Bed Linens

I love a beautiful bed, I see them at stores and in magazines and imagine falling onto a big billowy pile of fluffy cotton wonderful. Crisp eyelet lace, white on white antique iron beds, piled high with grandmas quilts, a ridiculous amount of squishy pillows, a fantastic high bed you have to crawl up onto, a bed that makes me feel tiny, like I have just been swallowed up.

But bedding is outrageously expensive. So to get everything I want, I sometimes make my own.

Liberty of London for Wamsutta Fitted Double Bed Sheet

Goodness, a vintage LIBERTY OF LONDON fitted sheet! When I first came across these at an auction I was smitten, I paid more than my usual few dollars to get them in my hands.

I have been collecting vintage sheets & linens for a long time. Sometimes I use them as intended, sometimes I make them into bags or aprons and sometimes I turn them into other bedish things like quilts & pillows. Sheets are such a great deal, you can find amazing patterns & colors, you get tons of yardage for the money (shop the clearance section or look at thrift shops). I live 100% cotton, because of how it feels, the crumply look it gets with use and how it sounds when it’s rustled.

In addition to collecting linens I have a habit of picking up cotton or wool blankets if they are inexpensive, they make perfect guts for tie quilts they are often much cheaper than cotton or wool batting. I wouldn’t recommend using another blanket for the innards of a quilt that you want to actually quilt on but if you tie your layers, its perfect. You wont have the worries of the batting bunching up or separating and it will give you the weight of a good solid blanket. There is nothing is better in the dead of winter than a cozy heavy blanket.

My very first pillow case made, I really loved that Elizabeth rose fabric by Westminster ..also in that photo is one of my very favorite quilts. ♥ 

On my quest to the lovely bed I have made many pillows all shapes and sizes, what I have learned is, I’m not an accent throw pillow kind of person. I don’t want pillows around that are just constantly being moved out of the way.  I want a pillow to wrap my arms around and snuggle into, a pillow that mushes down to become an excellent cushion. So to add lovely splashes of delight to our bed, the couch, that chair over there, I have been making happy little pillowcases using this pillowcase tutorial. It creates a pocket pillow cover in any gorgeous fabric or sheeting you like, trimmed out with a romantic crochet lace edging or if you don’t crochet you could trim it out by sewing on a bit of fancy lace or leave it plain. I’ve been using standard size bed pillows (in place of throw pillows) and they look just as charming on my couch as they do on my bed.

All the cozy calm comfort.

Julekuler

While impatiently waiting for my copy of 55 Christmas Balls to Knit, I stumbled onto  The NRK Norwegian Broadcasting website they had hosted a show featuring the authors of the book.

They had kindly given the basic directions for making a julekuler, along with a simple snowflake chart. THANKS Arne & Carlos! Now I can get my julekuler fix & so can you!

I can’t wait to get the actual book, it’s the same ball knitting recipe that they share on the site but I love the traditional look of Norwegian fair isle charts thought. What a perfect holiday knit and a perfect little gift. 

I went for an untraditional look & using sock yarn, it turned out right around 3” tall. I am thinking a good worsted wool would be perfect or some thick & bulky for a jumbo one!  It was wicked fast even with the fair isle colorwork. I am in the midst of working up another one with no colorwork just letting the lush yarn be the decoration.

I wanted this to smell so I stuffed it with a small cinnamon pinecone wrapped in wool roving.  I liked the weight the roving gave it (even with out the pincone) I also thought the roving would absorb the smell better and radiate the scent, more so than poly-fill. Next time I might just add a few drops of cinnamon or pepermint oil to the wool roving and skip the cone, it was a little bit of a beast to knit around that cone wad!

I tried a few different hang loop styles, just a few knotted strands, then crochet, but I finally settled on an I-cord hang loop and just before I finished stitching it on I slipped on two tiny jingle bells for sweetness!

Update : Schachenmayr released a Downloadable Arne & Carlos Julekuler pamphlet with complete instructions HERE!

creative inspiration

I’ve discussed in the past my love of collecting and hunting for good old useful stuff, granted I don’t always have the same view point as others when it comes to the usefulness or value of the stuff I acquire. When I see something that sparks that little place in my brain and makes me say “I could use that” or “I need that” the little wheels start turning. Thinking of all the possibilities for this little treasure I have just stumbled upon and what can it be turned into, seriously sometimes I loose sleep! Lets just call that “creative inspiration” right!

Sometimes I get home with it and dive right in, putting it to work creating with it or placing it in a perfect spot on that shelf right there.

Sometimes I get home with it and it gets tucked away in the abyss of my art room, only to later be re-found, re-admired and wondered why exactly I bought it in the first place. What grand idea slipped out of my head?

Sometimes I procrastinate, should I get it ..no, I don’t need it, but I want it ..yes, I think I’ll get it ..no..no..no.. I’m not going to get it ..ooo yes I got it! (Sometimes guilty feelings later, sometimes not :)

Sometimes I just wonder at the bizarreness of it, once I received a giant old mayo jar filled with shoelaces, inventory from a 1950’s shoe shop (still wrapped in pairs) like 100+ pairs!

Mostly it’s the sentiment I have towards something, the romantic story I’ll attach to it. I love to cook and bake, I also love family traditions so the idea of things that would have been in some lovely old grandmas farmhouse always stir me up. I always attach a lot of love to those items, because you know gran she never got rid of anything, she used it till it was gone or broke & then patched it up and used it some more. The beauty of that bent metal rug beater, her fine hand stitched tablecloths & bed linens, a certain wooden spoon always used for making cookies, fresh bread on Sundays, a pantry filled with mason jars. I have this idealistic vision when I see old kitchenwares like cookie presses, aprons, tea towels, butter molds, spice containers and cheese graters.

I have recently started the task of going through my collections and rationalizing what in my life time will I actually maybe sometime use, basically scaling back (just a tad). When I was photographing these tart tins to maybe sell, the image was stirring up some of those dreamy emotions. It reminded me of that Grandma, it reminded me of Christmas, it was old and used but still crisp & clean like new snow.

P.S. I have never made or eaten sandbakkel tart cookies, but these tins L.O.V.E. I can’t even begin. So in order for me to not totally lose my mind in the downsizing process, I used this rule in regard to the tart tins: keep ½, sell ½ and so far that idea works. Best of all, if I want I can still make some sand cookies, but I’m thinking I’m going to tuck them into my Christmas tree to reflect the sparkling lights or possibly turn them into some delightful pincushions.