Ceiling Fan Refashion - Tutorial

Blah ceiling fan getting you down? Refashion it with fabric!

You will need:

about 1 yard of fabric, enough to cover the surface of your fan blades

same amount of Heat and Bond Craft Bond, the extra heavy duty stuff

Pencil, Scissors, Sharpie, Iron, Screwdriver, Awl

Time to Complete:

about 1 hour, including time spent looking for the screwdriver and retrieving dropped screws from under the bed

1. Turn the ceiling fan off and remove the fan blades. Remove the arm from each fan blade.

NOTE - Keep all of the screws from the fan blades in a safe place, like a bowl, preferably one that has a lid. It is extremely annoying when the darn things grow legs and walk away some time during the refashioning process.

2. Trace around each blade, marking the paper side of your heat and bond. Number each piece, and write a matching number on the fan blade. Yeah, yeah, they should be exactly the same size, but alas, each one will be just a little off from its neighbor. Cut the shapes apart, leaving about a 1/2" edge outside your pencil line. You'll trim them later.

3. With a sharpie marker, color the edges of the fan blades in a complementary color to your fabric. Color over the edge about 1/4" as well; this will camouflauge any squiggly trimming of your fabric.

4. Following the manufacturers' instructions, fuse the Heat and Bond to the wrong side of your fabric.

ANOTHER NOTE - Pay attention to the pattern on your fabric! Make sure that you line up the Heat and Bond shape on the same repeat of the pattern, so that all of the blades look the same when you are finished.

5. Trim the bonded fabric to the final fan blade shape. Remove paper backing from the first piece, and iron on to the corresponding fan blade. Repeat for all blades.

6. Open holes through the fabric with the awl at each existing hole in the fan blade - this will make it easier to put the screws back in.

7. Reassemble the fan blades, attaching the arms, and then reattach to the fan base.

Oh Frabjous Day!

(Lewis Caroll, you rock my world vocabulary!)

I have been working on a computerized water model for the City of Weatherford since last August. It is by far the most difficult simulation I have ever tried to build, with a gajillion miles of pipe, five elevated tanks, three ground tanks, a clearwell and a semi-manual operating system.

Oh. My. Goodness. Today is the day. The water model is finished. Really and completely finished. It has been almost finished since early spring, but not quite completely right. The deadline for the EPA has been flying in my face, and I've been DREAMING about this darned model and puzzling over it in my sleep! Last night I woke up with one last idea on how to get it to balance without pressure problems, and I had the foresight to write it down. Got to work today, make some changes in the logical controls and BAM!!! It works! It really works! I now have a computer simulation of the water system, and it is calibrated to the point that the computer model matches the city's collected system data!!!

Whoot!!!! I'm grinning like a fool today.

Playing with Dye Part II

I had this lovely (not!) blue sweater shell that I sort of liked. I loved the sweater. It was light weight, a great length, didn't gape at the armholes, and was soft soft soft. However, I hardly ever wore it because I had issues with the color. It was old lady dusty blue, a sort of greyish cast medium blue color. Blech. Double Blech.

While Teen Daughter #2 was playing with dye (See Playing With Dye Part I below), I decided to whip up a dyebath myself. I successfully transformed frumpy shell into an awesome grape purple summer sweater! Now I absolutely love it.

Playing with Dye Part I

My kids and I make and donate several hundred twine rosaries to the Rosary Army every year. We used to purchase colored twine, but lately, we've wanted more color, more varigated hues, more, well, WOW in our twine. Teen Daughter #2 also wanted something to do to fill these long, boring summer hours.

So I taught her how to use dye. This is her first effort, and I must admit to being very impressed with her eye for colors and blends. She even named them: Tongues of Fire (in honor of Pentecost), My Pink, Melon Blast, Mom's Olive Green, PinkyBeige, I Want a Chihuahua.

Now she has aspirations of starting her own business dyeing and selling twine to other rosary knotters. After she paints her room.

Zoe the Psycho Cat

We have two cats, both of them rescued. Jinx was saved as a newborn, bottle fed and mothered by our lab. Zoe came to us from another family who had rescued her at the brink of turning feral. She's a nut-case; about as weird as a cat can get. For one thing, she can not pass by any open door without dashing through it. Oh, Zoe doesn't notice care that the door leads into a closet, or a kitchen cabinet, or even the laundry chute. If it's open, she barrels through it, ploughing through anyone or anything in the way.

She also sleeps flat on her back, in the strangest locations. It's not unusual to find her upside down smack in the middle of the living room floor; in the bathtub; or on top of the washing machine. I've seen her upside down on the pool table, with her head hanging over the edge and her mouth wide open, sound asleep. This by far is the strangest - lying on the garage floor under the wheel of the car. I had to remind Teen Daughter#1 to wake the cat up before backing out.

Summer!

Yes, it's summer. I've already heard the first "I'm Bored" from my children, and I promptly set them to work folding socks and changing the sheets on their beds. They very quickly found something interesting to do outside. In the sunshine. With each other! (Good Mama!)

Here is my most recent favorite project, one that sat unfinished cut out on the dining room table for almost a month before I could make the time to sit down and put it together. It's a spiffy tote and matching hat for lounging at the Y while my darlings jump off the diving board over and over again, or - dare I Dream - walking on the beach?

Both are Amy Butler Patterns and fabric. The fabric was purchased, but on sale at half price. I love, love, love this print and color! The lovely model is Teen Daughter#1. She wants the hat.

New Lengths

As part of my ongong pledge to Wardrobe Refashion, and as proof that I've been watching paying attention to "What Not to Wear" I've been on a Refashioning Frenzy through my closet. Doing what, you wonder? Whacking off all of the ankle length skirts to a more flattering length. Long skirts were "the thing" about a decade ago, but honestly, did I really think they were suitable for my vertically challenged self when I purchased them? Huh? I mean, where was Stacy London when I needed her?

This skirt is a favorite, and I've had it for eons. Really. It was a post pregnancy purchase after 16 year old Teen Daughter #2 was born. The fabric is a luscious, heavy silk blend, in a season spanning black/gold/ivory print. It used to drop all the way to my ankle; that is, until I whacked 14" off the hem.

This skirt was a huge challenge. It is bias cut silk georgette, double layered with two different patterns so that the skirt is reversable. (The inside layer is a black and olive geometric print.) This skirt used to drag on the floor and I had to wear it with really tall heels. Again, WHAT was I thinking when I purchased it? Also, since it dates back to before Teen Son#1 was born, I really needed to generate a little more room at the waistline.

I wanted to leave some length to the skirt to keep the flowing, twirly effect, so I started by rolling the skirt at the waistband to remove some length. However, that left me with a short skirt so wide that it resembled a square dancing getup. I ended up removing fabric from both the top and the bottom to maintain a reasonable width at the hem and still allow for breathing room at the waist. I restitched the casing, and inserted a longer elastic. I tried several times to get a narrow hem along that bias edge with the machine, but I just couldn't get the bias even with both layers of the skirt. I ended up stitching a hankie hem by hand with the skirt on a hangar, tweaking up and down as I went around.

I won't bore you with more pictures - there are three other skirts that went from ankle length to knee length: a black knit straight skirt, a leopard print silk A-line, and a brown tweed pencil skirt (okay, lets' admit it....ankle length pencil skirts, even with thigh high splits, are totally impractical to wear). The brown tweed was part of a suit that has a paisley print duster length jacket. I'm tackling the coat next, as it is now longer than the skirt!