Better Living through Pantihose

Pantihose has very limited uses in my house. Mostly for the last 3 years it’s been used to keep the cat hair from going down the washer drain. Today we found a new use. The girlchild wants to make some Xmas gifts, and I wanted to try out Judy Coates Perez’ wool-ball-making methods. I had some leftover roving from a class I took on needle felting and I got some more in bright colors. Trying to entertain the girlchild on Sunday afternoons always requires thought (and if she’s not entertained, she picks fights with her brother, so it’s in my best interest to teach her things that she will eventually be able to do by herself). I showed her how to wind balls and she wound 9…

She claimed it was boring, but not as boring as folding laundry, AND because I gave her a fairly easy goal, she was able to reach it without disintegrating into crazed teenaged behavior. The black wool yarn was purchased in my senior year of college as part of my first attempt at public art, a grant program to put art in the local student center. I was going to weave a tapestry. Seriously. I was. I still have the pieces of the mockup. Boy, was I insane then.

Then we used the roving to wrap the balls, tying them into the leftover pantihose.

I remember I was buying the pantihose at the grocery store and a mom I sorta know walked by and looked at me very strangely. I said “it’s for the washing machine hose” (because obviously wearing the things was not something she’d ever seen me do). She continued to give me the wacky look. What can I say? We washed them in the washing machine, super hot, super long. I think the hardest part was trying to get the hand-dyed balls out of the pantihose…they’d felted themselves into it. But here they are, ready for embroidery…

I have a stash of wool squares that mom keeps giving me. I love the look of wool embroidery, but never get around to actually doing it. Judy Coates Perez has an article about how to make these in the new Quilting Arts Gifts magazine, which my daughter keeps stealing from me.

I also managed to finish stitching down the whole top…I love how it looks from the back.

And I even got it sandwiched and ready for quilting.

It’s about 51×55″. It needs a bunch of linework…if stitching doesn’t give me the line I want, I’ll go after it with ink. I’m tempted to jump it in front of the other 3 (4?) quilts that are waiting patiently to get under the machine.

While we were felting and pinning quilts, the boychild was illuminating a manuscript. Or something. History homework. He took on the persona of a crippled psychotic monk while he was doing it, frequently cackling the word “illumination” in the living room.

We tolerate this behavior because, well, we’re all a little weird and he fits right in. I offered to shave his head, but he wouldn’t go for it.

For those who have lousy weather, it was 94 degrees today. I could use a nice autumnal chill if you ask me, but we have no such luck. Maybe next week. We are still in shorts and tank tops.