Spice Racks

My current spice rack, made from materials I had laying around (though I bought the bottles).

This is an older spice rack I made when I had lots more spices and lots more wall space:

I use it in my studio now to hold beads and things.

Shopping Bags

I heard someone say once that the state bird of New Mexico is the plastic shopping bag -- it's everywhere, stuck in trees, blowing in the breeze, rolling down the street like a tumbleweed...
With all of the stores going to reusable shopping bags, and our favorite grocery store actually going BAGLESS, I decided to try making my own bags, knit from - what else? - plastic shopping bags.

This was my first attempt. It works well, holds lots of groceries and/or baby dolls. I have another, more attractive bag in the works. I hadn't knitted in about 30 years and am really liking it again. And having free yarn is nice!

Recycled denim coasters

Some of these were made during my long hours in the chemo room. It felt good to have a project of one sort or another on those days.

Art diapers

Cloth diapering and the need to make stuff led to these pocket diapers...

Clare's aunt was being married in a vineyard, so I made this diaper. The grapes have a little stuffing in them to add a bit of dimension.

Clare would sit in her seat on my work table and supervise. I managed to get a little sewing in - usually not more than 5 or 10 minutes at a time.

In addition to the fleece diaper covers I made a lot of plaid flannel dipes. Not art, but I never saw another baby with a plaid bottom.

This shows how the pocket dipes work. A CPF (Chinese Prefold) cotton diaper is folded in thirds and stuffed into the pocket for absorbency. The inner fleece is thin - just enough to wick away the moisture. The outer fleece is thicker and somewhat water repellant. The velcro tabs fold closed so they don't get tangled up in the wash. We never had a leak with these diapers, though we were pretty attentive to when she needed to be changed.

Clothesline dipe