Everyday I'm Swiffering

For probably close to three months now I have been out of Swiffer dusters.  In my search to find the cheapest price on refills I came across, on Etsy, washable/reusable Swiffers.  I am most certainly not a great sewer, I can barely go straight and usually don't, but I thought how hard can this project be.  The Etsy sale was for two washable and reusable dusters for $9-not a bad deal when a box of 10 is $7 and that only lasts 3 months if you change them with each dusting and dust weekly...ummm like I do?  Ok, maybe they last a lot  longer here considering dusting is my Sunday chore and I'm always making excuses not to do my Sunday chores.  They looked simple enough to make, I have plenty of micro fleece around the house (large pieces of fabric purchased at Walmart and used as couch and picnic blankets), and even better I already had a template (an old used nasty duster).  But, every time I went to sit down to make my washable duster, which included getting out a scissor, the fleece, a measuring tape, and going to the basement to get my sewing machine (have I mentioned before I need a craft room) I talked my self out of making them by saying to myself why cut up a blanket and spend ALLLL of this time, the dusters cost merely more than pennies.  Then, of course, every time I was at the store and about to go down the aisle that had dusters I would talk myself our of buying them, saying why spend the money when you can make them so easily in a few minutes.  Well, this internal debate of being cheap and lazy went on for far longer than it should.  This past weekend, feeling a little restless and without a project to concentrate on, I was finally industrious and sat down with all of my supplies and started to make my knockoff, environmentally friendly, washable, reusable Swiffer Duster.

First the supplies

An old Swiffer Duster Wand
Sewing Machine-Though this could easily be done by hand at a much slower pace
Micro Fleece-I used a section of an old blanket
Scissors
Measuring Tape
Chalk

It was around this point when I was getting my supplies out that I realized I did not have an old duster to use as my template.  Imagine that I had a dirty old dusting cloth and threw it in the garbage?!  Crazy I know!  So at this point to get the measurements I would need I just googled how to make a Swiffer duster and came across the page you see in the picture.  http://littledeartracks.blogspot.com/2010/06/better-than-swiffer-dusters.html  This isn't the exact site I used but I looked at several including this one for the measurements.  Basically, what you need are 3-4 8.5"x4.5" pieces of fleece.  I used three and made one o then half sized as i thought this would help in collecting more dust.  To cut the pieces I used my tape measure and a piece of sidewalk chalk and  make several tick marks 4.5" in going up the size of the fleece from the edge.  I then folded the fleece along these dots and cut.  I laid out my 4.5' wide strip and cut 3 8.5" pieces.  As you can see from the picture the edge of the fleece had writing on it so it was no big loss to cut it off the blanket.  And, just in case you were wondering, that is in fact a Yoda blanket I'm cutting up.  Granted, I like Star Wars as much as the next person but really, again, no big loss here.

The next step was to make my pattern to sew on.  I'm sure most sewers cold do this step with out the guides, but as I said earlier sewing straight is a talent I lack.  I made three likes about 2/3 o the way up.  The first line I made was down the center and for these I used my measuring tape and a straight edge.  From the center line I made two more lines, one to the left and one to the right that were approximately .75" away.  These were my guides as to where to sew, but you should always measure twice.  At this point hold the Swiffer wand against the lines to make sure they will line up properly and the wand will fit into the pockets you are making for it.  Now it is time to sew.

First, I sewed the perimeter, the two sides and top all at once-Remember to sew the end and beginning forward and back a few times to secure your stitches! 

 Next, I Sewed the middle line making sure to leave about an inch at the bottom, as this is how the spokes on the wand are shaped.  

Then, finally, all you need to do is cut slits in your fleece to make "dust grabbers," slide onto your wand and dust away!

I was also thinking something even easier to do would be to trace your hand and cut out 2 mitten shapes and you would have a hand duster, though I think the wand style with "grabbers" is far superior.

I actually used this right away to make sure it worked and it was great and since I had some laundry going i threw it in with a load and it washed beautifully and is ready for next Sunday when I make a new excuse not to dust.