Easy Storage Solution for Dress Forms

My craft and sewing room overfloweth!  When I purchased a new dressform, I just didn't have anywhere to store it in my sewing space.  But I did have a spare corner in the guest room but the red dress form  stuck out like a sore thumb.  The solution;  dress the form to match the SouthWestern Decor in the guest room. 

I coverd her body with a very large colored T-shirt in a pastel color. While cleaning out my closet, I found a T-shirt I had embroidered many years ago with a SouthWest theme and a belt.  I put this on over the first shirt and covered the neck with a scrap, put the belt around her waist, and decorated her neck with SouthWest Jewelry and a pouch I embroidered.  VIOLA!  She matches the room perfectly now!  My Mom, who is also a seamstress, had a good chuckle when she saw the new Indian Maiden Stature in the guest room!

Quick Tip - No More Bobbin Mess!

Store your bobbins on toe seperators, the kind you use when you polish your toe nails.  The seperators are inexpensive and will hold the end threads in place. 

Homemade Laundry Detergent recipe

The Recipe




A quick search online will show you that there's no shortage of homemade laundry soap recipes: Here's one from The Simple Dollar. And we've got 10 more at Money Talks News. But below is one that seems to work pretty well. You'll need:



• 4 cups of water.

• 1/3 bar of cheap soap, grated.

• 1/2 cup washing soda (not baking soda).

• 1/2 cup of Borax (20 Mule Team).

• 5-gallon bucket for mixing.

• 3 gallons of water.



First, mix the grated soap in a saucepan with 4 cups of water, and heat on low until the soap is completely dissolved. Add hot water/soap mixture to 3 gallons of water in the 5-gallon bucket, stir in the washing soda and Borax, and continue stirring until thickened. Let the mix sit for 24 hours, and voila! Homemade laundry detergent.



Of course, who'd post a recipe without trying it out first? I made and washed several loads of clothes with the homemade detergent. And I, like many before me who've traveled this road, couldn't tell the difference between store-bought and homemade.



Total cost per load? In the neighborhood of 2 cents. Store-bought detergent, depending on what you buy and where you buy it, can cost about 20 cents per load -- 10 times more.