Author Archives: Rebekah Smith

macramé lawn chair

Macramé Lawn Chair

When my neighbor cleaned out her garage, she gave me an aluminum lawn chair. When I turned to YouTube for the instructions on how to re-web it, I discovered that people were using macramé cord to weave new seats onto old frames. I immediately wanted more chairs.

As luck would have it, someone on FreeCycle posted a bunch of them that day. Unfortunately, it was another “curb alert,” meaning that instead of arranging for a pick-up, interested parties were to drive across town and hope for the best. I resist these offers, which is (or used to be) against the FreeCycle policy. People racing to get something only to find that the item in question is gone defeats the purpose of reducing waste. Indeed, curb alerts never go my way.

But I was desperate. At a quarter to ten, bleary-eyed and half asleep, I pleaded my case to Brian. The chairs will be gone by morning! Nevertheless, at the reasonable hour of 6 a.m., we pulled up to a stranger’s house in a strange neighborhood in the exurbs. One chair and a chaise lounge that I didn’t want were still left. I took them both.

Free Lawn Chair (Before)

After cleaning the frame with Dawn dish-washing soap and a Scotch-Brite pad, I went over it with Krud Kutter. Then I remembered I had a buffing wheel that attaches to the drill and some polishing compound. So, I tried that too, including on the plastic arms. I’m not confident with the buffing. Most of the instructions I found were of an industrial nature (motorcycles and semi-trucks).

Choosing the cord was easy, as there was only black, white and tan available.

Free Lawn Chair Fixed with Macramé (After)

As for the pattern, I chose something I found in an old book about weaving: Weaving: A Handbook of the Fiber Arts by Shirley Held. The back of the chair is a herringbone twill:

Herringbone Twill

I made a cheat sheet with the pattern and kept track of rows on a separate card. This pattern is made up of four rows that repeat.

O=over, U=under

Row 1: Offset O2, then start the repeating pattern U3, O3

Row 2: Repeat U1, O2

Row 3: Offset U2, then start the repeating pattern O3, U3

Row 4: Repeat U1, O2

I worked from the bottom to the top. However, not all YouTubers agreed on this. Some went from the top down.

The seat of the chair was a pattern called a cord velveret.

Cord Velveret

This pattern is made with six repeating rows:

Row 1: U2, O4

Row 2: O1, U1

Row 3: U1, O1

Row 4: O2, U4

Row 5: U1, O1

Row 6: O2, U4

If you look closely (or maybe not so closely), you can see that I messed up the pattern on the seat. But I made the call: Good enough. Let’s get at least one chair under my belt before the summer’s end!

I was struck by how simple these patterns were and wondered what calculation or principle was behind them. I can copy something. But could I create a repeating pattern from scratch? Learning about the circle of fifths struck me in a similar way. How did anyone ever figure out the pattern? Brian had the same reaction. As I was marveling over these weaving patterns, without my prompting, he also said that it reminded him of the circle of fifths (or the way that I marveled over that too). And then I read this in Held’s book in chapter nine about drafting weaving patterns:

“Drafting has often been compared to musical notation, and in some ways the analogy is accurate. However, unlike the symbols used in music, the shorthand of drafting is not universal… We occasionally hear of great singers or other musicians who cannot read music. Similarly, many experienced weavers can neither read nor write drafts, preferring to design on the loom….”

While this doesn’t quite get at my amazement of how patterns work, the music analogy was close enough to make me think that I was onto something. I just don’t have the words for it. It also makes me wonder if a weaving pattern could be translated into music. What does a reverse twill sound like? Or the other way around. What is Für Elise as a chair? I once saw novels being depicted as colors based on sentence length. It reminds me of that. Unfortunately, I can’t find an example of it.

There are some really cute macramé lawn chair patterns out there. I even saw one with a cow that would be perfect for my mother.

Macramé Lawn Chair Patterns

As for my first chair, I don’t have a good answer to the the question “How long did it take?” Should I count the learning? The redoing? The tears?

I exaggerate. There were no tears. No swearing. Still, while appreciating the free instructions that will get you started on a macramé chair, many gloss over the tricky parts. More than once, my crochet hook went flying across the room with deadly force because I was doing something (I don’t know what) wrong. And despite the claim, the warp (the vertical strings) and the weft (horizontal) are attached differently. It’s not enough to say “It’s just like what you did before.” It isn’t. Many of the instructors I encountered seemed to have forgotten what it’s like to be a beginner. Could it be that some have never actually observed anyone trying to follow their instructions? To be fair, there are the good ones too. And there’s not a room in my house that hasn’t benefited from a DIYer on YouTube. In any case, it took a few different tutorials, all incomplete in their own way, to get a full picture of the steps to weave a macramé lawn chair. Even then, I had to figure out some stuff on my own, like how to deal with a big crochet hook in the corners of the seat. Road signs would have helped. These are the clues you need to check your work. For example:

As you are weaving, you know that you’re ready to start a new row when you see the tail of your string draped over the frame like this:

Note the skein of cord is on the ground and feeds over the arm of the chair. However you set it up, it should remain the same throughout the weaving. Otherwise, it’s a clue that you messed up somewhere (which I did many times!). Compare the above to this:

The cord has yet to be looped over the frame and crocheted in place.

Here we can see the stitch has yet to be complete because it’s pointed away from the center of the chair and it isn’t draped over the top of the frame.

The wonder clips you see were used to pair the threads (2 per knot). For me, it made it easier to count… 1 over, 2 under, etc. And yes. You’re counting sets as opposed to individual threads.

Use Wonder Clips to group string pairs for easier counting

It would’ve also been useful if someone had pointed out that the first set of strings will have three threads per knot instead of two. The confusion caused me to unnecessarily start over. But even after I figured out that this was to be expected, I forgot to account for it when I started my under/over pattern. Half the seat was done before I realized that I’d need to start over. Again, marking this with a Wonder clip eliminated confusion.

Note the knots that have three threads and treat them as a set.

In all of the macramé lawn chair videos that I saw (as opposed to the ones on Danish cord weaving), the chair is finished by cutting the loose ends of the strings short and melting the ends to stop them from fraying. This is a reasonable way to do it. But I suspected that my sister Amy who crochet’s and does macramé would have a better solution and she did. I don’t have pictures of it, but she essentially pulled the loose end behind the first two to three inches of the loops around the frame, being sure to match the colors (i.e., two strings will travel along the white edge and the others along the black). As opposed to letting strings — though cut short — dangle loose, she melted the end as usual and then hid it under the loops. If I do another chair (I have two requests already), I’ll take pictures that show this.

When I showed a picture of a chair to a friend who I don’t think of as being overly sentimental, she admitted to tearing up. For some reason a woven chair touched her. “It’s like bringing back an old art form,” she said. “It’s the best thing you’ve ever done.” I’m not sure about that. But I understand when she says that replacing speaker foam with a frame and some fabric is not as exciting.

I wondered if the chair was good enough to give away.

“Does it still fold shut like a regular lawn chair?” Brian said.

“Yes.”

He sits in it.

“It’s good enough,” he said.

I gave it to my folks, thinking they could use the seating for the July 4 festivities at their house.

French Window Treatments

When I painted the living room I took down the honeycomb blinds that covered the four French windows there and I never put them back. While I contemplated a better solution for these south-facing windows, I used reflective insulation to block the summer heat. It worked great, though it looked terrible. However, once the coverings were removed after the hottest part of the day had passed, the unadorned windows made for a beautiful view.

The windows need cleaning but you get the idea.

After a few seasons of this, I finally got around to covering the insulation with fabric to make them look nicer from the inside. After a few failed attempts, I figured out that my best option would be to staple the insulation to a frame before covering it.

Michael and Bert like to help.

I made similar though much smaller frames to replace the foam on some old speakers with fabric.

Old yucky speaker foam needs replacement but it’s impossible to purchase it.
The guy at the speaker store suggested making a frame and stretching speaker fabric over it. He said to use hot glue to secure it but I didn’t like that idea and wanted to use staples instead. However, the wood I used for the frames wouldn’t take a staple. So, I resorted to using the glue and it worked great.
Staple insulation to frame.

My next problem was designing a washable cover. After some trial and error that made me feel like a monkey involved in some kind of an intelligence experiment (it’s difficult for me to picture things backwards, which must be a requirement of sewing without a pattern), I decided to use four pockets (top, bottom, sides) on the back of the cover to finish the edges and hold it in place.

The top and bottom pockets are deeper than the side pockets. They are placed right sides together with the cover face. One of the narrower side pockets is sewn on top of the top and bottom pockets as shown.

While I hated to resort to using upholstery staples (as they will make it harder to wash the piece), it was the best option for getting a finished look. Staples were also practical since I needed to make one corner of the cover loose in order to fit it to the frame. As for solving that problem, I tried a few different options, including buttons that could be undone to give enough room to stretch all four corners of the cover over the frame.

The second narrow side pocket is sewn to the inside of the bottom pocket: Fold the bottom pocket down and sew the side pocket along the edges.
Stretch the cover over the frame and staple in place.
The “odd” corner that was sewn with the bottom flap open is tucked, folded up and stapled. I wish this were more elegant but it’s the cleanest look I could figure out. The buttonhole you see is left over from a previous idea about how to do this.
When not in use, the covers can be stored behind the radiator. Given some wire, they could also be hung on the wall.
Place the covers inside the windows.

Back when I was using the plain foil insulation to cover the windows, I used blue painter’s tape to secure them. It took me a while to realize that putting the insulation behind the glass eliminated the need for it.

Though the same size, each panel is somewhat different because it took me a few tries to figure out what worked the best. That was a happy day. When I stumbled upon a solution, I felt relieved. It made me realize that while exploring and learning can be fun, it can also be fatiguing to be in the dark for too long. After all of this work, will I have anything I can use?

I like the effect of a big painting at the end of the room. While I like the fabric I chose for this project just fine, I don’t recall choosing it. What was I thinking? In any case, it makes the room feel cool (literally – yes – but I mean psychologically) which will be nice when it gets hot. And now that I have a pattern, changing the fabric should be straight forward. It helps that I documented what I did (e.g,, what fabric, what thread, machine settings, seam allowances, etc.).

This started with a paint job years ago when I couldn’t bring myself to put back the honeycomb blinds that never seemed quite right for these windows. One thing led to another and now here we are. Of course, now I’m thinking, why not curtains?

Window coverings from the outside.

Now that this project is done, I’ve started to do a “reset” and have taken the worktable back out to the garage.

This is the Night, Really Love

My better-late-than-never movie reactions

In addition to straightening up my physical office, this morning I took a minute to organize some digital files. In the process, I found a piece on two movies: This is the Night and Really Love. An updated/finished version of the June 2022 original is below.

I also came across some photos of pumpkins (top), which go even further back. I know this because last year was a bust squash-wise. Still, it was only recently that I used the last of some frozen puree to make pumpkin and black bean soup. I found the bee balm (below) in the same place, in a folder marked “Garden.” So, not so disorganized after all.

This is the Night (2021)

Spoiler Alert: Reading this before you see the movie This is the Night might lesson your enjoyment of discovering the various plot points on your own.

While I liked This is the Night (TITN), a movie written and directed by James DeMonaco, it pained Brian. However, it should be noted that he never nodded off. Not once. And that’s something. Nevertheless, the critics — at least those who bothered to review the movie — appear to be with Brian on this one. They hated it. 

Ignorance might have bolstered my enjoyment of the movie. One, I’m unfamiliar with DeMonaco’s previous work. So, warnings about how this movie is nothing like the Purge series are lost on me. Two, I know Rocky as a cultural phenomenon but I don’t know the movies, let alone Rocky III — the movie that’s at the center of TITN — specifically. In other words, I know the Rocky theme music and could pick out a movie still, assuming that Sylvester Stallone is boxing in it. Finally, I don’t presume to know the creator’s intent.

I know the Rocky theme music and could pick out a movie still, assuming that Sylvester Stallone is boxing in it.

If ever there’s a whiff of a contrived plot or hokey dialogue that points to the same, I will bail within twelve minutes of a Netflix movie. And as not to throw good time after bad, I can easily quit a movie halfway through it. Three-quarters. More. However, though TITN gave me pause at various points, I stuck with it. I’m not sure why. Nor can I find a review that captures it for me.

Where some critics saw a failed tribute to a popular movie, I saw a story where a popular movie served as the backdrop for characters who needed to wage their own fight and who — yes — were inspired by said movie. But it would be wrong to say that this movie was about Rocky, no matter what a superfan might post on a YouTube channel.

The movie was cartoonish and regardless of whether that was the intention, it worked for me. Nevertheless, I had my doubts along the way. For example, we begin with teens splashing around in a public pool, which I loved for the memories it evoked. That I could almost smell the chlorine promised a nostalgic style and the film delivered. But then a stock bully (Steve Lipman) is introduced when he razzes the protagonist, Anthony Dedea (Lucius Hoyos) (one of the protagonists, which I’ll explain later), for wearing a t-shirt in the pool. It’s cheesy. Fine. But the bully’s girlfriend (Madelyn Cline) sticks with him even though she disapproves of his mean behavior. And I have no love for a movie where a supposedly nice woman — even a naïve sixteen-year-old — is hooked up with a jerk just so we can see the part where she realizes that she likes the kind of self-conscious guy who wears his shirt in the pool.

Nevertheless, I stuck with it. Was it because of the way Rafe the Handsome Mailman (Constantine Rousouli) flirted with Anthony’s/“Shirty’s” older brother Christian (Jonah Hauer-King), hinting at a juicy side story that turned out to be much more than that? Was it wondering about whether the family restaurant could be saved? Did I just want to see how the Dedea mother (Naomi Watts) looked as a blonde or whether she would liberate herself from that cranky husband Vincent (Frank Grillo)? Or was it some other basic character-wants-x-will-she-get-it hook? Whatever kept me engaged, there was a definite moment when I decided to roll with it, despite the guy next to me who was sighing with every Rocky reference that went straight over my head.

It happens right after the Dedea family watches Rocky III in the theater. This is where our bully from the pool returns and makes it look like “Shirty” yells out, “Rocky is a pussy!” Now a mob is after the kid, including some out-of-place biker dudes whom DeMonaco must have resurrected from — as it happens — the 1986 Gary Busey film Eye of the Tiger. It’s ridiculous, just as some critics have complained. But then the manager of the movie house appears just in time to whisk the imperiled “Shirty” down a secret hallway and to a back door where he escapes. From that point, for reasons I can’t explain, I was on board. It’s possible that I wrested the wheel from the story’s creator. Either way, I enjoyed the ride.

So, when critics say that the fervor surrounding the premiere of Rocky III is unrealistic, pointing to the ticket lines that wrapped around the building (It’s surprising that no one took issue with the size of the theater. You could have filmed it in my living room.), or that it was laughable when an entire town turned on someone for hurling insults at “the greatest hero of our time,” or that the movie was overly sincere with one critic warning us not to give DeMonaco any credit by taking any of this with a grain of irony, I say phooey. I don’t care how DeMonaco would have me take it. I thought it was funny when the cops kicked “Shirty” and his friends out of the squad car when they realized that he’s the one who questioned — or supposedly questioned — Rocky’s manliness.

And now for an intermission…

… and we’re back!

There would be more cringey parts to come. The worst was when “Shirty’s” mother tells his brother Christian that she knows that he (Christian) is a cross-dresser. In fact, she insists that he put on a dress. She helps him put on a wig… and lipstick… Acceptance? Great. But this was a bit much. Maybe someone could pull off “blurry boundaries” without “incestuous” coming to mind. But this was bad. Cut to gratuitous nightclub scene (Every movie! Come on!) and more blurry boundaries where mom lurks after  dropping off her freshly-out Christian. I suspect that DeMonaco just needed “a moment” to extract an emotional response from his audience. He should have either smoothed over the rough edges of this scene, in which case he would have needed to start with a monster belt sander. Better yet, scrap it and try another approach.

Despite this, I stuck with the movie and discovered that all of these odd little parts — save a few that left even this sympathetic viewer scratching my head — add up to a satisfying and surprising and lovely ending. But wait! This only worked because there were accomplished actors who were able to wring water from a rock. Fine. The battle that the mother has with the father at the end of the movie is worth it. And when you consider that she was standing up for her non-conformist son who likes to wear dresses, it seems to me that Rocky is the perfect backdrop to this movie. And given the shift in the social climate where we are just beginning to see a transgender world, maybe even timely. It’s not a matter of giving anyone too much credit. It’s a matter of what I picked up on, regardless of anyone’s intent.

This brings us back to the idea of the multiple protagonists in this movie. The main character is obviously “Shirty,” right? That is to say Anthony who faces down the enemy and gets the girl. I’m not convinced. Though a small character by comparison, I would argue that it is the father who makes the biggest transformation when Mister That-would-be-stupid finally says yes. Or is it his wife, who finally puts her foot down? Or is it Christian who — at last — comes clean with his dad? I like a movie where you can make the case for multiple characters, even if the writer must choose one. For example, realizing that Troy Dyer (Ethan Hawke) is the protagonist of Reality Bites as opposed to the obvious choice, Lelaina Pierce (Winona Ryder), made the movie better for me. As for who Lelaina “ends up with,” I have strong opinions. But I’ll leave that debate between the generations for another time.

I don’t know if it will be worth it for you to get there, but I have no regrets about spending my time with This is the Night. Nevertheless, this is one case where I won’t be able to convince Brian that he might like this movie if he approached it with the right mindset. And judging from the comments elsewhere on the Internet, he holds the more popular view.

Really Love (2020)

We also didn’t see eye to eye on Really Love, directed by Angel Kristi Williams. I thought critic Roger Moore had it right: “…beautiful people doing beautiful things set to a silky smooth jazz score all do their best to atone for a script seriously thin on originality or conflict,” whereas Brian found a lot more to like about this film. There was something about a realistic evolution of a young romance that he liked, whereas I was bothered from the start. Again, Moore says it best: “They meet at a gallery show. He’s forward, fingering her necklace. She makes a lot of eye contact and allows it.” He also makes note of some “clunky dialog,” quoting the exact phrases that hung me up as well. The writer might have benefited from that belt sander — working up to super fine steel wool — once DeMonaco finished with it.

The ending of Really Love is predictable. It’s also lovely and it almost makes me forget the weird beginning and the glossed over middle where we are to accept without any evidence that there are real barriers to these two lovebirds to be together. I can’t recommend it. However, it is beautiful and it was fine to have on while I untangled some yarn and rolled it up into a ball. It kept my interest in that I wondered if the slow pace of the movie, which was great, was going anywhere. Alas, it was not.

Christmas Trees & Cats Don’t Mix

Happy New Year!

When I woke up this morning and looked out my bedroom window, the frosty tree limbs grabbed my attention. Maybe we should’ve cancelled coffee? Later, I found Brian standing in the middle of the alley looking like a caroling Peanuts character in his trapper hat. Through a crystal canopy that lined the way, he looked toward the golf course.

“It’s quite beautiful,” he said. “A real winter wonderland.”

He was on coffee duty. On Saturday mornings, it’s his job to set up the table and plug in the coffee pot in time to be ready for whoever shows up. When I moved my car to the front – also in preparation for our guests – I ran into Emily and Justin who were on their way over. When Emily stopped to notice the ice crystals that had formed on some dried wild flowers, “Close up!” was a natural thought. Despite the fancy camera and the tripod, these are mediocre snapshots.

Born of the pandemic, we’ve been hosting coffee for just over two years. Here’s what I posted about it in the early days:

“Three weeks ago, Brian Harmon and I bought a coffee urn. On Saturday mornings we’ve been offering coffee to the neighbors on the lawn (or in the garage if it rains). It’s BYOC (bring your own cup). I’ll be curious to see how far into the winter we can go before people quit coming. Or maybe that’s exactly when we’ll need such a thing, when we’re feeling even more cooped up. People have appreciated this (someone just left a medium roast from the Mississippi Market on my porch) and have done a good job of maintaining the proper social distance. We know that sometimes it might be just the two of us because it’s drop-in-if-you-feel-like-it, no RSVP needed. But so far that hasn’t happened. If you ever want to drop in to say hello, feel free. Rain or shine. We will be there.”

Rebekah Smith, Facebook, October 2, 2020

With all eyes on a beautiful sunny day, no one at coffee noticed that my shoes didn’t match. I didn’t catch it until I took them off, prompting me to quiz Brian.

“What’s wrong with this picture?”

Seeing Miss Ruby this morning was a treat. Zipped up in a comfy bag, she and her doll arrived on a Norwegian push sled pushed by her dad. Upon learning that her favorite song is Dancing Queen, Brian brought out the Red Sox Bluetooth speaker, a gift from his sister.

She let me off easy this year. It could have been a bedroom set.

After coffee, Brian usually makes a “rail hand breakfast,” a reference to the eggs and hash browns I used to order pre-pandemic. We haven’t been in a restaurant ever since a server at Pizza Lucé gave us her roller derby card. It was right before the first “safer in place”/lock down mandates. And I remember it feeling eerie sitting at the bar, like “Should we be doing this?”

Thank goodness for my friend Alex. We were discussing a time to meet and he mentioned Zoom, which was unknown to me at the time. “I’d rather meet in person,” I said. He set me straight. Along with the NBA shutting down when Rudy Gobert tested positive for Covid-19, it’s one of my first memories of “Oh, this is serious.” It was odd because I had recently attended a rally for Senator Bernie Sanders who was running for president. There were thousands of people there. I remember seeing one person – just one – with a mask and thinking, “What’s up with that?” The rally was at once exhilarating and foreboding. As the arena, twinkling with magical screens and going round and round and round in feverish waves, I couldn’t help but think: “Should we be doing this?” Now it’s strange to listen to the recordings I made that day. It was the last time since the onset of the pandemic that I have walked up to a random person on the street and said, “Can I ask you a question for my podcast?”

Maybe I’ve lost my nerve.

In addition to making breakfast on Saturdays, Brian names them. Today, he knocked on my office door, cracked it open and announced, “Your ‘Dancing Queen Irish Cream Rail Hand’ is ready.”

We covered “Dancing Queen,” Ruby’s favorite song. As for the Irish Cream, I assure you that coffee in the yard is usually alcohol-free. But it’s New Year’s Eve. So, when I brought out some chocolates, I grabbed a bottle just in case anyone might enjoy “a snort.” Is that how you say that? It’s not something I normally say but I heard it at coffee this morning and thought I’d give it a try.

Speaking of… Dancing Queen.

Speaking of… Irish cream.

Speaking of breakfast… specifically eggs. Do you notice anything funny about this picture?

In one case (the eggshell on the right), the break is clean. In the other case (left), the egg is cracked with cartoon zigzags, like this:

As for Christmas, it was lovely. As Brian has said (and I have repeated too many times), “We’re up to our asses in socks, books and Clinique!” In fact, these words made it into my five-year journal, something I highly recommend that you keep:

Lovely Christmas Day with Brian and cats Michael and Bert. Chicken dinner reminded me of Grandma Choate. “We’re up to our asses in…”

Christmas, 2022 – Five-Year Journal, Rebekah Smith

The journal makes it easy to look back five years per page. For example, the entry above this was:

Brian made a roast for dinner. Nice gifts. Lots of stuff for woodworking. A router. Clamps. Power stapler…

Christmas, 2021 – Five-Year Journal, Rebekah Smith

And above that:

It’s hard to find a podcast that I like. Brian made a rail hand breakfast and we opened presents. He said he missed shopping this year and the Christmas vibe.

Christmas, 2020 – Five-Year Journal, Rebekah Smith

As I sit here right now, my ankles are warm thanks to my new socks and I am grateful.

The big question this year was whether to put up a tree. For the past few years, we’ve been skipping it, partly due to these two clowns:

Now that Michael and Bert are older, I thought maybe they could handle it.

I was wrong.

They cannot handle it.

“No one can see me, right?”

Bert didn’t get interested in the tree until after we decorated it. And then he proceeded to undo it.

Captain Innocent.

It was lovely for about a minute. But now the tree is a mess because I’ve given up on fluffing it up and rearranging the lights every morning. So, I’ll probably take it down sooner than I normally would, which is just as well. Valentine’s Day is late for boughs of holly.

We were supposed to look at cross country skis today. Maybe tomorrow? Tonight, there will be a movie because my friend Craig insisted that I watch The Glass Onion. The coffee crowd agreed. We’re guaranteed to love it. Good. The last movie that Brian and I watched together was The Vanishing. As a palate cleanser afterwards, we went to Tom Papa. It was a good movie (I think). But it was intense. Tragic. Sad. Disturbing. Usually, my kind of movie. Not so much Brian. We still haven’t talked about it. Not much. Brian called it a story about breaking from procedures. Initially I saw it about – not greed exactly – but shifting morality. Pivotal escalating choices. However, the more I think about it, the more I like Brian’s perspective.

At coffee, Ralph said that he was in a Quaker group that would bring in the New Year with a meditation. From 11:30 p.m. until midnight, they would sit together in silence, except for the ticking of a thousand clocks. None of them synced. Insert smiley face here.

So, that’s the report, as disjointed as it might be.

Happy 2023.

Rebekah

Broken Mop Handle

In yet another installment of “There, I fixed it!” we have a mop handle repair.

The handle came in two pieces that were screwed together with plastic threads on the inside of the rod. At least that’s how I remember it. Initially, I put a Band-Aid on the inside of the wider piece to add some grip and tension. It worked but required periodic attention. I can’t vouch for my current solution. However, five minutes after the repair it’s rock solid. As before, I padded the inside of the wider rod. This time I used a dab of tape that Brian bought for his tennis racket. I tapped the rods into place with a mallet. Then I covered the seam with more tape. Finally, I added a hose clamp. I wanted this mop to know that I meant business!

As with most projects like these, it required a stop at YouTube. While I had the inspiration to use a hose clamp, I didn’t actually know how these clamps worked. Now that I see how turning the screw feeds the band through a slot and tightens it, once again I’m in awe of tools. Sometimes I can be in the garage and screwing two boards together when – for a flash – I’m aware of how amazing it is that we live in a world were there are screws and screw drivers and electric drills… The history of joinery must be fasten-ating!

Fascinating. I never thought of that. To fasten. To fascinate. To hold. To hold one’s attention. To grip. The two words must be related, right?

In other YouTube news, I found instructions for making a jig so that I can make straight and uniform cross cuts with my circular saw. I’ve gotten by in the past but I want to build on my skills and make cleaner more precise cuts. The guy in the video puts the thing together in a few minutes. It took me two days (albeit not full days!) and three trips to the hardware store to get it right. I enjoyed figuring it out. At the same time, these days I feel nagged by other chores and projects that are always lurking in the background. I miss getting lost in a project where nothing else exists.

So, did the jig work. Yes!

As I was assembling, disassembling and reassembling my jig, a scene from Sex in the City kept looping through my head. In it, Miranda who is obviously pregnant is buying a wedding dress. When the store clerk suggests white she says, “The jig is up!” But it’s only now that I’m thinking about what it means. Would you hear “The jig is up!” in a factory. Like “order up”? Then maybe it came to mean that I recognize your pattern (a pattern of deceit?) and you can no longer fool me?

It was a nice theory, but it would appear that I’m wrong. After a quick search, most sources, including a second-hand account of what the OED has to say on the matter, attribute the phrase to an Elizabethan dance, the jig. “The dance is up!” In addition, jig also came to mean a trick or a practical joke. In other words, “The jig is up! Your trick has been exposed!”

Sometimes I think it would be fun to dedicate a YouTube channel to me following the directions for all manner of things I find on other channels. How to make fresh noodles. How to tie a quilt. How to remove a broken screw. But alas, it might lurk in the background along with the garage door that needs painting, the weeds that need pulling, rebooting a podcast that has been dormant, and outlining my next book.

I hope you are amazed by something today. Something simple. At least for a flash. And I hope that whatever you are doing, you can enjoy it fully. Those other things can wait their turn.

There, I fixed it.

It has been a long time since my friend Paul introduced me to a website that featured DIY plugger repairs. “There, I fixed it,” perfectly summed up the eyeglasses that were held together with zip ties or the mirror that was taped to a car. My latest low-budget solution indeed made me yell those words out loud. I solved a problem that had arose from the solution for a different problem, which in turn gave me an idea for a future episode of my long-dormant podcast, QuOTeD – The Question of the Day.

It only took 14 years of living in this house to realize that the door on the dryer is reversible. Making the switch would mean that I could transfer clothes from the washer to the dryer without the door blocking me. However, one improvement exposed the need for another one. The dryer isn’t level. Now the door swings closed from a resting state. It might be worse than the original problem was. The solution is to level the dryer. But until I get around to it, I’m using a magnet to hold the door open. It’s taped to a random wire that will be removed – again – when I get to it.

Hold dryer door open with magnet.
There’s a magnet buried in the blue tape.

In more fix-it news, I made some updates to the various websites that I manage. Had I been pinged by the social scientists who are collecting happiness data, it would have been a low point for me. But I don’t think it was the task itself that I hated. It was having to do it instead of something else. In fact, I might have preferred to troubleshoot websites over putting up the apples from my neighbor’s tree. In this case, any unhappiness I might have been feeling didn’t stem from a specific task, annoying that it might have been. But it was about the perceived or real pressure to do more than can be done in a day. I suppose one lesson here is to ignore the dire messages to make software upgrades until you can put it on the schedule. In the meantime, find your happiness in crossing your fingers and trusting that it’ll be fine.

Taking a walk this morning, Brian and I stumbled upon another swell fix-it job.

Cheap landlord or ingenious solution?

It’s nice when things fix themselves. I was late planting my garden this spring and on top of that, it appeared that I had planted some non-producing beans – if that’s such a thing. But then one day I was working in my yard and saw green beans hanging from the top of the arbor.

Nature doing its thing.

I wish the environment could fix itself on a timeline conducive to supporting life as we know it. Regardless, I’m still heartened by the bees that make the yard hum.

Bees go wild for the chives and sedum that line the back walk.
Chives and sedum make a pretty mix.

If only I would fix the compost, maybe Brian wouldn’t cringe whenever I hand him a bucket to empty. It’s pretty wild back there.

Can you spot the compost bin in this jungle?
You’ll have to fight the raspberries to get to it!

There’s a lot yet to fix around here. But it’s important to remember to stop and take pictures of the flowers.

As for my question, given that it took me over a decade to make a simple improvement – reversing the swing on the dryer door – I’m wondering if others have such projects. Are there easy home improvements or repairs that you put off doing until, for reasons you might not fully understand, you woke up and decided today is the day. You tackle a task only to wonder: What took me so long?

Not Bored but Maybe Boring

Brian groaned when he realized the purpose of our post-lunch errand. Nevertheless, he was relieved to find out that my haul would fit into a grocery bag. In other words, it wasn’t another chair.

I love my recent acquisitions, two paintings I found on FreeCycle. The first is a sunset – or a sunrise? – that I see as I turn around to face the hallway at the top of the stairs.

The second is a place that feels familiar, though I’ve never been there.

If you ask me what I’ve been up to, this is what I’ll tell you. I hung up two paintings the same day I got them. If there’s time and you seem interested, we could talk about how something as simple as a free painting can lift a person’s spirits or how these random paintings about which I felt lukewarm belong here. For the person who gave them away, these paintings were clutter or reminiscent of a time best forgotten or just ugly. Or maybe it was painful to give away her mother’s art that was collected over the span of a childhood? But she’s moving to Denver. Starting over after a messy divorce. No room. Downsize, like it or not. Or maybe she read Marie Kondo’s book and said, “These colors don’t spark joy! Get them out!”

Maybe.

Maybe.

Maybe.

Or I might tell you about how I’ve been replacing the boards on my deck and how being done with hauling 16-footers on top of my car (after hours of picking through them at the warehouse, ugh!) is a cause for celebration, even though there’s still more to do.

Or – being of limited skills in the way of needle arts – how I cannot believe that I managed to recover four patio chairs using my consumer-end sewing machine. It was tricky but not as hard as sewing a patch on some old jeans.

It’s an out-of-body experience to look at a finished product (mostly finished, I might add some buttons but I’m counting it as not to despair). It’s the same feeling I get whenever I see the door at the top of the stairs. It was caked with layers of brittle paint and it was a huge job to repaint it. The ceiling in the dining room. The office I’m sitting in right now used to be Pepto Bismol pink. These are good things to remember when you’re in the middle of a never-ending project like when there are still boards to cut, clamp and screw down to the framing of the deck. With every swing of the hammer, I wonder “Am I about to ruin my house?”

“I’m not bored but I might be boring.”

That’s what I told my mother when we were catching up this morning. She called just as she was sitting down with a fresh cup of coffee and just as I was about to do the same.

Boring is no badge of honor anymore than eschewing television makes you better than me. I would welcome adventure. But it’s still cool to take pleasure in second-hand art and to think, “Perfect! I love it.” And then to put away the drill that has a place because you’ve already done the boring task of organizing your tools, which didn’t bore you at all.

Bert claiming the materials to make the seat cushions. He loved the plastic mesh that I was able to reuse after reinforcing it with fabric.
“You’re not going to throw out these filthy cushions are you?”

I did document the patio chair project and keep meaning to post some tips, if not for the random person who might find it useful (Spoiler alert: pockets, as in shams, instead of zippers), then for me. Because it’s already starting to feel like someone else must have done it and I’m not sure I could do it again.

Muffins au Débris

My sister Amy doesn’t care for nuts and raisins in her baked goods. As she once put it, “What’s this debris doing in my food?” If she were in The Cities now, I’d put this muffin to the test to see if it could persuade her to come over to the other side. It’s a variation on the recipe for bran muffins in The America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook. Fresh out of the oven these were dense and moist with the crunchy top that makes a muffin a muffin. I took a chance and cut the refined sugar completely. I liked it. But if you have a serious sweet tooth, you might miss it.

The Recipe

In a small saucepan on low heat, melt

4 tablespoons unsalted butter

In medium bowl, soak for at least 10 minutes:

1 cup of unprocessed wheat bran

with

1 ¼ cups of buttermilk *

In the measuring cup you just used for the buttermilk, crack

1 egg

Set the egg aside in the refrigerator so that Bert doesn’t get any big ideas about jumping on the counter and licking it.

Grate and set aside

3 large carrots (a little more than 1 cup)

Chop

Almonds, pecans or walnuts to make about 1 ¼ cups

To the nuts you just chopped, add and set aside

¼ cup sunflower seeds

Check your butter. If it’s done melting, turn off the burner.

In the meantime, in a larger bowl whisk:

2 cups whole wheat flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoons cinnamon

Is the butter melted? Good. Turn off the burner and let it cool.

To the bran-buttermilk mixture mix in

1 cup raisins

1 cup unsweetened applesauce

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

<¼ cup honey, maybe ⅛?

The cooled but still melted butter

The egg from the fridge

The grated carrots

The nuts

Fold together the bran-buttermilk mixture (with the debris) with the flour and other dry ingredients. Scoop batter into well-greased muffin tins. Bake at 375˚ for 20-25 minutes.

* Buttermilk substitute

In general, add 1 TBS lemon juice to measuring cup. Fill with milk to make 1 C.

For the 1 ¼ cups of buttermilk in this recipe, add 1 TBS + ¾ TSP of lemon juice to measuring cup and fill with milk to make 1 ¼ cups.

For a double batch, add 2 TBS + 1 ½ TSP of lemon juice to measuring cup and fill with milk to make 2 ½ cups.

Alternatives

The original recipe uses white flour. In one test, I used half white and half wheat. I thought 100% wheat worked fine. It also called for molasses, which I replaced with honey because that’s what I had. I also didn’t measure it, because that’s just another dish to wash. Let’s call it ⅛ cup. Also, in the version here, I replaced the brown sugar called for in the original recipe with grated carrots. I was somewhat worried about the water content of the carrots, but decided not to drain them. In a previous test, I added 1 cup of chopped pecans (no sunflowers added). That was good. Here the combination of almonds and sunflowers worked. Again, it’s what was around. A version with coconut flakes would probably be good. I tested a cookie version of this. That seemed to work. It’s like having the top of the muffin without the bottom. I’m still curious to know if you could put this in a bunt pan for something pretty.

Nutrition

Here’s the nutrition information according to VeryWellFit.com.

Compare that to the original recipe with the white flour, molasses, brown sugar and without the nuts:

Here’s how these bran muffin recipes compare to a Lemon-blueberry muffin from the same cookbook:

The Lemon-blueberry muffins include 3 cups of white flour, 1 cup sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, low-fat yogurt, 2 eggs, 8 tablespoons of butter, lemon zest and 1 cup of blueberries.

In the end, though I do love this recipe, I doubt this is the kind of “gateway debris” that might convince someone who has always hated raisins to give them another try.

It’s just sewing.

In the past, whenever someone came over to visit and we sat on the deck, I’d throw an old sheet over one of the patio chairs that have seen better days. This was going to be the year to address the problem. We should have replaced the cushions a long time ago when Steve offered to make them at cost. He wanted to return a favor, if you can call being patient a favor.

We first met Steve Cone when we hired him to reupholster the old chair that Brian had inherited forty years ago during his time at Rural Sociology at the U of M. While it was supposed to take weeks to fix the chair, due to extenuating circumstances, the initial deadline was blown by several months. We didn’t care. As long as our dusty chair with its springs that dragged on the floor sat in Steve’s shop, it wasn’t in the living room. Mission accomplished, as far as I was concerned. There was no favor to return. But Steve insisted on giving us the deal.

“It’s just sewing,” he said.

It made me think that a person in his line of work must be accustomed to fussing or downright difficult clients.

Steve was a rock star in the world of upholstery and I feel lucky to have crossed paths with him when I had the chance. Recently, when a salesperson at A-1 Foam recommended his book, Singer Upholstery Basics Plus: Complete Step-by-Step Photo Guide, she said “People have started businesses based on what they learned in that book.” I couldn’t help myself and had to make it known that we too had met the man and knew of his greatness. What I didn’t say was that I have good memories of how easy it was to chat with Steve and I feel strangely proud that he felt the same way about me.

Maybe he made everyone feel that way, which would have been another testament to his greatness.

As he went over the numbers for the patio chairs, Steve said that he could reuse the fabric on the back of the cushion, which was this light gray plastic weave that’s used for sling chairs. I wasn’t so sure I liked that idea. I was sick of these awful cushions and I wanted something new. Wasn’t that the point? Whatever we decided, before he could do the job, Steve would need some time to give his hands a chance to rest. In a couple of months, I was supposed to call him to get on the schedule. Then time got away from me, as it always seems to do. When the Christmas card I sent to Steve was returned in the mail, I had a sinking feeling that too much time had slipped away. And I was right. At the age of 71, Steve had a heart attack and died.

He missed the first pandemic shutdown by just a month or so. He also would have missed the last party we had before the coronavirus took over the world. If only we had invited him…

It was a stupid calculation. On the one hand, I could see him at the table. On the other hand, it was early on in the dinner party experiments that Brian and I were planning for the year… So, maybe we should stick with people who we knew would roll with it regardless of whether a silly little game worked as planned or whether anyone had anything insightful to say about the topic at hand or whether the evening went south in some other unexpected way. We would invite Steve once we figured out what could help keep things interesting yet comfortable enough amongst a group that didn’t necessarily know each other very well. In the meantime, there’s no need to torture anyone or to look foolish so early on in what I had hoped would become a friendship. Had I to do it over again… would’ve, could’ve, should’ve… I should’ve trusted that Steve could’ve rolled with it and it would’ve been fine.

So, back to square one with the chairs. “Send photos!” a handful of upholsterers said.

We bought this secondhand patio set fourteen years ago. That pattern strikes me as 80’s but I’m not sure.

So far, there has been one response, not counting a prompt response from Repair Lair that doesn’t do upholstery even though It’s just sewing.:

Rebekah,

These cushions are pretty complicated and definitely beyond my sewing skills….

S*

At another place, we were warned to be prepared for how expensive cushions can be: “The stuff made in the factory is cheap. So, when you have them custom made, they’re going to cost you more than what you paid for the entire set.” In addition to that, a backlog of work meant that it would take weeks just to get an estimate.

Next stop: A big box store where they stock bolts of fabric so that a person can walk out with a yard. Probably inspired by watching too many YouTube videos, I would try to repair the cushions myself and I needed supplies to experiment. Whether my consumer-end sewing machine was up for the task was just “part of the discovery process,” as Brian likes to put it.

So far, so good.

Bert approves of the newly recovered chair, though he was also happy to claim the dirty naked Dacron that’s been sitting on the floor by the front door for the last few weeks.

In an upcoming post, I’ll describe what I did to deal with the worn parts of fabric that I reused on the backside of the cushion (I came to appreciate Steve’s suggestion to reuse the fabric and have noticed that upholsters in general take pride in keeping what’s salvageable), explain how I got around installing a zipper (and why I wanted to avoid it), and let you know how I ultimately finished this cushion. For now, I have discovered enough to know that what I’m trying to do is possible. As for the frames of the chairs, eventually I’ll repaint them.

In case you forgot, here’s a before and an almost-done after.

Steve has been on my mind as I’ve been working on this project. I’m on shaky ground, as I am not a sewer. Just cutting into the fabric feels scary. So, telling myself, “It’s just sewing,” can be helpful whenever I get stuck.

Steve Cone and Brian who is sitting in the newly reupholstered chair that Steve just delivered.
The chair Steve Cone recovered for us.

Organizing Screws, Nails, etc.

In the summer of 2020, I spent some time organizing the garage. This included facing the yogurt containers full of miscellaneous screws, nails, paperclips and the random cafe curtain ring. It was a tiresome task that used up my allotment of decision-making power for the day. Nevertheless, it felt good to do it. Tidying up always gives me a sense of accomplishment. And it’s particularly satisfying when I can benefit from my effort down the road, as I recently did.

I was, once again, organizing the garage and needed some really short screws that could be used to attach container lids to the bottom of a shelf. At first, it was looking like a trip to the hardware store was in order. But then I remembered that not only did I save some random screws, I organized them in such a way that they could be useful.

In one case, I used scraps of foil insulation to further divide the drawers in the hardware organizer that I was using. Other materials like a piece of thin cardboard would also work. Take a strip that is the width of and a bit longer than the drawer. Make a crease for however many dividers you want, being careful that the resulting divider doesn’t exceed the height of the drawer. Pinch. Staple. Insert.

Here’s a picture where you can see how two different types of nails are separated within the same drawer:

In another case, where I had a handful of onesies and twosies, I punched the screws through a scrap of foil insulation. This keeps them together nicely.

Then you can just put these little sheet of screws in a drawer:

As for why I wanted to screw container lids to the bottom of a shelf: more storage.

Ironically, as I was tidying up this year, I found three – count ’em! three! – yogurt containers full of random hardware.

Ugh!