Select a Set of Perfect Sheets!

With all the time Miss Ginger spends in bed, she knows the importance of quality bed coverings!  After years in the retail sector, she's got some hints and tips for finding a great set of sheets that won't break the bank! 

While people tend to get mired down in thread counts and dimensions, the first consideration in choosing a luxurious sheet is the fiber. While "linens" is the term historically used to mean bed sheets, most sheets today are cotton. Linen sheets maintain a crisp, cool feel between washings, but are incredibly expensive, required detailed ironing after washing, and may be a little more "crisp" than most of us would enjoy.  Conversely, silk has a soft, smooth, almost slick feel, and is lightweight and durable. Silk contains cellular albumen,  and some believe that it promotes younger looking skin. Because of it's expense and delicate nature, silk is not a practical choice for most American homes. You are not likely to find linen or silk sheets at your local department or specialty stores, but they are available online.

Cotton, poly-cotton, and rayon-cotton blends are commonly available and come in a wide range of colors and thread counts. The most important consideration in choosing a cotton sheet is the type of cotton. Traditional American cotton is a short staple cotton, meaning the individual fibers are shorter than Egyptian cotton, the original long staple fiber. Longer fibers, created by nature through a cadence of moisture and temperature fluctuations during the growing season, give the final fabric a smoother hand and greater durability. Of course, good ole American ingenuity has created strains of long staple cotton that can be grown right here in the US of A, so you can't rely on country of origin labels alone. "Egyptian Cotton" is grown in Egypt, and, due to the climate there, will always be of high quality.  You can find sheets made of long staple cotton grown outside of Egypt, and it will typically be labelled "pima", "Supima®", or "long staple cotton".

You still with me? Now that you have chosen a fiber (long staple cotton, remember?) it's time to choose a fabric. (Home Ec 101:  fabrics are made of fiber. Fiber is the raw material, fabric is the finished product.) Most commonly in American stores you will find percale, sateen, and damask, specifically damask stripe, which is an alternation of a sateen weave. Confused? Don't be, as these terms are not super important. Percale is typically a bit "crisper" than sateen, for those who like a more linen-like sleeping experience. Sateen is a bit "softer", for those who like the feel of silk and the practicality of cotton. 80% of the sheets you see in a store will be sateen.

Now... lets talk about the ubiquitous thread count... it will be emblazoned all over the package! Woven from Egyptian or pima cotton, any thread count from about 400 and higher will feel much the same, although logic might say that the higher thread count would wear better.  In a percale, a higher thread count would give a somewhat smoother feel, more like a sateen. And in a sateen, a higher thread count makes the fabric feel more like silk.

So, now that you are totally confused, should you buy a set, or individual sheets and cases? Were you really expecting an easy answer to that?

Sheet sets are often promotional in nature, meaning they can represent a great value... emphasis on the word "can". They can also be a loss-leader, bait and switch way to get you to make an impulsive purchase, so caveat emptor! Keep what you know in mind, and make an informed decision!

If cost were no object, I would always buy 800 thread count Egyptian Cotton "Hotel Collection" sheets from Macy's. They are luxurious, long-wearing, and look great right out of the dryer.  At retail, they cost about $800 a set for a king size bed with 4 pillows.  At 25% off they are still about $600 a set, and if you can catch them on sale, with a coupon, you can get them for about $540.  They are the "gold standard" for sheets, IMHO.  

The other great advantages to buying sheets individually vs. as a set are two-fold. All sheets are packaged with a number of fillers and additives to make them feel great at the store. If you are considering an expensive line, it might be a good idea to buy a set of pillowcases, take them home and launder them, and then sleep on them for a night or two to see if you want a whole bed made of that.... and it's always great to have a couple of spare pillowcases around, anyway.  The other good reason to buy "open stock" is that it tends to be available in the store for a much longer time than promotional sets, so if bleach damage and pillowcase loss is a common occurrence in your household, you can replace only the pieces you need to complete the set. 

If $800 for a set of sheets is a bit rich for your blood,  sheet sets can provide a real value, if they meet your needs.  Sets are promotional, which means a store will "stack them deep and sell them cheap" for a specific sale event, and when they are sold out, they are gone. There is no replacing individual pieces after an unexpected bleach accident, but they can be a great deal if they are made of a long staple cotton, fit your bed (especially if you have a deep mattress) and come in a color that works with your room.

One of the best values Miss Ginger has found is a 600 TC Egyptian Cotton sateen extended set (it has 4 pillowcases!) for $70 bucks or so. While the brand name and the stitching detail may vary by store, she has found this same general offer at Sam's Club, Costco, and Tuesday Morning. She's even found them at Macy's, and though the ticket price may be a bit higher, with a sale and a coupon they can actually get at low as fifty bucks and some change.  

Miss Ginger may not be able to change the quality of your life, but she may be able to upgrade the quality of your sheets.... and if you are handsome and rich, she might be able to enhance the quality of what's between them! You know where to find her... in the comments section, below!!!

Between the Sheets!

Miss Ginger spends a lot of time between the sheets... and she's not ashamed to admit it! Unfortunately, she spends most of that time sleeping, and the rest snuggling with Princess Shelby, so get your minds out of the gutter!!

Momma Ginger was a fanatic about sheets,so Miss Ginger learned a lot about them from her. Momma G once told her "Ginger dear, you probably won't grow up to be much of a looker, so you'd better learn to keep a spotless house if you ever want a man!"  Well, jokes on her-  'cause I'm a knockout, I don't WANT a man, and my house is immaculate! 

Momma G was a white sheet gal- only white sheets, always washed in bleach.  5 boys at different stages of puberty... bleachability was a high priority for her! Miss Ginger, not so much! But she and Shelby appreciate the sanctity of "clean sheet night", and look forward to it every week!

One of the best things Momma G taught Miss Ginger is how to fold a fitted sheet. Can you do it?  Let's see if you are doing it right!  (Sidenote: do you know how hard it is to fold a sheet and take pictures of yourself doing it?!) Anyho, you start with a mess like this, fresh out of the dryer ("Don't let them sit in the dryer", says Momma G. "If you do, you'll never get those wrinkles out!"

Now, here's the fun part:  locate one corner, and hang the sheet over your left fist by that corner, like this:

Now, follow the edge of the sheet down from your fist to the next corner.  Put your right fist on the outside of that corner, and turn it inside-out as you bring your hands together. Once it is inside out, nest it inside the first corner.  Do this 2 more times, and if you do it right, it will look like this:

Now I'm going to lay it out on the dining room table so I can take pictures.  You may be able to do this part without laying it out, but really, it's so much easier to lay it on the bed or a table at this point....

Now, take the edge closest to you, and fold it up, lining up the straight edge on the right side (and concealing the messy left side within the fold!) Now, grab the far side and flip it over, placing the folded edge away from you. This brings this squarest side to the bottom.

Smooth everything out as best you can (no need to be OCD at this point) and fold it toward the middle, in thirds.

Fold the right third over the other two, making a nice, neat package.

Fold it one more time away from you, and you're done!  Nice and neat, ready to stack in your linen closet!

I've got lots more "sheet shit" coming your way, so stay tuned!

A Gig!!!

It's been a while since Miss Ginger Grant has been out in the community, shagging for donations a dollar at a time, but that's about to change!  Derby Day 2013 is the 6th time Miss Ginger will have hosted the event, and it just gets bigger and bigger- sort of like her hats! 

She's already starting on this year's monstrosity, and she hopes you have, too!  Derby Day is Houston's ORIGINAL Hat Party, and this year promises to be bigger and better than ever!   Come on down to EJ's May 4th to support Legacy Community Health Services and celebrate Derby Day, "Ginger Style!"

Fleur-de-lis Wind Chime

Fleur-de-lis patterns have been all the rage since hurricane Katrina, but in fact, fleur-de-lis have been used in Louisiana for ages as a representation of the state's French heritage.  Miss Ginger has always loved fleur-de-lis, and finds the motif to be remarkably gender-neutral, making them great for adorning gifts and decorations for everyone.  Here's a beautiful adaptation of her wind chime using this recherché symbol of rebirth.

For this project Miss Ginger used 3 bottles. One was the "magnum" size she usually buys for parties, and the other 2 were regular wine bottles, with different shapes to add interest.

She used her Silhouette Cameo machine and its Studio software to create the stencils of self-stick vinyl. If you've thought about buying a cutting machine, this is the one to get! Rather than having to buy cartridge after cartridge to collect the shapes you want, the Silhouette Store allows you to download only the ones you need, right from your computer! Miss G downloaded the flour-de-lis pattern, resized and duplicated to meet her needs, and cut the stencils in just a few minutes.

One the stencils were applied, Miss Ginger used Armor Etch cream to etch the pattern.  You could also etch them with a diamond burr or sandblaster, but the etching cream is fast, easy, and permanent. 

After finding a cork to fit each bottle, Miss G added a screw eye to each end, covering the threads with a waterproof glue to ensure it doesn't work loose in the wind.  Starting with the largest bottle at the top, she used lengths of clock chain from Lowe's to connect the layers.  For the wind catcher, she used a 4" square of thin board turned to make a diamond, and stenciled a fleur on both sides with white paint.

Beach Glass Candleholder

Here's a quick and cheap way to make a beautiful candleholder to show off your beach glass collection! You could also use glass marbles or other translucent collectibles, as long at they are fireproof!

You'll need two clear glass bottles or jars, one about twice the diameter of the other, and both of similar height.  Miss Ginger used two wine bottles (of course!), a magnum and a standard 750 bottle.  She cut the tops off of both, making the smaller bottle just a tad shorter so they would be the same height with the smaller bottle inside the larger one.

Use a drop of epoxy to glue the bottom of the smaller bottle to the larger one, making sure to center it carefully, leaving about 1/2" gap between the bottles all around.

Once the epoxy sets, start dropping the beach glass in between the 2 bottles, alternating smaller and larger pieces. You can make it all multicolored, or a single color, or layer the colors- it's art! Let your imagination run wild!

Once complete, drop in a candle, and you'll have a beachside fire to enjoy, right in the comfort of your living room! 

Homemade "Beach Glass"

Perhaps Mother Nature's original "up cycle", beach glass is the result of water, sand, and friction on discarded bottles and jars, creating a beautiful, gem-like nugget that is often collected by jewelers, crafters, and lovers of the sea.  The Pisces in Miss Ginger makes her adore all things oceanic, and beach glass is no exception. 

It takes Mother Nature years to grind glass down into choice nuggets, and she disperses them so expertly that finding them is not so easy. Miss G is not a big fan of sand in her swimsuit, so she avoids the beach like the plague.  In her mind, swimsuits should be worn for competition only! 

No, not that kind of competition! 

This is the kind of competition that would get Miss Ginger into a swimsuit... but don't you love the way she worked in that shirtless picture of Michael Phelps?!

ANYWAY, you can create your own beach glass, right at home, with very little effort and not much investment!

You will need a rock tumbler, and you may even have one in your attic and garage from when you were a kid.  You can get dinky little toy ones at a craft store, but you can buy a substantial one like this for about the same price at Harbor Freight Tools. $40 bucks will get you going, and the only other things you'll need are glass shards, coarse garden sand, and a little water.

Miss Ginger saves all the broken pieces from her failed attempts at other projects, and picks out the most interesting shapes and colors to load into the tumbler.  She puts about an inch of sand in the bottom of the barrel, fills it about halfway up with glass shards, and then adds just enough water to cover the glass. You want to leave enough room for it to slosh around.  Screw the lid on tight, set it on the base, turn it on, and come back in 3-4 days. It's that easy!

After about 3 days, stop the tumbler and pull out a piece or two to see if they are "beachy" enough.  If they aren't, just put the lid back on and let them keep tumbling for a day or two more.  If they are, use an old colander to drain and rinse the pieces completely.  Do this in the yard, with a garden hose. Whatever you do, DO NOT put the used sand or resulting slurry in the drain! Trust me on this- if you do, you will end up with a clog in your sewer line (sometimes a year or two down the road) that will take excavation to fix!

For your patience, you will be rewarded with smooth, translucent pieces with rounded edges.  Nature's beauty, in less than a week- and no sand in your ass, either!!

Upcycled Bottle Chandelier

Okay, maybe "chandelier" is a bit grand, considering that nothing really dangles, but "Upcycled Sculptural Light Fixture" seemed like an awkward title...

Anyho, Miss Ginger is pretty proud of this one! She's had the idea rattling around in her mind for a while, and finally had the holy trinity of idea, materials, and time come together.

It's easy to find a million ways to upcyle the bottoms of glass bottles, as they can be turned into all sorts of glasses, candleholders, or other vessels. The tops, however, are more problematic.  Miss Ginger saved them at first simply because she was determined to keep them out of the waste stream, but she initially had no idea what to do with them.  The world only needs so many wind chimes. After making  plethora of glasses and candleholders, the suckers were beginning to pile up!

The trick to this upcycle is getting the correct adhesive. Glass is slick and non-porous, so sticking it together can be tricky. Not only does the adhesive have to hold the glass pieces together, invisibly, it also has to hold them solidly enough to support the weight of the structure. Glass is heavy! Superglue, hot glue, white glue, construction adhesive- all fail on some part of the test or another.

Epoxy is the only adhesive that will successfully adhere glass and support it's weight. Most epoxies are a pain in the ass to use, as they require mixing in just the right proportions.  Loctite Instant Mix 5-minute Epoxy is the perfect combination of strength and open time for this project, and is readily available at Lowes or Home Depot. Plus, it comes with a self-mixing syringe thingy that dispenses the adhesive and the hardener in just the right proportions! And, it dries to a transparent "yellowish clear" that totally disappears on green bottles!

Because glass is so slick, even epoxy can't reliably stick to the smooth surface.  To solve that problem, Miss G used a rotary tool with a diamond burr to scuff up the glass everywhere there was a joint. 

The first "layer" was pretty straightforward, with a healthy dab of epoxy at each side joint, and again where the necks touched.  The epoxy dries to full strength overnight, but it only takes about 20 minutes for it to harden solidly enough to continue with the next layer.

Adding the subsequent layers was only a little bit tricky due to the angles of the bottles. Miss Ginger used a Sharpie to mark the points where the bottles touched, dry fitting, marking, scuffing, and gluing each bottle one at a time.  It sounds tedious but it really went quickly. 

As the angle became steeper on the 3rd and 4th layers, Miss G used clamps to hold the bottles in place until the epoxy had set enough to hold on its own.  After 4 layers were glued up in this manner, Miss Ginger let the epoxy set overnight before she tried to move  or turn the structure.

The next day, Miss Ginger flipped the entire thing over and added one last layer to the other side of the initial layer.  This will form the top of the fixture, so she added a chain circle around the neck of every 4th bottle, to distribute the weight when the fixture hangs. She wanted to use the fixture outdoors, so she bought a weatherproof floodlamp holder  and used binder rings to center it on the chain, just above the bottles, so the light would catch the neck of the bottles as it shines down. 

Around this, she added a glass tile  to conceal the "inner workings".

Miss Ginger is a strong girl, but she needed help to hoist this sucker into position- it weighs a ton, and it's awkward to hold.  If you use it indoors, you will need to make sure to hang it from a large eye-bolt screwed directly into a ceiling joist.  Outdoors, just loop a chain around a strong tree-branch, or hang it from an eave or soffit.

Miss Ginger loves it so much she's going to make another so she'll have a pair!