Loft Closet Curtains

Even before we put memory foam over top the mattress in the loft, getting things out of the closet up there was difficult.  Try learning across a bed crammed into a space with about 4 feet of height, while standing on a wobbly metal ladder (or better yet, leaning across the bed with your legs suspended in midair) and digging things from a small closet. Then add a couple inches of memory foam on top of the nasty little RV-stock mattress, which lifted the height of the mattress to the point of making the closet doors difficult to open.

So I had my husband pull the doors off.  He stowed them on their sides inside the closet.

This is after the closet doors were pulled off and stowed inside.

And I made little curtains for each opening, each on a tiny curtain, with the hardware mounted inside each opening.

Ta Da!  Curtains!

With the curtains, it is easier to access items in the closet.  I can just push my hand through and grab things.  I no longer have to muscle the mattress downwards while trying to pull the door outwards to me. I don't have to be laying on the bed facing the closet to get to the items inside. I can learn across the bed from the ladder to the loft for most things, without my legs suspended outwards in midair.

The denim rag quilt in the picture was recently finished. It lies on top of the loft mattress and memory foam.

I love the "nesting" I am doing,  of taking this RV, Magnus Agnes, as we call her, and changing all these little things to make her more livable for us.

New Denim Rag Quilt and Preparations for Memory Quilts

Denim Rag Quilt for the RV. So here is my second try at a denim rag quilt. It is being modeled by a gorgeous day bed at my friend's house.

As I was on Pinterest yesterday, pulling ideas onto my board for future projects, I realized I've made a couple mistakes with my two denim rag quilts:  I didn't have a wide enough seam allowance between each patch, and I didn't clip into those seams allowances so that the frayed seams fray more or less evenly and create that nice ragged look between patches.

I didn't realize that until now because the first quilt I completed, I gave to my niece before I'd even had a chance to wash it and let it fray more. And of course, she would never say if it was less than perfect, being very polite.

So I did my second quilt pretty much like the first one. As I was washing it, I was looking at Pinterest and realized my mistake. And sure enough, after pulling it out of the dryer, it was pretty tangled with thread knots here and there; long threads and varied lengths rather than that nice even look.

I remember seeing how the rag quilts were done by studying how the rag quilt was made when my daughter-in-law had purchased one from Etsy.

But I'd forgotten a couple of details.

Oh well.

Unlike my first rag quilt for my niece, which was made with dove gray fleece (and thus very heavy and bulky), for this one I'd purchased a queen size sheet, cream colored with green leaves on it. I wanted it to be lighter weight and to blend with the colors in our RV, and easy to wash in laundromats.

Even though in the picture above, my quilt is shown on a daybed in a house (my friend's house where I am house sitting for two weeks), it was made for the top loft in our RV.

Memory Quilts Begin. Below are pieces I am cutting from my sister's clothes while house sitting at my friend's house in Maryland. I have put them in ziplock baggies of various sizes.  I did this to keep them in order and to keep them from becoming wrinkled or frayed.

I have about 18 bags of clothing, and five quilts to make from them. I live in an RV, so I need to figure out how to get this done while moving from place to place for various commitments. All the bags were stored in the loft bed area of the RV when we left Iowa after my sister died. They took up most of the loft space. I don't know what the total weight was, but those bags were heavy. So I wanted to reduce bulk first, knowing that I wouldn't be sitting in one place, with enough space to make all five quilts.  

Though this is a tough process, to be going through and cutting up my sister's clothes, I am glad to do it for my sister's children instead of asking their Mom's church ladies to do it. Even though those ladies knew my sister and surely would have said yes, when I mentioned this possibility to my nieces, they said they preferred I do it. It is my continued gift of time and love for my sister and now for her children. It is a way to fulfill a commitment to my sister to look out for her children. 

In the house where we are staying, taking care of our friends' cats, it is great having a huge, glass-covered dining room table to spread things out. The nine-fireplace, 1790's era manor house is quiet, and except for ghosts, I am alone with my thoughts and my sister's memory as I begin cutting squares from her clothes. I started with the bags of clothing that her youngest daughter had selected; a color scheme of pinks, browns, some blacks, a touch of aqua. There is a lot of elegance in the fabrics chosen for this quilt. I admire my sister's, and my niece's tastes. I love the feel of the fabrics. 

I don't know whether this will be done in a rag quilt fashion or if I'll save it for when I go to North Carolina where another friend, a master quilter, has offered to teach me to quilt in the traditional style and to help me. I am not sure how to begin but I've already made a denim rag quilt for my sister's oldest child - I did that one in January during the days after spending 12-15 hour night shifts with my sister in the hospice room in her final days. So because I made that quilt for her oldest daughter, I decided to this time to start with her youngest. Her oldest daughter will still get a memory quilt made from her mother's clothes, but I will do that one last. 

Lightweight Denim Frames for Artwork

I made these denim frames for prints I'd bought in Alaska.  The prints were inspired by a marathon there and seem to have Klimt's influence. I've always loved Gustav Klimt's paintings. 

I used to have these prints framed in black wooden frames. But I took them out since glass falling in an RV will not have a good result, and the likelihood is that would will fall sooner or later, or often. So I made frames from cardboard, covering them with padding and repurposed denim; using just scissors and glue. It was messy. The prints are protected by heavy plastic - not as protected as the glass would have been though.

These denim frames match the Bohemian look in our RV, but I do have to say that the black ones set the artwork off much better. They were stunning before, and mesmerizing. I used to have them in my office at work and frequently people would comment that their eyes were constantly drawn to the work, as were mine. They had more "energy" with the black frames. But maybe our RV has enough energy in the rest of the look that the frames soften things just right.  

Denim Curtains for the RV

I made two sets of curtains for the RV bedroom area. They are denim with cotton valances attached and matching trim and pull-backs.  I used the curtains that had been stock in the RV as a pattern, except I shortened the valance because I wanted to let more light in. I only wanted to cover up the fold-up shade underneath the curtains which didn't have it's own valance and was ugly at the top, with exposed stitching. In this picture, it is folded all the way up and is covered completely by the cotton valance. The shade matches the valance color but is plain.

I also put small Velcro strips on the inside side hems of the denim part of the drapes in the bedroom so that at night I could pull them all the way closed to keep it darker. Again, the entire curtain is one piece, joined with the valance so I can't just slide each denim piece closed underneath the valance. The cotton valance is "stuck" in between them. However, with the Velcro strips attached, I can "pull" the denim closed and attach the two pieces together with the hidden Velcro. The denim is heavier than the fold-up shade (tucked up underneath) so it makes it a lot darker when the denim is velcro'ed closed over the shade. 

Cool.

Then I made valances, trimmed with green, for the rest of the RV. I light lots of natural light during the day so I didn't want anymore fabric around the windows than I had to have.  The windows have the fold up shades which is enough for privacy at night and slide up, out of sight under the new denim valances during the day.

These windows initially had stock valances that were ugly, padded upholstery stapled to wood. They  bordered and partially blocked the window on the top and both sides. They made the interior dark and heavy-looking and jutted out into the seating area. They had to go. We kept them, stored in a friend's attic, in case we sell the RV and the new owners want them back. 

RV Closet Door Curtains

We live in an RV, a 5th Wheel toy hauler, Keystone Raptor. We moved in in March 2014.

One of the first things I discovered is that the mirrored sliding doors to the closet in the "bow" of the RV, the part that hangs over and hooks up to the truck, were heavy and noisy to slide open. They were large and inflexible and made the closet dark. There is about a foot of space between the queen bed and the closet, so with those mirrored, sliding closet doors, I was constantly having to muscle them around just to get to the side of the bed to make it, and that was done on tippy toes. Searching for clothes in that dark closet was difficult too, since I'd stand squeezed in between the side of the bed and the opening to the closet. We installed battery-powered lights but we still had the problem of the noise and the lack of flexibility with the heavy mirrored doors.

So we removed them because I had a better idea. The plan was going to repurpose denim and make curtain panels. So here is the series I went through, discovering how to do it.

First off, this is what our bed looks like. On it is a quilt I found in a thrift shop that I just loved and used in our old slide-in camper that we called Bertha. The interior of that camper was blue, so that quilt worked great on the bed in the loft over the cab. Since this Raptor has a queen size bed also, and I loved that quilt, (it came to represent the fun of going out on adventures) I kept it. At the foot of the bed is another quilt, a beautiful gift from a good friend. She got the colors spot on, right? I love it. She had never seen the other quilt. She was going simply off what she thought I would like.  How cool is that? I love BOTH quilts.

So when I made the patchwork curtain panel, it didn't look right with the quilts which surprised me and I couldn't have that. The panel was nice and heavy, and wouldn't wrinkle (well, OK, it was wrinkly in a Bohemian way) but it was just too busy-looking, too junky.

So I took it apart and made several large throw pillows for my grandchildren and some for grandnephews.

They all loved them because they can go on the floor and are meant to take a beating. The best part is that they have pockets and zippers in them which means all kinds of cool little hiding places for stuff, hopefully not bubble gum. But hey, have fun!

So I knew that repurposing old jeans was going to look too busy, and I was already sold on doing a denim look throughout the RV. I went to Walmart (the local area not having any fabric stores within 30 miles) and bought several yards of  a midweight denim and a heavy duty tension rod. I also bought several yards of a yellowish/orange cotton print to use as a trim on the denim. I liked how this looked. And it sure was flexible and serviceable. You could just pull it to the sides to look for things in the closet, and it makes it so easy to make the bed or to get in and out of bed on my side.

However, the midweight denim, lost some of it's stiffness and didn't fall straight (like in this picture) after a while. The moisture, which you are bound to have in an RV with the varying temps, made the denim more wrinkly and less like a panel.

So I added another panel.  Wa la!

Teaching my DIL to Sew

My husband and I went back to MD over Thanksgiving and Christmas to take a mental break and to be with our kids and grandkids. Several years ago, I'd bought my daughter-in-law a sewing machine. I knew she wanted one. After giving it to her I linked her up with an old friend who lives about a mile away from her and is a sewing Queen. She even has a home business doing fabric-based decor and other crafty type items. But my DIL is soft-spoken, busy with a young son and work and never followed up. She later confessed that she'd hoped I would teach her. It took a few years since we lived an hour or more away and I was working and commuting, but now since I'd quit my job and live in an RV, and am on a break from taking care of my sister in Iowa, I have time. I got it set up, and got her started sewing straight lines.  First, she made a big, fat pillow.

Afterwards, I thought we would go down to the local fabric shop where I would walk her through picking out a pattern, the fabric and all the accessories. Instead, she brought out a rag quilt she had bought on Etsy.com and asked if there was any way we could make something like it. I looked at it, deconstructing it in my mind, and yes. We did it.

Or she did it, I should say.

Love the eyes of my grandson peering over the top, making a face.

Is that not pretty? My DIL finished the quilt the next day! That is my grandson holding it up and making faces. He was so excited about his mom sewing that he kept urging her on so she finished it before I returned. I had gotten her started on just sewing the front to back (the individual squares are sewed first, with a large "X" right through the square that joins the front fabric with the backing. There is no batting in the middle. Then the squares are sewed together into a row, then the rows sewed together. Then you sew all the way around the edge. Once finished sewing, you patiently go around each square's frayed edges, carefully clipping into the fabric edges to encourage them to fray evenly with repeated washings.

Beautiful colors!!!

Little Bench Dresses Bohemian

Ta Da!!

I made this slipcover out of repurposed denim - from a very Bohemian, ankle length denim dress that I really liked and wore for years.  It ended up with a stain on it that I couldn't remove (out damned spot!).  So memories from that dress linger with this bench.

I've had the bench for years.  I bought it at an antique auction though it doesn't qualify as an antique.  It didn't have upholstery, just the bare fabric padding. Someone must have been getting ready to recover it and never finished. Anyhow, I kept it like that for over 30 years, too busy myself to get it recovered. I would just lay a nice scarf or a large table doily over it and drape/tie the extra underneath. Then forget about it. When we got ready to sell our house and get rid of everything, moving into a 38 foot 5th Wheel Toy Hauler as our full time residence, so to speak, I wanted to keep this little bench. It is lightweight, can be stowed on the love seat when rolling down the road. When camped, it doubles as extra seating or a foot stool.

It has two layers of ruffle. The first one wasn't quite ruffled enough. Yeah, I know, I didn't factor in enough material and was in a hurry. So I added another ruffle on top. Spending a little extra time getting started would have saved me time in the long run. But this was fun, and I went exploring with it. I wasn't worried about pleasing anyone but myself with this little project.