To Clean or Not to Clean

March 16 2012,

I love writing about cleaning, I don't know why, but i just do. I even have a "cleaning" label.

I have just finished a quilt for a couple, just the quilt top and the back of the quilt. I will be sending this one out for the quilting portion.

I stagger my cleaning schedule around my quilting projects. When I quilt, I have fabrics strewn all over the living room, the sewing machine on the coffee table, and pins all around the carpet and a few stragglers on the wood floor.

Whenever people stop over and I am in the middle of sewing, I insist that they keep their shoes on just in case pins are on the floor.

Today was cleaning day. The floors swept and mopped, and pins picked up, the carpets vacuumed and clear of any pins. All the quilting tools put away, including three ironing boards.

My neighbor had mentioned that we should hire a cleaning crew, her cleaning crew was very good. I've never considered hiring a crew, how can I schedule them with my erratic quilting tendencies. I just can't put away my mess when I am in the middle of making another quilt, it will mess everything up!

I've heard stories from friends who have cleaning crews that they often could not find something after the cleaning crew has stopped by. It would reappear in the oddest place. I have a hard enough time looking for things that I have misplaced, imagine having someone move something and not having a clue to where it might have been placed.

Since settling into the house, I no longer feel ashamed about having the living room a mess. When we have unexpected company show up at our doorstep, I shift everything to one side making a pathway for them. Visitors don't seem to mind, they understand that I am making another quilt.

Quilt & Bitch

Cleaning Pans

February 6, 2009

Oh how I hate cleaning pots and pans. This is a pan that I have been using for the past two years. And see how the bottom is so dirty.

I read that you can pour baking soda and vinegar and the crap will come off. So here's my experiment. For this pan, I used 5 Tablespoons of baking soda, and maybe 1/2 a cup of vinegar. Put the baking soda on the pan and spread it around evenly. Then pour the vinegar on top. It will bubble. Let stand for 15 minutes. See picture below for demonstration.

After 15 minutes, scrub and rinse thoroughly. If your pots and pans are like mine, you really got to scrub. Below is the result after 15 minutes. Not bad eh? Ok, ok, maybe it is not that clean, at least you can see the logo, that's what counts right?

Since the above was not that great, I put the same solution and left it for 2 hours. After two hours, I scrubbed with one of those green pads and scrubbed for 15 minutes. I put a little bit of baking soda and vinegar in spots which were tough. And ta da. Pretty clean to me.

Quilt & Bitch