The Mane Story: A Hairy Tale (get it?)

I'm sure I've told you that my husband is an environmental activist, yes?  Well, technically, he's a high school math and science teacher, but he's also what I like to (affectionately, most of the time) call an Enviro-Nazi.  One day, he told me about the chemicals in cosmetics and it disturbed me, though, as an educated and discerning consumer, I really should have known better.

On top of that, I have been steadily (and, for the most part, quietly) mounting a rebellion against the commercialization of our society (I won't say that I outright boycotted Christmas this year, but dang, I came close)(I have no problem with the *spirit* of Christmas, but to my disgust, the stupid displays were up in the store windows A WEEK BEFORE HALLOWEEN, this year).  At the risk of sounding like a complete hippy/mountain-top-hermit/recluse/grinch/scrooge, I don't just don't like the fact that I have to pay for so much "stuff" just because everyone else thinks I should.  Cosmetics have always topped my list of "Awww man, do I really have to pay for that?"

So sometime last fall, I decided to phase out the use of shampoo and conditioner here at our house.  My husband shaves his head (so he obviously doesn't need much beyond a gentle soap for his noggin) and I've been growing out my hair for about 18 months, which has changed some of its characteristics and needs.

When it was shorter, I straightened it on a regular basis, because it's a little wild and crazy.  Now that it's longer, it behaves much better and I realize that I miss having long hair (it was down past my waist for most of the first 17 years of my life, until I chopped it all off).

So, how's the no-shampoo campaign going?  Pretty well.  You wanna know how I went about it?  Ok, I'll tell you:

First of all, it's important to know that my hair is very healthy.  I was blessed in that department and I've made it a point to take care of it.  I've never treated it or scorched it.  As a result, it always responds well to change.  Your mileage may vary.

The first step was to start weaning my hair off washings.  When it was short, I had to wash it once a day.  As it started growing out, I was able to bring it down to every two days almost immediately and then slowly worked my way down to once every 4 or 5 days.  At this point, I was still using shampoo and conditioner, but the idea was to see if I could reduce my scalp's dependence on chemicals and make the process more seamless.

In October, I ran out of conditioner so one evening, I looked online and found out that you can use apple cider vinegar as conditioner.  So I tried it and wow, it really works.  The smell can be strong if you're sensitive to fragrances (which I am), but I personally don't find it unpleasant.  I was a little concerned about smelling like fermenting apples at work, though.  That's when I figured I would try something my yoga teacher uses on yoga mats to freshen them up: a spray bottle with a water and essential oil mixture.  Ruth uses red thyme, lemon balm and lavender but they're a little overpowering, so I stuck with lavender and then found a really fabulous cinnamon/cassia oil at my health food store and I've been using that, in combination with ylang ylang and tea tree oils.  Sometimes I use sweet orange oil instead, to jazz things up.  I make up a very small batch at a time (single use, really) so that the oils don't do weird things in the bottle while I have my back turned (I have no proof that they do, but I'm not taking any chances that I'll spray my hair one day and find out the hard way an hour later that something went rancid on me).  Just about 1/4 cup of water with 10 drops of oil or so.  I spray any excess on my sheets and pillow (makes for sweet dreams).

At this point, I hadn't shampooed my hair in a couple of weeks.  And no conditioner for 6 or 8 weeks.

Once I had the shampoo/apple cider vinegar routine down to once per week (beginning of November-ish), I started adding in "shampooings" of baking soda.  This was all trial-and-error, you understand: there were a couple of mornings when it looked downright awful and I just had to cave in and shampoo it.  I realize now that you have to pay more attention to the span between washings than I did.  And I also had to play with the concentrations of ingredients.  But there are no hair-washing police and no-one cares what happens in my shower (I hope).  There are a lot of variables in a person's life that might affect how their skin/hair/teeth respond to the elements and it's ok if things need a helping hand.

Now, I'm at one baking soda/apple cider vinegar washing per week (Saturday morning), with a water rinse every couple of days and a water/oil spray when I feel that it needs a freshening.  But the odd thing is that it doesn't smell.  Of course, I can't smell my own scalp, but my husband is honest to the point of being aggravating, so I trust him to tell me if I start to get gross.  So far, so good.  I haven't so much as touched the shampoo bottle in 6 weeks or so.

And the biggest surprise?  The texture.  I am not sure how to explain it.  It's not greasy, even when I suspect that it is.  I would say that it's more waxy than oily.  It is smooth and heavy and thick, but not limp.  I haven't gotten a trim since sometime last winter, yet I have no split ends.  It is less frizzy than before (oh, I just love that - it feels like I'm sticking it to the conditioner manufacturers of the world).  It has always been open to the suggestion of curl, but now it has reached a whole 'nother level:

I took this photo this morning.  I tip my hat to those who take nice mirror self-portraits.  That shit is HARD.

Those ringlets?  I created those about 3 minutes before I took the photo - just by twirling them around my finger.  Those waves last all day.  I've had a couple of crazy frizzy/dry/wild days, but when they come up (and they come up because it's wintertime and I'm still working out my routine/technique/concentrations of ingredients), I use a teeny little bit of Burt's Bees Hand Salve that we have on hand.  I rub it on my hands and then carefully run my fingers through my hair.  It works like a charm.

Here's the rub: one thing I've had to adapt to is the need to carefully comb/brush my hair and fasten it before bed.  I did that for most of my childhood, so it's not a hardship, but I haven't done it in 16 years (EGADS, has it really been that long?), so I was out of practice.  My hair doesn't have that same slick texture it once had (which is probably why it retains curl so much better) and it tangles a bit more easily.  I want to prevent bed head so that I can avoid washing/rinsing it in the morning.  I don't like going to work with wet hair (and I've never been big on blow drying), so washing it in the morning is not my favourite.  I tie it up, either in french braids or in little buns (the buns have a nicer effect on my waves) and then hit the sheets:

{I haven't figured out a great way to keep this stuff handy in the bathroom.  I use a glass mason jar for the baking soda mix (this is a disaster waiting to happen, I know... when I drop it and cut myself on the shards, you can smugly call me an idiot and I won't protest) and large plastic jug for the vinegar mix.  But that's a little unwieldy and I'm on the lookout for more convenient tools.  If anyone has any ideas, I'm all ears.}

Anyway, it's been a really interesting experiment and now that this particular ball is rolling, I'm looking at other ways to phase out chemicals in my life.  I still take guilty pleasure in washing my tub with Comet (baking soda wasn't cutting it, sorry), but I have just about every other cleaning product in my sights.  Mwahahahahaha!

Take THAT, huge retailers bent on taking over the World!

Step One:

Notice that you seem to be experiencing a pillowcase deficit in your home.

Step Two:

Stop in at a Big Box Store (a.k.a.: Ugh) the next time you are in town to see what they are offering.

Step Three:

Walk over to the linen department, find what you are looking for and hunt down the price tag.

Step Four:

Pick your jaw up off the floor.

(SERIOUSLY?  $40 for two pillowcases?  COTTON pillowcases? SINCE WHEN???)

Step Five:

Turn around and storm out of the store, muttering "No, no, no, no, no, no.  NO.  Just no." under your breath.

Step Six:

Drive home, thanking Heaven the entire way that your mother/grandmother/aunt/the internet taught you how to sew, and find some old flat sheets in the linen closet that you are currently not using - preferably the ones you bought at that garage sale for $1 each.

Step Seven:

Iron them.

Step Eight:

Using an older pillowcase as a template, cut out 8 rectangular pillow-sized pieces, match them into pairs (with right sides facing), sew three sides of each pair together, hem the openings and pop them right-side-out.

Step Nine:

Do a little victory shimmy, à la football touchdown booty shake, and sing "Oh no, you are NOT gettin' my money, SUCKAS!"

Step Ten:

Take a photo and blog about it, just because.

Bookcase

Feeling a little under the weather, this week.  Decided to stay home today to see if I can get a handle on this bug that is desperately trying to drag me into the gutter (get off me, you stoopid microbe).  Am currently sitting in bed with canine companions (they have commandeered all the space, by the way...I'm just squeezed in here, all pretense that I hold any authority over them has evaporated)(Maggie is trying to simultaneously flatten my kneecap and push my laptop to the floor with her head).  I figured I would take the opportunity presented to me by my viral hitch-hiker and clean out my computer's folders between naps.  Boring, I know, but my standards for distraction are low at the moment.

And hey, guess what?  While tidying my laptop up, I came across a goodie that I meant to post here and had forgotten all about!  Yay!

So without further ado, I present to you the following tutorial from the archive (this was originally published in Volume Two of Creative Humans):

The One-Sheet-of-Plywood Bookcase

Just after graduating from college, I got a job working for an architect from Europe who had just finished building his own home (our office was actually in the attic).  One of the things I learned from him was the knack of taking  simple, easy-to-source materials and turning them into functional and attractive objects. Their house was filled with ingenious little touches of innovation, most of which was DIY and all of which was affordable.

This “one-sheet-of-plywood” bookcase was his idea:

Materials:

*A note on plywood:

The quality of plywood can vary greatly, from supplier-to-supplier.  It can be very disappointing to spend hours on a project like this and then discover that there are gaps in the layers or imperfections in the veneer.  Do yourself a favor and take the time to source a nice, evenly-finished piece, with thick layers (a sheet should have no more than 7 smooth plies and the thicker the veneer, the better).

-       1 sheet (4’ x 8’) of birch or maple-veneered 3/4” plywood

-       1-1/2” long size 8 wood screws (min. 30 of them)

-       “finishing washers” for size 8 screws (min. 15 of them) – these are also sometimes called “cup washers”

-       1/2” long size 8 wood screws (min. 55 of them)

-       3/4” x 3/4” x 3/4” 90° metal braces (if you look in the assembly photos, you’ll see what these look like – they’re going to hold the shelves in place)

-       cabinet/furniture legs (check out the Besta legs, at Ikea – I don’t have access to Ikea, so I can’t confirm how they’re made…you’ll have to investigate your options carefully in order to be sure that they’ll work)

-       1 quart of clear, acrylic polyurethane, in satin finish

-       1 foam brush or other suitable applicator for the polyurethane

-       an electric drill

-       a size 8 screwdriver bit for the drill

-       a drill bit suitable for drilling pilot holes for the size 8 screws (a 3/32” drill bit should be fine)

-       sandpaper (220 grit)

-       a table saw, if your hardware store can not cut the plywood for you

-       a pencil

-       a ruler

-       a measuring tape

-       some masking tape or labels to identify your pieces

Preparation Instructions

Most hardware stores offer a cutting service (they may charge a small fee per cut, which is totally worth it) when you purchase lumber from them.  Have them carry the sheet of plywood over to the saw for you (remember: you break it, you buy it) and give them the following cutting diagrams:

Step one:

Cut the long pieces and label the first two, using the pencil and masking tape.  One will be the top and one will be the bottom.  The skinny little strip (colored in gray in the diagram) is waste  - you can discard it.

Step two:

Take the remaining two lengths of wood and cut them like so:

Label them, using the pencil and masking tape.  The little piece of waste wood may be discarded.

*Note:  Don’t cut your pieces in 24” increments, even though logic would tell you that it’s a good idea.  The saw blade “eats up” some wood, so if you stick with the dimensions shown, everything will be modular and therefore, will fit together.

Once everything is cut, you will have a nice collection of pieces, ready to pack into your car and take home.  You do not need to be driving a truck or an SUV in order to get them home – I’ve done this several times in my hatchback.  Just fold the passenger and back seats down and slide the pieces in.  Have a backup plan in case it doesn’t work, but don’t sweat it – there are many ways to get these puppies home.

The next step involves finishing your pieces individually, prior to assembling everything.  Follow the instructions on your polyurethane, which usually call for applying 2 to 3 coats, sanding before and between coats, and permitting the pieces to dry adequately.

Assembly Instructions

 The first step in the assembly process is to make a box, using the top, bottom and 2 gable pieces.  The top piece will rest ON TOP OF the gables and the bottom piece will be attached UNDER the gables.  All the gables are the same height, so if you attach the gables to the ends of the top and bottom, you will have a problem – the intermediate gables won’t fit!

You need to carefully identify (in the top and bottom pieces), where the screws will go and drill pilot holes.  Use the ruler and pencil for marking the holes and don’t press hard.

Each gable gets 6 screws – 3 through the top piece (with finishing washers) and 3 through the bottom.  Use the 1-1/2” long screws for this.  Obviously, the bottom screws will be concealed, so there’s no need to use finishing washers with them.

Mark the placement for and install the three intermediate gables.  Here is your gable layout:

*Note: Because this here pattern is intended to use only one full sheet of plywood, you will notice that we are missing a shelf.  That is ok, we will leave one compartment smaller than the others and it will remain shelf-less.

This is what the top of the unit will look like (the bottom will look virtually the same – just without the finishing washers):

 The next step is to attach the shelves:

Using the 3/4” x 3/4” x 3/4” braces, screw the shelves into the bookcase (use the 1/2” long screws, here).  Make sure you also screw up into the bottom of each brace, or your shelves will be wobbly and likely shift around:

Once the shelves are in, your only remaining task is to find legs for the unit (or some other imaginative way to elevate the bookcase off the floor, like a plinth made of scrap lumber, bricks, etc).  Follow the leg manufacturer’s instructions, keeping in mind that you only have 3/4” of plywood to “bite” into and install at least 6 of them in order to get a good, stable base.  

Once you’ve made one of these, you’ll find that it becomes addictive.  Why not make the next one with sliding doors?  Or mount it to the wall, so it floats above the floor?  This first bookcase is really just a gateway bookcase…next thing you know, you’ll be whipping together coffee tables on casters, desks, TV stands, you name it! *

*Trust me on this; my house is filled to the gills with birch plywood furniture.

On the off-chance you thought it was all-knitting-all-the-time around here

I have proof that I have been doing Things Other Than Knitting:

It's a new bathmat, made from old t-shirts we've been collecting for a few years.  We seem to developing a habit of making stuff out of my husband's old clothes...

A Post For Helena

Don't mind me, I just need a place to post a diagram and notes I'm helping a (Portugese!) friend out with.  I'm too cheap to pay $5 so that I can upload photos to Ravelry's forums.  We're designing Seamless Hybrid Sweaters for ourselves and this is her first time, so this is for her:

Does this make sense, Helena (click on it to see it bigger)?  When you send me the other measurements I need (see my notes on Ravelry), I'll add them to this.

Dust, begone

I have two Labrador Retrievers.  Who consider it their duty to shed.  A duty which they take very seriously.  No, really.  It's everywhere (even in places I can't mention in polite society).

Something had to be done.

I had an old pair of wool pants that had pretty much kicked the bucket and had been hanging on to them for a while in the hopes that I could salvage some of the fabric.

I cut the legs off (they had worn out in the *ahem* crotch area), and trimmed them into nice, square-angled rectangles.  Then I lined them up at the hems and sewed up the sides and at the top.

I topstitched all the way around and then pleated the top (and topstitched the pleats in place) in two spots near the middle.  Then I added two narrow straps and velcro:

...and made myself a sewing machine cover.

And then, because my old pincushion died (and more importantly, because sewing with this gray-and-coral combo is a slippery slope - consider yourselves warned), I made myself a new one.

It goes on around the whatchamacallit (the vertical part of the machine - you know what I mean, right?) and the little elastic/toggle combo keeps it snug.

Only, I discovered that I had no batting to stuff it with, so I spent 20 minutes tearing the house apart trying to find something suitable and guess what!  Yarn.  That's what I used.  And guess what!  It's the best little pincushion I've ever had.  Who knew?

(Sorry for the lack of step-by-step instructions.  I didn't think that any of this would actually work, so I neglected to take any photos or even measure anything.  Because I'm a bad person.  But I'll make it up to - if there's enough interest, I'll do up a pattern for both items, k?)

Whoopdee doo

It's not immediately clear what is going with the weather, but - unrelenting rain, notwithstanding -  I'm pretty sure it's winter.

I took all of our usual gear out of storage a couple of months ago (and actually weeded out the duds - and got rid of old handknits)(!).  The problem is, we don't have a storage solution for it.  I am short, so a high-up shelf is no good.  My husband is very tall, so a low-down solution doesn't work.

(He also has what we have dubbed "man eyes" - that's the inability to properly see the contents of the fridge and other hard-to-reach places.  It is caused not by the loss of sight, but rather laziness.  I have observed that this particular affliction tends to affect men as opposed to women.)

So, what to do?  I don't have any room, it can't be low, it can't be high.  It has to be close to the door, otherwise it won't get used.

Also, it had to be buildable (we don't have an Ikea - not unless we want to drive 15 hours to the nearest one).

My solution:

That's right: slap up some metal standards and brackets, paint some 1x6 trim and slap them in there.  Phew, that's high design, right there.

Lame, I know.  But what can I say?  It's working.

The Greenhouse Effect

Sorry for the cheesy post title.  Channeling the Big Bang Theory (which I just discovered {what?  I don't own a television, remember?  I don't hear about new shows until they aren't new anymore...} and am totally IN LOVE WITH).

But really.  I did make a greenhouse this weekend.  A mini one.  Why?  Well, because we are still in the death grip of winter, apparently.  And I want to grow stuff, dammit.

So, here's what I did:

I took one of my new 4' x 4' cutie pie little raised beds/boxes...

 I got out my tools and supplies, which include:

• a roll of 6 mil poly vapour barrier, left over from some home improvement project (those are never-ending around here, so we always have this stuff on hand...it's a curse, really)
• 18 feet of 3/4" dia. pex piping
• 6 clippy/clampy things (photo below)
• utility scissors (for the vapour barrier)
• a hacksaw (for the piping)
• a tape measure and marker (for the piping and the vapour barrier)
• an electric drill
• 2 spring clamps

•  oh, and 2 canine companions for moral support

These are the clampy things (or "attaches de poignées", if you prefer) I found at the hardware store.  They're designed to be fastened to the wall and used to hold brooms and mops, etc.  They're intended to hold 3/4" to 1-1/4" dia. objects, which is great because I had already determined that 3/4" piping would be my best bet (sturdier than 1/2", but still bendy).

I took the clampy things and screwed them onto the inside face of the frame, at each corner and in the middle of each of the sides, like so:

Using the tape measure and marker, I measured out 3 lengths of pex piping (6' each, obviously) and popped them into the clamps.

{Would you just look at my new little boxwood, all lonely and forlorn...}

I cut a big piece of poly (I think it ended up being 9' x 9', but I can't recall exactly...just drape it over the whole shebang and cut the excess and you'll be fine) and draped it over the frame.  At the far end, I gathered all the excess and stapled it into the frame (oops, forgot that in my materials list - a stapler).  On the near end, I just gathered it all and clamped it to the frame using the spring clamps.  That way, I can open 'er up and water things or peek in and see how all my lovelies (basil, bell peppers and approximately 63 different varieties of lettuce) are doing when the urge arises.

So that's it.  I can take everything down and store it over the summer or winter, when I don't need it and whip it all back up when frost threatens.  Pretty nifty, eh?

PS: While I was transplanting all the goodies, I found two incubating Junebugs in the new dirt.... shudder shudder shudder...  I may or may not have screeched out loud when their little hooky legs got caught on my gardening gloves and wouldn't let go.  You'll just never know.

Apparently...

...if you sit still long enough in my house, I will paint you.

So, who's next?

Before and After

Before (Sept. 2010):

After (Feb. 2011):

In the end, I didn't bother stripping the existing paint off.   I just scraped the worst of the flakes off (and didn't even do a very good job, at that) and rolled on 4 (!) coats of the most luscious semi-gloss paint I've ever used.  I could have gotten away with 3 coats, but it was kind of addictive and looked so much better every time I coated it, that I went the extra mile.

{Trade Secret Time: designer paints are over-rated.  Yup, you heard it first here.  I've used just about every brand of paint I could get my hands on.  The most disappointing results were with our dear friends over at BM and Pratt & Lambert.  I thought it was just me, but I've made it a point to grill the painters I come in contact with (and trust me, that's a fair number) because I always get asked if they can simply colour-match the BM colours I've specified and it mystifies me - you know, because BM is supposed to be the crème-de-la-crème of paint, so why would they want to use a different brand?  (And no, it's not to save money, because the result has to pass my inspection and if the quality sucks, I'll make them do it over, so skimping would be pointless).  The overwhelming response has been that they ask if I'll accept a colour match because they hate working with those brands and that the best paints are...(you ready for this?)...Behr and Beauti-Tone.  Behr is available at Home Depot and Beauti-Tone is available at Home Hardware (Canada only?).  The theory one painter gave me is that because these hardware stores don't rely on their paint sales to make profits, they can offer better quality paint for the same price as the other guys.  In other words, they don't have to make a much money on every gallon because they make their money elsewhere.  Hence, they don't stretch their profits by thinning out the paint.  It's a theory, and it's not mine, but it got me thinking.  And I've tested both of those brands and would choose them hands-down over any of the designer brands any day.  Except that their colour selection can bite, so I get them colour matched from swatches I find elsewhere.  End rant.  Just thought you might like to know.}

And these photos are for Miranda, who mentioned that she covets our second-storey floors.  Oh dear, what a frightening prospect.

I give you Exhibit A (aka: The Widowmaker):

Exhibit B (aka: Poo in a Blender): 

And I nudged the bed out of the way in order to capture Exhibits C and D (aka: The Hole of Doom and The Gaping Canyon of Death, respectively):

 

Walking around at our house is somewhat of a health hazard.  Until this summer, when we get our act in gear and start showing these floors who's boss.  Like I did with that dresser.

A Wonderfully Wonky Switcheroo

I made mention a little while back about having moved some things around at home.  Here's the story:

As you know, we have a really small house.  You might also know that it is on the outskirts of a small village in the country (a 45 minute highway-drive from the nearest small city/big town).  Because of the rural setting, the availability of cheap (or free!) firewood and the elevated storm activity we see every year (causing numerous and lengthy power outages), we have a small wood stove to supplement our oil-fired (I know, I know, it's awful) furnace.

That wood stove is located in the living room, with good reason.  It's central-ish, it's roomy, and it's on the ground level.  Except we never use the living room.  You see, we don't own a television.  And living rooms are primarily tv rooms.  We each do lots of other things in our spare time, but they revolve around the use of desks and/or computers.  I knit while watching movies on my iMac, I read lots of blogs,  I sew, I paint and draw.  My husband is a teacher, so a good portion of his evenings and weekends are spent in front of his laptop.  Plus, being in such a small house way out in the country, we don't get a lot of visitors and when we do, we all end up hanging out in the eat-in kitchen or outside - if it's nice.  The living room contained a never-used sofa and not much else.  The dogs commandeered the sofa for their own use and the humans walk through the room on their way upstairs - that's it.

Up until now, my desk area was located in the smaller of the two bedrooms upstairs.  The furthest room from the wood stove.  Because I spend hour upon hour up there in the winter, I was having to use a plug-in electric heater to keep my fingers from freezing and falling off.  The laundry gets done in the basement, so that task was often-forgotten (out of earshot, out of mind) until the end of the weekend approached and we realized that we would have no clean clothing for the week.  

Can you see where this is going?

Behold, the new studio (sans iMac, as it was in the shop at the time - she's sitting there all pretty and primped up, now):

All this stuff is quite makeshift of course.  The idea was to use up some things we already have for now, in order to keep our budget on track (I didn't pay for any of this stuff - it is all recycled from other projects/rooms).  As I go, I will figure out what I need and we'll build new shelving and possibly a new desk when we have a few extra coins. 

 The entire house is a work-in-progress, as evidenced by the huge gap along the stairs to the basement (currently being closed off by a dresser and a tabletop propped on its edge):

But the best part?  This little black box of miracles is right at my back.  I officially declare this the Winter of Comfort.

Pretty raw, all in all.  But it does the trick.