Berlin's Whimsy

Swiffer Cover Sewing Pattern

Swiffer Cover Sewing Pattern

Materials:

·        Basic sewing supplies (machine, thread, scissors, iron, etc)
·         2 pieces of terrycloth material (eg. towels), at least 12 x 14” each
·         2 large and colorful buttons, or velcro
·         Tracing paper

 How to:

On a piece of tracing paper, copy the dimensions of the cover using the measurements provided. Using your pattern, cut out two pieces of the fabric. 

Fire up your sewing machine and your iron.

Pin the fabric right sides together. Beginning on one long end of the cover, sew around the entire cover using a ½” seam, leaving a four-inch opening for turning. Due to the bulk and nature of the fabric, it will slide around a lot while sewing so be sure to reset the fabric into place here and there.

Using scissors, clip off the corners to eliminate bulk and clip diagonally into the inner (don’t clip the seams, however!).

Turn the cover right side out, using a chopstick to get into those difficult corners. 

Press the cover into shape with a hot iron. Press the seams under where the opening is.

Topstitch around the entire cover ¼” inside the edge, thus closing the opening where you turned the cover. Topstitch five horizontal lines along the bottom of the cover (this gives the cover shape).

I use buttons for attaching my cover but if you’re leery of buttonholing on terrycloth (and I wouldn’t blame you if you were!), you could use Velcro for attaching the cover. For the perfectionist, you could place a square of stabilizer beneath the buttonhole area for stabilization of the buttonholes----but hey, it is just a swiffer cover, after all…!

Now try your swiffer cover on. Pull it up snug. On the flaps, mark the placement of the buttons and buttonholes----again, you want the cover to be snug, especially if you will be using the cover wet. For example, I placed my buttons 1 ½” from the edges.

Hold your breath and sew two horizontal buttonholes corresponding to your marks and your button sizes. Sew on your buttons.

Put your swiffer cover on and ooh and ahh with delight for now you can swiff your floors in style!

**Note: This cover is reversible. To make it so, place buttons or velcro on both sides of the flaps.

To the Future Writers.

Always cheered up by an impromptu stop at a yard sale, this past weekend proved especially cheerful. I found treasure----memories in the making.

My daughter has wanted a manual typewriter for quite awhile. She is enamored with the keys and the thoughts of being a writer sitting at the ticking contraption----a quaint image.

At a yard sale this past weekend, I wandered amongst clothes strung on a line from tree to tree and blankets covered with kids' toys and kitchen gadgets. All the yard sale wares were interesting, but on one table, sitting there as if presented just for me, was a Smith-Corona typewriter. I fiddled with the lock and opened it up to find a typewriter in fine shape. I knew I must to take it home for my daughter.

There wasn't a price tag on the machine so I went looking for its owner. After a bit, an older, distinguished looking man approached and asked me what I'd like to pay him. I had no clue. As we both stood there mulling it over---him rubbing his scruffy chin---- a woman added from the porch, "That typewriter will be worth something someday..." And she then addressed the man by my side, "Didn't you write many of your books on that thing?"

"Really?" I asked, almost in disbelief. He turned and pulled out some travel books from a nearby bureau.

"This one and this one were written on that typewriter," he replied in a reminiscent tone.

Always a sucker for a nostalgia, I quickly replied, "Well, I must get it for my kids because they both want to be writers someday."

He smiled and replied, "Well, in that case... If it's going to a couple future writers..." And then he thought of something and told me to wait for him.

He returned a bit later with a couple of his books. He asked for my kids' names and dedicated the books to them-----"Happy writing"---and we settled on a price for the Smith-Corona.

My kids love their "new" typewriter and it only adds to its mystique that it came from a real writer. It has been traveling everywhere with us ever since and I must smile when I'm driving down the road listening to the tick-tick-ticking of a typewriter from the backseat of the car.

Crazy in Sync.

 

It seems all of my Pyrex stars were aligned last week because not only did my sister-in-law give me two wonderful Pyrex finds (this one and the one in the photo below) but my friend on the coast gave me a set of these Pyrex coffee cups in the same design!

 

I'm fairly certain this is my favorite Pyrex design; therefore, I'm scouring the thrift-stores for any and all pieces. In fact, if you have any bits of this design and want to trade, please do let me know!!

And here is the covered casserole again cradling a wonderful recipe I recently made from a must-have cookbook (I probably always say that, huh? Now you might grasp the enormity of my cookbook collection)--- it's 'How to Eat Supper.' The recipe is the Turmeric Potatoes with Almonds and it's wonderful. My kids looked at these bright yellow potatoes and wanted oh so badly to turn their noses up----until they tasted them, and then ate them all along with seconds. This cookbook is the type I thoroughly enjoy: great recipes with many variations and lots of reading on the topic of food!

Midsummer is... Cool Pickling

A fine addition to barbeque and spicy foods...

Pickled cucumbers in a new Pyrex find!

Winner and sharing an idea.

Bare with me, this is a long post!

Gosh, peanut butter must be one of the most versatile foods out there! What a lot of interesting food combinations you all shared. Thank you so much for sharing and providing some fun reading over the weekend. Some of your comments provided more food combination ideas and others, well, I'll leave them for you to enjoy...! I was also pleased to hear from so many of you----hi!

I used the trusty Random Numerator to come up with comment number 24: Jessica. Jessica shared her husband's love of peanut butter and onion... Hmmm, that's another one I must leave to his own enjoyment! Nevertheless, congratulations, Jessica!

***And here's a bit of sharing. The prizes in this drawing are a little part of a larger project I'm only now embarking upon. Perhaps it will be a book, perhaps a mail-order series... I'm not sure yet and I'm truly thinking out loud here.

Even so, I feel that all of the ideas that have been flittering about in my head these past few months have come a little closer together with an embrace of recreating the vintage family kitchen in crafts & cooking.

The project includes: favorite family-friendly recipes; baking hints, resources, and ideas; my own vintage-inspired embroidery designs with linen projects; an apron design I'm working on; knitted projects for the kitchen; pyrex & vintage kitchenware collections with recipes for your treasures... and hopefully much more! Though I don't know where this project will take me, I hope to share these ideas with you in one form or another.

And can I ask, what do you think? Are you interested in seeing a project like this? I'd love to hear from you either via a comment or email: berlinsmith AT yahoo DOT com.

Doilies.

Found at the thriftstore today----enough doilies to create a "pond" full of doily lily pads.

Doilies... Created by the hands of others, they are one of my favorite thriftstore treasures. Is it the memories? Visions of my Great Aunt's doilies gracing the back of her couch or cradling flower pots throughout her farmhouse... Or is it my appreciation of the patience I lack to create doilies--- all those intricate stitches, so intimidating.

I collected them even before Amanda made them so beautifully famous but she graciously opened the door for the doily's graduation from Grandma's parlor to bags, quilts, and so much more...

Trying to be Cheery.

I'm still sick. It's been a whole week of YUCK. I'm sick of being sick!

Rather than whining about my soon-to-explode head, I'll share another project. 

I bought 15 vintage feedsack Dresden Plate blocks off of ebay over a year ago. I pull them out every now and then and imagine their future quilty loveliness but I never gathered the strength to actually begin the process of appliqueing them onto a background fabric. Part of my hesitance was knowing that the eventual quilt should be handquilted-----it only makes sense with those beautiful vintage fabrics.

I love this one...

My handquilting courage is adequately mustered and I'm only now beginning the appliqueing portion. It's a l-o-n-g work in progress. Lucky for me, I feel happy whenever I look at these cheery blocks---- the Dresden Plate is one of my all-time favorite quilt blocks.

Goodness.

The mailbox has been full of so much fun mail lately. I won Lina's drawing a while back and found this wonderful bag in my mail yesterday!

Ellen of Hurrayic sent each one of these fun Cat Bags to each of the people who commented on her site when she was holding a drawing! Yay! This little bag is as cute as can be...

My kids were practically jumping out of their skins when they found more Japanese treats in the mail from Kirsten! We're in Pocky Heaven... And newly addicted to some Japanese treats that are similar to a cookie-like goldfish cracker with chocolate (and other) fillings inside. YUM.

Each one of you brightened my day---thank you!

I am working on a few more of those generously sized bags like the ones I added to the shop last weekend. I expect to add them this weekend, or the early part of next week. Stay tuned ;-).

And speaking of the shop...

I recently found a treasure trove of vintage clothes that my Grandmother had bought and stored away.

Many of the items needed a bit of TLC. They are all unique and truly vintage!

We are keeping some of them and the others I'm adding to my shop, as well. Many of these clothes were either handmade or have long since lost their tags so I'm estimating sizes on the listings. I can take more precise measurements if anyone is interested...

Shop update and new ideas.

I'm embarking on a new bit of whimy this week. A bit of textile manipulation and a renewed interest in fiber arts and quilting. The piece above is an example of this. I don't know what the end result of this new motivation will be but I like the little pieces that have resulted.

Incidentally, I stitched the above piece onto one of two bags that went into my shop today. This one is a piece of tea-dyed linen. It has little pleats and handstitching. What joy it was to make.

The other bag also features a favorite of mine. It's the market girl embroidery on linen out of one of my Japanese Craft books. I've always loved this design. 

Both bags are very generously sized (14x9x6-inches) and will hold a large project (sweater knitting, quilting, embroidery)...

Of course, they could be used to carry all your books back to the library or all your stuff with you for your day. They have pockets in the inside and on the end for a water bottle or cell phone. (The Market Girl Bag has one of my favorite Superbuzzy prints inside, too)!

I must admit that I'm having difficulty parting with them!!! ;-)