Making Things

   Now that I'm working part-time I've discovered that I like to make things. I've also discovered that I want to try to make things I've never made before.
   This all started when my friend, Dana, gave me a dishcloth she had made. She crocheted it and crocheted a patch made of scrubby yarn into the dishcloth. I liked that idea of combining a scrubby into a dishcloth. That way if you are washing dishes and need to scrub something, you don't have to hunt for a scrub pad. It's part of the dishcloth. I used my favourite pattern and made part of it with scrubby yarn and the rest with normal yarn. I gave it to Dana to test out for me to see if it works.
   Dishcloths aren't the only things I'm working on. I like to make washcloths for infants out of a soft cotton yarn that I like. Lately, I've been experimenting with putting crocheted edgings on these washcloths. I made two washcloths for a set of twin boys. One washcloth is white with a blue edge, the other is blue with a white edge. Except for the fact that the clothes didn't come out the same size, they look pretty good.
   C has very sensitive skin. They make laundry soap without things that could irritate skin, but I wanted to see if it was possible to actually make laundry soap. Not only is it possible, it's not that hard. All it takes is some borax, washing soda and a bar of fels naphtha or castille soap dissolved in water. This can even be used in an HE washer like mine. I haven't tried it yet.
  I also found out that you can make dishwasher detergent fairly easily as well. One of the ingredients is a packet of unsweetened lemonade mix. It sounds odd, but the reason for it is it prevents the dishes from getting cloudy. I haven't done this either. One recipe I've found uses some of the same ingredients as the laundry soap so I can do both at the same time.
  Once after a bout of mouth sores, I toyed around with making my own toothpaste. Most of the brands of toothpaste are a very strong mint flavour which for me causes mouth sores. Homemade toothpaste seems to be either a combination of baking soda, water, salt and essential oils for flavour or replacing the water with coconut oil. I was able to find a toothpaste with cinnamon flavour so I never made toothpaste.
  By now I'm sure you are thinking that I  look at a lot of do it yourself things, but I never actually do any of the things I look at. I have done a couple.
   Last week I made a batch of Brunswick Stew for supper. I thought it might be nice to have some biscuits with our stew. Normally this would mean taking out the box of Bisquick and mixing up a batch. This time I decided to make them from scratch and to roll them out as opposed to making drop biscuits. I found my trusty Betty Crocker cookbook and found a recipe for baking powder biscuits. I don't own a pastry blender so I used a fork to mix the dry ingredients and shortening together. The biscuits turned out fine. C, who grew up on biscuits and is a picky eater had several of them. His only complaint was that they were cold. We don't have biscuits often, but when we do I will make them from scratch. Next time I may have to try making buttermilk biscuits.
   I had several t-shirts that were too stained to give to Goodwill but were still in good shape. I hated the thought of throwing them away so I saved them thinking I might find a use for them. I saw how to make T-shirt yarn on the internet. I made yarn out of the shirts. Then I saw that it was possible to crochet or knit baskets. Since I can always use more places to store things this would be a perfect use for those shirts. The challenge was that I would need to buy a large crochet hook or large circular knitting needles for the project. I really didn't want to buy something that I wouldn't use again.
  A few days later we were babysitting one of my grandsons when he saw me organizing my knitting things. he asked me to knit him a snake. I wasn't sure quite how when I remembered that I could knit an i cord. An i cord is a small knitted tube used to make straps for knitted bags or edgings. I knitted a small i cord added eyes and a small red tongue. I had my snake.
  Then it occurred to me that I could knit my t-shirt yarn into i cords. I could use the large needles I already have. I could sew the i cords together into a basket. It was the perfect solution. I'm keeping things out of the landfill, making something I could use and filling a requirement for my Personal Progress all at the same time.
   At some point in time, I am going to make the soap. Maybe I'll start with a small batch.....