years since we bought our house and for the entire time we've been here I've said that we need to do something better than blinds in our bedroom. Our window faces south, and it's big. Eight feet across. For most of the year we get bright sunlight late into the night and early in the morning, which the blinds did basically nothing to stop. Having bright light streaming in while we were trying to sleep did not make for restful summer nights. But we pushed off the project, unable to agree on what we wanted to do instead.

We had old duvet cover, which was getting small holes in it and had lost most of its buttons. It served us well for over 10 years, but it was starting to fall apart. While it has lost its effectiveness as a duvet cover, I decided that the material would be perfect for curtains. It already matches everything in our bedroom, and it was plenty big enough for our window.

Remember, I'm terrible at sewing, but curtains don't need to be terribly complex. I managed to cut and sew two equal-sized rectangles (harder than it sounds!), to which I attached curtain clamps. No need to make holes for grommets, or try to sew a slot for the curtain rod, or even to make complicated pleats or decorative tucks. They're quite plain, but a busier fabric (rather than our solid single color) would change that. Since the duvet cover had enough material, both curtain panels are made of doubled fabric so they're extra dark. Just like with the masks, using former bedding means that it has a higher thread count and they're about as good as blackout curtains.

It's not perfect, they could have been hung slightly higher so that less light comes in at the top (and I need to add a few more of those curtain rings) but it's quite nice to wake up to a bedroom that doesn't have bright sunlight streaming in. The only cost to the project were the curtain clamps (roughly $10) and the curtain rod ($18), so it was a very affordable project. And yes, we did price out making our own curtain rod but decided that buying one was the better direction in this case. 

I might try to make a small, plain valance to be hung on the window side of the curtain to cover the gap at the top, but I haven't yet decided if the effort is worth it. Other than the light, it would likely mildly increase the insulative value of the curtains to have something there so that we lose less heat during the winter.

"The kitty's playground"

Another item we've talked about needing for a while was some sort of cat tower. If you're a cat owner, you understand why. Sure, we could get along just fine without one, but the poor cat had needs going unmet.

My brother moved in with us for the winter and, among the hundreds of projects he suggested doing or expressed interest in, the cat tower somehow made it to the top of the list. He checked around the house for materials leftover from other projects, such as some small pieces of plywood left from shelves made for the laundry room and some 2x4s. A trip up to our attic found carpet remnants from possibly the ugliest carpet ever. (Seriously--bright red, flat pile industrial style carpeting.) And he had an old airline blanket that was accidentally stolen to add to the rest. A cardboard box was placed around the main platform but that proved to be a bust, intimidating rather than inviting to our cat. We opened it up so now she just has a platform with cardboard on it, but she can look at the living room (and the birds out the front window) while she eats.

What was created from all of this was what my toddler calls "the kitty's playground". And it's a huge hit with our cat. She loves to scratch at the post, and will choose whether she wants to jump up or walk up the post. She occasionally gets onto the top platform to sit but more often uses it as a way to get up on the mantel so she can peer into the dining room and watch from above while we eat like the predator she really wants to be. (She is not.)

I still consider us pretty bad at reusing things. There have been plenty of times I've gotten an idea for a project in my head and then realized that I had just sent something to the landfill that would have been perfect. (I'm still kicking myself for not grabbing that blue foam board before my brother tossed it!) Sometimes it can be hard to judge what's useful and what isn't. I've hung onto some items for years (ahem, those former curtains that became masks) before finding a use for them. Other things I eventually get rid of because I realize that either it wouldn't be as useful as I thought it would be or because I will never, ever get around to the project it was earmarked for. It can be hard to find the line between "this will be useful" and "this is hoarding". But when it works out, it is so satisfying to find uses for things that would otherwise be garbage. Giving new life to something is a wholly underrated activity and feeling. Making something useful for nothing, or next to nothing, is just as good. Combining the two is bliss.