Category: Covid Hobbies

C19 Quarantine Hobbies #5 Vintage Style Tree Skirt by Sheri LeClair Banitt

So I have been making many things during the last 7 months that we have been quarantining at home. Other than a few family occasions and some outdoor activities, I spend most of my time at home. It has been fun to work on some old hobbies as well as trying a few new things. In true boomer fashion, the new things I’ve tried have been based on past memories. I have been making beaded ornaments reminiscent of my childhood.

So Shiny and Bright!

There are now so many that I decided they need their very own, old fashioned, tinsel tree. So I bought one online.

Well, everyone knows if you have a tinsel tree and beaded ornaments, you’re going to need a tree skirt. I thought about one that one of my Grandmas made for our tree when I was kid. I wanted to replicate it with some sequins and beads. So I bought some felt and stuff and got started.

I used a skirt I already have to get the round shape and got to work pinning and sewing the rick rack.

Next up was planning the felt appliques. I decided on green trees, red stockings and silver bells.

It was easier than I thought it would be. But as I was sewing on the shapes I thought about the time it was taking. The tree skirt and felt stockings we had as kids were sewn by hand which would have taken much more time. I am thankful for the luxury of the sewing machine and my comfortable craft room to sew it in. Only thing left to do was to embellish the appliques with sequins and beads.

  • My little helpers.
  • All the pretty things.
  • From Grandma Dorothy’s sewing basket-over 50 years old!

I sewed on the sequins, beads and bells by hand in the evenings while watching television. I always had one or more little helper sitting with me in my recliner while I worked. Pictured are my shih-tzu, Ping and my kitty, Remi.

Ta Da! All finished. Watch in December to see this under the tinsel tree decked out in ornaments!

I Can’t Stop Growing Plants by Sheri LeClair Banitt

Since I am mostly homebound due to Covid 19, I have been working my hobbies with great intensity. I have always enjoyed growing plants and gardening indoors as well as outdoors. Now I am just pulling out the seeds and mini pots and planting interesting stuff.

If you peruse the picture gallery, you will see that I have several cute plants in the pretty lady pots from Target. They make me smile. Then I have a tiny spider plant grown from a much larger spider plant. There is a teeny tiny succulent that grew from a seed, from a flower from another succulent in the window. Finally, there is a pinecone I picked before it opened and spilled its seeds. I am hoping it will become my bonsai tree.

  • Croton
  • Succulent
  • Really Baby Succulent
  • Pine Cone Bonzai
  • Baby Spider
  • Schefflera
  • Kitchen Window View

African violets are one of my favorite house plants. I remember my Grandma Vern grew them. My mother in law also had a favorite purple violet. One in my window is a cutting from hers, though she has been gone for many years now. There are so many colors of leaves and colors of flowers on these plants and they continue to multiply from the roots and they can be propagated from the leaves.

I love that even though it is autumn in Minnesota, I can still have blooms indoors. There are blossoms on my Asian Pepper and I have a lemon growing on my scraggly Meyers Lemon tree. I am also attempting to sprout trees from a couple of avocado pits. Nothing yet, but I haven’t given up. I think it takes a really long time.

I put my sickly Meyers Lemon tree outside for the summer and it came back to life. Now that cold weather is approaching, I brought it indoors. I am determined to keep it healthy this winter, so I bought a grow light to keep it sunny. I put crushed egg shells in the dirt and I’m trying really hard not to overwater it. Wish me luck!

C19 Quarantine Hobbies #4 by Sheri LeClair Banitt

Knitting Pumpkins

Half the fun of knitting is picking out the yarn.

It’s that time of the summer where you’re tired of mowing the lawn and the petunias are looking scrappy. But it’s not over yet and there are still those days with sweltering heat and humidity. You could go outside and weed the garden. Or you could stay inside with the air conditioning and Netflix and plan for fall. That’s what I did. I made a pumpkin ahead of pumpkin spice season so I’ll be ready when it’s time to switch over.

It didn’t take much yarn or much time to get this done.
About an hour of work, a custom stem, and this little guy is done. I can hardly wait to try all the colors.

C19 Quarantine Hobbies – #3 Weeding the Garden by Sheri LeClair Banitt

The best time to weed the garden is after it rains. So that is what I did today. With over cast skies and lots of optimism I headed to the flower garden to “clean it up a little.” Well that was an under statment. The garden is not very big but it sure holds a lot of creeping charlie and weeds and unwanted grass.

Too busy weedin’ to do any seedin’. Veggie garden will have to wait.

Had to stop before I finished because my hands are sore and my back is starting to talk to me. Gardening is the kind of thing you have to do more or less. The more you do it, the less you feel it; the aches and pains that is. Pretty sure by the end of the summer my back will hold out, but my patience may not.

C19 Quarantine Hobby Series- # 2 Making Ornaments by Sheri LeClair Banitt

My Vintage/Covid Hobby – Beaded orns like the ones I made with Grandma Dorothy in the 1970’s

Now that I am home most of the time, I have yearned to try new hobbies to keep my mind and spirit fresh and lively. Except the things I want to try really aren’t new at all. I’ve been dabbling in hobbies from my past.

Sometime in the 1970’s, my siblings and I stayed overnight at our Grandparent’s house. There were four of us and I’m sure they were motivated to keep up busy. One time, I remember making Christmas ornaments by sticking beads and sequins into styrofoam balls. I haven’t seen any of those ornaments in years; I wonder if my mom still has them.

As it turns out, you can purchase vintage ornament kits from Mary Maxim Online Catalog. I purchased a few and later ordered a few more. These are fun to make and can be done during a movie or two. https://www.marymaxim.com/

Another funsie was pulling out my vintage muffin tin to sort my beads. Folks, I got this as wedding shower gift in 1981. The ‘patina’ is genuine and now it is producing ornaments instead of muffins or dinner rolls.

Making the ornaments is relaxing and fun. You look at the color photo provided and the hand-drawn diagram for placing the ribbons, pins, beads, and sequins. I use a drop of glue on each pin to make sure it stays put.

If you have time, patience and a little extra cash, I recommend this hobby for your time at home. If you are a boomer like me, it will be nostalgic entertainment. If you are a millenial it will be old-fashioned fun.

C19 Quarantine Hobby Series-#1 Sewing Masks by Sheri LeClair Banitt

I have been truly uninspired over this last several weeks of theC19 Quarantine. Trying to deal with Work From Home while coaching a team of 10 who are also doing Work From Home for the first time has taken all of my energy. I had to drop out of otherwise fun activities like Toastmasters and book groups at work. Being at home makes it easy to put in 11 hours without a break. I am tired.

Just this week I started stepping away from my desk and taking an official break during the day. I am walking outside with my dogs over the lunch hour and sitting in my recliner for a 15 minute coffee break. It feels good. But during those moments, I miss the office. I miss the hubbub, the noise,the smiling faces. I love being home and I am very productive, but I just miss the connections with people and my old work habits.

I miss the ease of face to face discussions without having to type or Zoom. I am grateful for those options, but it just takes more planning and effort than a simple conversation with someone inside my 6 foot bubble.

When I’m not working, I’m still at home and there’s just so much TV watching and house clearning one can do. I have become quite crafty during the quarantine. I decided to chronicle the things I have made and how it felt to be making them.

Making the masks seemed fun at first. I couldn’t go shopping, so I dug through my old craft supplies and found some vintage fabric I saved from around 1987. To that I added the elastic hair ties leftover from raising my daughters. I found a pattern on my Chiropractor’s website and started cutting out masks. I cut out thirteen , thinking that would cover my family members that were close enough to pick them up.

I am not a sewer, so I had to relearn to thread the machine and wind the bobbin. The masks are easy to sew and I soon was churing out a mask in 20 minutes. I felt proud to get them made and it was kind of fun.

But then I had to start wearing the mask out in public. It was hot and fogged up my glasses. More than that, when I wear my mask I am reminded that this is a real situation and not just an inconvenience. I do not want to get the Coronavirus. I do not want others to get it. I want to do my part to limit the spread. I don’t feel overly anxious, but I have my moments when my thoughts go to, “What if…”. Then I try to remember I can do what I can and need to let tomorrow worry about itself.

Plastic Bag to Plastic Bag by Sheri LeClair Banitt

  • Overflowing plastic bags
  • Cut and roll into a ball
  • Crochet into a bag
Making the best of a Covid situation.

So, I am seriously concerned about our water creatures and how they are managing the massive amounts of plastic in our waterways. I think often about the dolphins and sea turtles and fish and birds who encounter plastic bags that end up in the ocean. I know they suffer from ingesting the plastic and from getting tangled up in them as they try to escape handles that won’t let go.

This is why I started using reusable cloth shopping bags more than 11 years ago. My friends and family know that I keep a stash of bags in my trunk, in my basement, in my closets and at work so I can easily, always, bring my own reusable bag. I hate plastic bags; I don’t want them. I will carry my groceries out in my arms before I will take a plastic bag.

But now, in the face of the Coronavirus, I am faced with a new, old dilemma. The problem of the plastic bag has invaded my consciousness again. To avoid spreading germs, stores will not allow personal cloth bags inside anymore. Shoot. I am only shopping once every two weeks, on payday. I have to wear a mask and practice social distancing when I go. And, to avoid extra time at the register, I am passively accepting the plastic bags the store gives out.

Oh how it bothers me to come home with so much waste, and dangerous waste at that. I just can’t bear the thought of the dolphins eating my bags and the turtles wrapped up in my bags just for my convenience.

I can’t throw these bags away and that’s it. I can’t. I won’t. So, I do what any good trouble shooter will do when faced with an undesireable situation. I find a way to keep the bags, and implement the KonMari method. Keeping the bags will bring me joy, but not if they are in a messy stash. So I think, think, think, until I know what to do. I can combine this mess with the newfound boredom of the quarantine and make something new and useful.

I have spent considerable time cutting the bags into strips, rolling them into balls and now I am crocheting them into reusable shopping bags! I may not be able to bring them into the stores until the CDC deems it safe, but until then I can fill them with all the things I need to carry around the house.

From throwaway shopping bag to reusable shopping bag, I’m just making the best of a covid situation.