Yard Art in Disarray

Reed fencing, white lace mask, wire circular frames, iron trellises and iron torches, red velvet ribbons

dumpster dived at different times.

Iron and plastic flamingos.  Plastic swan planter is inside for the winter. 

Granite headstone used for stone carver's joke, one side is romantic vintage flower patter with name (perhaps unclaimed,) flip side has martini glass and guy identified by name and labeled a$$hole.

 The wind blowed Frosty down.

Unemployed gnome and elves. Headless penguin cookie jar.

Santa's sleigh will have to do.  Dune buggy is in the shop.

Letting our wet laundry flap in the breeze

Onward and upwards and downwards and crosswise.

Let your freak flag fly.

Eyesore? or neighborhood sight of mild interest? 

Husband's friend passes by on bike daily, joked about whites not being white enough.

At  one visitor to loud, rowdy neighbors took pics from the alley.

There is no such thing as an energy saving gas or electric dryer. 

Clement says this looks like a scene from the 1400s.

Another time he said hanging laundry was for poor people. 

One time when he was a toddler,  he told his grandmother he saw an animal way downstairs at the baement level.  See that dark crack? She thought he meant a toy animal.

I came home from work to water our container garden, hear a thud,  and screamed when I  saw a yellow glowing eyes on a bear sized ball of fur, come limping out of the darkeness.

 A huge racoon skittered out through the narrow slats of the door leading to the alley.

Undies and socks would usually go on one of several half broken, jerry rigged drying racks I found abandoned in the alleys.  Usually no clothes pins except on super windy days, so less effort for hanging.

Inside out to prevent fading and so that inner pockets of jeans, etc, dry well.

Mated and mateless.

I have my favorite wooden clothespins with strong hardware.

Each batch is has a different personality. 

Do not like the bamboo (which splinters.)

Hope that you've enjoyed this little tour of our clotheslines on the back porch.

Hanging laundry in February

"I am happy," I told my husband.  He came out the back door to find me hanging wash on our clotheslines. It is an unusual, brilliantly sunny, mid-forties, mid-February kind of day. Mid-February in Chicago is normally associated with blizzards, pools of blackened slush, icy sidewalks, snow drifts, and heart attacks as a result of strenuous shoveling.  Last year, this time, the children were sledding down a story-tall mountain of snow on the seats of their snow pants.

There is a 3-story porch attached to the back of our building.  Some years ago, I tied clotheslines straight across to posts parallel to outer railings, parallel to diagonal stair railings. Surprisingly, considering my lack of knot tying skills, the lines have held up.  Sagging occasionally, and subsequently tightened, they weathered well.  They are a strong, white, woven, cotton/something else blend.  No fraying or transfer of blackness like from plastic lines in the past.  I turn clothes inside out and pluck them off when they are dry to avoid fading from the sun.  

Some great things about hanging things out to dry on lines:
+ Long sheets, towels, and blankets hang straight and dry well vs getting balled up snarling together and staying damp in the drier.
+ Elastic lasts longer,  the dryer kills elastic.
+ Great smell of air, even in the city.
+ Clothes stay the same size, no shrinking!
+ Longer lastingness of fabrics, no rubbing away or thinning.  I shudder to touch dryer lint.
+ Crunchy texture of stiff towels and jeans.  I'm addicted to it.  I was in college before I touched a fluffy towel at a friend's house.  Kind of creeped me out or at least surprised me.

If I use the little wooden folding drying racks for socks and undies, I can have enough room to hand up 2 full loads of laundry from our front loading washer.  I think it has double the capacity/volume of the kind that has an agitator in the middle.  Another bonus is that it really wrings clothes out.  Much less wetness compared to the conventional washer. a downside is that more prewashing is necessary for even slight stains.  My husband put the racks away in the basement for the winter.  I'm too lazy to find and wipe them down today so I hung up the socks and undies one by one on the lines.  If it's a hot, windy summer day, I can do multiple loads in a day, taking down load one, and load three is ready to be hung.  My tiredness threshold dictates stopping for the day.

mending socks

Some of my socks are older than college graduates.  I've devised a mend-as-I-go method to keeping them whole.  In my dedicated bathroom drawer, besides my cutlery tray containing eyeliner, mascara, fragrances, pumice stone, etc, I have stashed away a spool of black thread, a fine needle, and blunt kid's scissors. 

After I pull out a pair of socks to wear the next day, I put them on, and very often find a hole or 2.  I lick the thread and stick it through the needle opening.  I use my foot as a darning knob?.   The calluses on my heel would prevent me from feeling any pain if I should accidentally poke myself. I have not yet tested this theory.

I don't actually darn as my mother did.  She used an old burnt out light bulb as her base and patiently and expertly rewove the missing part.  She can not fathom throwing anything out that can be repaired. I just pull my holes closed any way I can.

I used to collect socks and put them in a box to mend in one batch at a later date.  It was very hard to find the time to do that in one go.  This way I have my little bit of progress, my little successes, stepping stones even to feeling organized and put together.

One modern book, with an unremembered title, about refashioning clothes had a wonderful color photograph of pants from the 18th century, every inch of them had been reinforced, repaired resulting in a quilted bumpy surface.  An old 1954 book I reading now Thrift With a Needle lovingly details all the ways clothes and household goods can be updated and freshened up.  Interestingly, it mentions the then trendy trends of aprons as fashion accessories for evening gowns even and transforming coats into capes.  Clean, easy to understand line drawings.  References of mending while listening to radio shows.

My favorite book growing up was The Borrowers.  I was fascinated with the idea of using scavenged items in a way not originally intended.  Spools into stools for tiny people. Matchboxes as doll beds. A walnut shell for a boat to float, a dab of wax, a toothpick mast, a wee paper triangle for a sail. A needle as a sword.