"Trish Brown" wrote in message
FarmI wrote:


Yes, but the unoiled one whihc one uses for feather pillows/doonas etc.
I was gobbsmacked that they actually had something I really wanted. I
went home and measured up and then went back. I should have just bought
the whole roll when I saw it and been done with it as I could have used
it to remake doonas etc till I drop off the twig.

'Remake doonas'? Did I hear you say 'remake doonas'?

This is something I desperately need to do. The stitching of the channels
in nearly all my doonas has deteriorated and the feathers want
redistributing evenly. Since I don't really need to do a tar-baby
impression a this stage of my life (dignified, thank you), I'm a bit chary
of emptying out the feathers when I remake. Fear, I have!

Got any hints for me? ;-D

The easiest way would be to take them to one of the businesses which remake
them but given that you live in such a warm climate they might be a bit
rarer than they are round here (which is a cold climate area).

I have a huge sun room attached to my house and this has the requirements
for doing doonas/cushions ie can be closed completely so no draughts, has
hard surfaces so can be defeathered easily if there are any flying feathers.
The other thing I would mention is a spray bottle so that you can mist
recalcitrant feathers and stuff them slightly damp into whatever you're
stuffing.

I wash all my feather doonas in the bathtub as I don't think dry cleaning
actually "cleans" anything and I do this is hot, high summer so don't be
wary of wetting the feathers. I line dry them over 2 or more wires till I
can't feel any wet spots but if I roll the feathers around in the doona, it
will produce damp spots.

I then stuff them in my clothes dryer with half a dozen tennis balls (this
makes a shocking noise but redistributes and fluffs the feathers up) and I
stay near it as the dryer is so stuffed when I put in my big deep winter
queen doona that it really is a fire hazard.

I give it 5-10 minute bursts (and I have a cooking timer which has a clip on
it and I attach this to myself so that when it goes off I can't forget what
I'm up to) and then pull it out, turn it a bit and rest it and then stuff it
in again for another 5-10 mins.

You can pull out handfuls of feathers and restuff them into the new case
then use a vaccum cleaner with a disposible bag to get out the feathers/down
that gets stuck in corners etc. Put the bag into the new casing and rip it
open inside the new casing. Use pegs or bulldog clips and fold off the end
of each channel as you complete it. Handd tack it before you drag it to the
sewing machine. Use flat felled or other forms of doubled seams.

If you don't have a room like my sun room, then do it outside ona totally
still day and do it slowly, deliberartely and cautiously, then clean up
:-)).

"Trish Brown" wrote in message
...
FarmI wrote:

_i_ know what i want, i can make it work. the staff are terrible!

I think that's part of the job description at spotlight stores. I get far
more help from other women standing in line than I do from the staff. And
'friendly'? Hah! More like 'fiendly'! Have you ever been to a Home Yardage
store? They're quite excellent, IMHO.

I din't write that comment it was Otterbot but I agree completely. Yes, I
used to love Home Yardage, but the only one in this area closed years ago.

Yup. I sent He who Thinks He Should be Obeyed in to buy me some cord and
plastic rings for a Roman blind I'm making. You should have seen the
shit they sent him home with and it won't be of any use at all

Is that the pre-made Roman blind tape? I've used that and it actually does
what it's supposed to! Much easier than making the assembly from scratch
(I've done both). Or, just use the pre-made tape across the top and use
your rings down the length of the blind?

No it was the rings (too big not the nice little ones) and the tape (not the
fine sort but big thick stuff). Absolutely clueless staff who must have not
read any of Spotlights own publications which they sell to customers who
make Roman blinds.

It comes in a number of weights and can be oiled or not. It's a closely
woven fabric and you would know oiled Japara as Driz-a-bone. the one I
saw was unoiled though and it is used for doona covers and feather
cushion covers.

Oo! Have you ever seen the oiled stuff for sale? My
extra-large-giant-economy-size husband needs a raincoat...

No, but there was a company who used to sell it - the Victorian high country
IIRC. I'll see if I can find the details, but you should see my sewing
room! Oh well, it needs a good cleaning up.

FarmI wrote:
"Trish Brown" wrote in message
FarmI wrote:

Yes, but the unoiled one whihc one uses for feather pillows/doonas etc.
I was gobbsmacked that they actually had something I really wanted. I
went home and measured up and then went back. I should have just bought
the whole roll when I saw it and been done with it as I could have used
it to remake doonas etc till I drop off the twig.
'Remake doonas'? Did I hear you say 'remake doonas'?

This is something I desperately need to do. The stitching of the channels
in nearly all my doonas has deteriorated and the feathers want
redistributing evenly. Since I don't really need to do a tar-baby
impression a this stage of my life (dignified, thank you), I'm a bit chary
of emptying out the feathers when I remake. Fear, I have!

Got any hints for me? ;-D

The easiest way would be to take them to one of the businesses which remake
them but given that you live in such a warm climate they might be a bit
rarer than they are round here (which is a cold climate area).

I have a huge sun room attached to my house and this has the requirements
for doing doonas/cushions ie can be closed completely so no draughts, has
hard surfaces so can be defeathered easily if there are any flying feathers.
The other thing I would mention is a spray bottle so that you can mist
recalcitrant feathers and stuff them slightly damp into whatever you're
stuffing.

I wash all my feather doonas in the bathtub as I don't think dry cleaning
actually "cleans" anything and I do this is hot, high summer so don't be
wary of wetting the feathers. I line dry them over 2 or more wires till I
can't feel any wet spots but if I roll the feathers around in the doona, it
will produce damp spots.

I then stuff them in my clothes dryer with half a dozen tennis balls (this
makes a shocking noise but redistributes and fluffs the feathers up) and I
stay near it as the dryer is so stuffed when I put in my big deep winter
queen doona that it really is a fire hazard.

I give it 5-10 minute bursts (and I have a cooking timer which has a clip on
it and I attach this to myself so that when it goes off I can't forget what
I'm up to) and then pull it out, turn it a bit and rest it and then stuff it
in again for another 5-10 mins.

You can pull out handfuls of feathers and restuff them into the new case
then use a vaccum cleaner with a disposible bag to get out the feathers/down
that gets stuck in corners etc. Put the bag into the new casing and rip it
open inside the new casing. Use pegs or bulldog clips and fold off the end
of each channel as you complete it. Handd tack it before you drag it to the
sewing machine. Use flat felled or other forms of doubled seams.

If you don't have a room like my sun room, then do it outside ona totally
still day and do it slowly, deliberartely and cautiously, then clean up
:-)).


Gee, thanks for that Farm1. Lots of great tips and I did love the 'then
clean up' at the end! LOL!

--
Trish {|:-} Newcastle, NSW, Australia

"Trish Brown" wrote in message
FarmI wrote:

(snip)
If you don't have a room like my sun room, then do it outside ona totally
still day and do it slowly, deliberartely and cautiously, then clean up
:-)).
Gee, thanks for that Farm1. Lots of great tips and I did love the 'then
clean up' at the end! LOL!

Indeed. But housewifes actually did manage to stuff pillows and eiderdowns
etc, in the past so we must be able to do it today. :-)) A Dyson Vacuum
cleaner would be a good machine to have to do this, but I don't have one of
them.

FarmI wrote:

Indeed. But housewifes actually did manage to stuff pillows and eiderdowns
etc, in the past so we must be able to do it today. :-)) A Dyson Vacuum
cleaner would be a good machine to have to do this, but I don't have one of
them.



LOL! Yeah, but they were superpersons!

I wouldn't mind one of those Dyson jobbies either, but I think I'd have
to sell me firstborn to afford one. I need the firstborn more, I think. ;-

--
Trish {|:-} Newcastle, NSW, Australia

In article ,
"0tterbot" wrote:

well, i can't comment on your car (do you need to borrow some sea
creatures?) but i finally got round to trying the milk solution for powdery
mildew on the curcurbits. omg, it seems to have worked!! (i can't believe it
could be that easy). however, it's not made a dent on the powdery peas
whatsoever. i'm just completely over bloody peas & all the bloody hassle &
then in the end you get hardly any pea for your trouble anyway. as a last
resort i am trying dwarf peas so at least there's no hassle with soemthing
for them to grow up.

sorry, i've interrupted myself with a rant about peas.

It's bit early for peas (here, at least). I've just planted a dwarf variety
but am not sure if they will come up, as it's been so wet.

--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

http://chookiesbackyard.blogspot.com/

In article ,
Trish Brown wrote:

'Remake doonas'? Did I hear you say 'remake doonas'?

This is something I desperately need to do. The stitching of the
channels in nearly all my doonas has deteriorated and the feathers want
redistributing evenly. Since I don't really need to do a tar-baby
impression a this stage of my life (dignified, thank you), I'm a bit
chary of emptying out the feathers when I remake. Fear, I have!

Got any hints for me? ;-D

the only sensible ones I haave heard were in an LM Montgomery book. Anne is
refilling a feather-bed and it was done on a still day in a quiet place
wearing old clothes and with her hair covered.

--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

http://chookiesbackyard.blogspot.com/

"Chookie" wrote in message
news:ehrebeniuk-9AEEF3.12594210022008@news...
In article ,
"0tterbot" wrote:

well, i can't comment on your car (do you need to borrow some sea
creatures?) but i finally got round to trying the milk solution for
powdery
mildew on the curcurbits. omg, it seems to have worked!! (i can't believe
it
could be that easy). however, it's not made a dent on the powdery peas
whatsoever. i'm just completely over bloody peas & all the bloody hassle
&
then in the end you get hardly any pea for your trouble anyway. as a last
resort i am trying dwarf peas so at least there's no hassle with
soemthing
for them to grow up.

sorry, i've interrupted myself with a rant about peas.

It's bit early for peas (here, at least). I've just planted a dwarf
variety

so did i, so enraged am i about the whole pea issue! (my thinking is that
with dwarfs, one irritating element of the whole issue is nonexistent).
previously i had been putting in greenfeast, which are ok for summer (they
certainly were for me, anyway, except for the "too much trouble for too few
peas" issue).

but am not sure if they will come up, as it's been so wet.

yes, exactly. i couldn't get sugar snaps coming up during the hot weather,
but that seems to have passed now ::-) i don't find sugar snaps to be
troublesome though - either they come up or they don't, either way it's no
trouble.
kylie


--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

http://chookiesbackyard.blogspot.com/

"David Hare-Scott" wrote in message
...
The only erosion problem I have is the banks of one of the little creeks,
I
cannot get anything to grow there to stablise it. I need some earthwork
done
to flatten down high banks so stuff will grow all over not just on top.
Too
wet for earthworks now.

our worst erosion gully is just shocking, & when we came here it wasn't even
on our property - but it's travelled, so now it is. being in a difficult
location, we haven't decided exactly what to do. it needs to be filled
though - it's not a creek (or at any rate, it _wasn't_ ;-) we did a bit of
discreet trespassing to look at the worst of it. omg..!

the other, we are filling up with branches, newspaper, etc etc. mainly we
just don't want the problem to become worse anywhere else.

i'm sure all of this is terribly ironic in some way i can't put my finger
on
exactly. whereabouts are you? (although i think the entire eastern
seaboard
is awash.)

Wards River.

never heard of it! :-)
kylie

"FarmI" ask@itshall be given wrote in message
...

Yup. I sent He who Thinks He Should be Obeyed in to buy me some cord and
plastic rings for a Roman blind I'm making. You should have seen the shit
they sent him home with and it won't be of any se at all

(i'd probably have been suspicious of that happening, & gone myself!)

I went in there to buy some japara that I'd seen a week before and of
couse they'd done a rearrangement and I had to go through 5 staff before
i found one who even knew what japara was.

(i don't know what japara is... ;-)

It comes in a number of weights and can be oiled or not. It's a closely
woven fabric and you would know oiled Japara as Driz-a-bone. the one I
saw was unoiled though and it is used for doona covers and feather cushion
covers.

learn something new every day!


It works for Paul D. who has the mudbrick house and the trout ponds
outside his balcony as that is how he plants his trees.

undoubtedly, he had the foresight to create miniature tablelands, rather
than tiny silly mounds! :-)

No -many silly little mounds but they are allowing him to grow his trees
OK.

give me a few years & i might withdraw the silly mounds opinion. not yet
though!!!! of course, i came across our mounds when it was as dry as
anything & because of them couldn't seem to get any water going onto the
actual trees. now it's wet, things are different. argh!
kylie

"FarmI" ask@itshall be given wrote in message
...
"0tterbot" wrote in message
"Trish Brown" wrote in message

I've seen fruit trees doing well with tractor-tyre collars. I've always
thought that would be a very easy way to raise a bed for a single tree,
but sadly I have no tractor tyres!

heh. i have some.

i also have a tree (not a fruit tree) that some ninny planted into a car
tyre. now the tyre won't come off & can't be cut either (steel belt).
sigh!!! the trunk is as big as the hole in the tyre. we are flummoxed!

Angle grinder and long extension cord or a generator?

i think that is the only way, now the tree is filling the hole. shall have
to borrow one from somewhere!
kylie

"Trish Brown" wrote in message
...

As I understand it, willow roots will wrap round your pipes and squeeze
them. Or, they'll infiltrate them and clog them up. Dunno if that's an old
wives' tale, but the local people are very anti-willow! I know you're not
allowed to plant one in our council district.

i wonder if casuarinas would do the same thing?

I love willow too, but I think it deters other native flora and absolutely
takes over riverbanks to the extent that nothing else will grow there. If
willow out-competes your normal flora, then it's stuffing up an awful lot
of habitat for fauna as well.

I've been told the reason for a lot of the parrots we're seeing in towns
lately is the lack of native tucker (including casuarinas) to eat farther
inland. While it's awful in terms of The Drought, I can't say I mind
having the parrots to gawp at! In my childhood, you threw a party if you
saw a galah on its own. Now, we have flocks of galahs and SC cockies and
corellas, oh and even lorikeets of several varieties. AND, I, myself,
personally have seen a flock of Yellow-tailed Black cockies flying over my
very house!!! Never in a million years would I have thought I'd see that!

lovely! we have lots of birds & i enjoy them more than i thought i would.

i consider galahs vermin, though, i must say. when i was growing up they
were rampant in the central west (where my family comes from). in the
evenings, they would gather in massive groups to eat people's television
aerials, etc. haven't been there for quite a while though, so i'm not sure
if they are still considered a tiresome pest.

we don't get them here where i am.

cockies 1: the black cockatoos freak me RIGHT OUT. it's that noise they
make. they freak my chickens out as well.
cockies 2: i love it when a flock of sulphur-crested cockies is about. i
always say (experimentally) "hello, cocky". you would be _amazed_ at how
often one of them says "hello cocky" back again!!
kylie

"0tterbot" wrote in message

our worst erosion gully is just shocking, & when we came here it wasn't
even on our property - but it's travelled, so now it is. being in a
difficult location, we haven't decided exactly what to do. it needs to be
filled though - it's not a creek (or at any rate, it _wasn't_ ;-) we did a
bit of discreet trespassing to look at the worst of it. omg..!

Sadly the only way to effectively deal with erosion gullies is to treat them
at the starting point and move downwards from there. If that isn't on your
land, you'll be shovelling it uphill to fix the problem.

Probably the best thing you could do is to effectively put in 'weirs' of
rocks, branches, tyres, to catch and slow flows and plant as much as you can
on the sides bases etc. But in reality, it won't be easy without having
access to the starting point

"0tterbot" wrote in message
"FarmI" ask@itshall be given wrote in message

Yup. I sent He who Thinks He Should be Obeyed in to buy me some cord and
plastic rings for a Roman blind I'm making. You should have seen the
shit they sent him home with and it won't be of any se at all

(i'd probably have been suspicious of that happening, & gone myself!)

I didhave some nasty thoughts about his capacity to do the job, so I told
him to find a staff member and very specifically to ask to be shown t
section where the Roman Blind stuff was kept, to read any information if the
stuff was in little plastic packs etc, etc. He got one of the idiot staff,
who "helped him" get the "right stuff". Sigh!

I did consider going, but since I was in my pygamas and wanted to do
something else, I thought that this was one job that would be difficult to
stuff up. Mea culpa.

No -many silly little mounds but they are allowing him to grow his trees
OK.

give me a few years & i might withdraw the silly mounds opinion. not yet
though!!!! of course, i came across our mounds when it was as dry as
anything & because of them couldn't seem to get any water going onto the
actual trees. now it's wet, things are different. argh!

Paul's sill little mopunds are ones with a scoop shae in the top to hold
water fro those drier times. A bit like a pumpkin planting mounds - raised
up, about a metre wide but with the dish shaped top - he plants into the
dish shape.

"0tterbot" wrote in message

cockies 1: the black cockatoos freak me RIGHT OUT. it's that noise they
make. they freak my chickens out as well.

If they are the big ones with the yellow under the wing, then get to love
them. when they fly over screaming, it's a sure sign of rain. You might
not want it now, but when it gets dry, I bless the sight of those cockies.

cockies 2: i love it when a flock of sulphur-crested cockies is about. i
always say (experimentally) "hello, cocky". you would be _amazed_ at how
often one of them says "hello cocky" back again!!

How many hundred of the filthy brutes would you like? I could probably
arrange a semi trailer load.

On second thoughts, I retract that offer, you are too close. I might send
them to Len instead.