Indoor/Outdoor Plant Misting Shield

This is a shield to catch the over-spray created when misting house, garden and nursery plants. Whether you want to keep from getting water or pest treatment concoctions on the walls and windows or pest treatment sprays off surrounding plants, a chamois shield will last forever if cared for properly.

All you need

(1) large chamois (leather, synthetic or microfiber or some type of absorbent fabric)

(1) large embroidery hoop

a tape measure

scissors - IF you want to trim your chamois. Obviously, you don't have to cut off the excess and leaving it makes it easier to get it back into the hoop if you want to take it off the hoop to wash it (instructions for washing in next step). Otherwise, you can simply rinse it with the kitchen sprayer or hose it off, if you're outside.

You want this big enough to catch all of the over-spray, so buy the largest chamois you can and get it first, because they vary quite a bit in shape and size.

Once you have your chamois, position various large and round objects over it and measure to get the largest embroidery hoop it will cover. You can make it completely covered or if a small part of the chamois doesn't extend far enough to be placed in the hoop, you can create a handle - as illustrated above.

To clean a leather chamois, you want to wash it by hand with ivory bar soap and warm water.

After you wash it, rinse it out and then soap it up again and wring it out, without rinsing it, and let it dry with the soap in it.

Don't fold it until it's dry and don't put it back into the embroidery hoop. When you want to use it again, THEN rinse out the soap, use, and then re-apply the soap and let it dry in it.

Once you wash it, when you use it again, you would rinse out the soap and then put it in the hoop and just use it damp. Then you can either leave it in the hoop and run the soap bar over it or remove it from the hoop every time to soap it back up. This keeps the chamois soft and absorbent. A chamois will last forever if it's properly maintained BUT I would not use chamois if I was using it outside or spraying pest control chemicals so there are alternatives.

If you only mist with water and don't wash it, you can simply leave it in the hoop and hang it in the garage or, once it's dry, hang it on a hook behind the fridge or stick it in some other nook or cranny.

DO NOT STORE YOUR SHAMMY WET

NEXT - Alternatives to Leather Chamois

Obviously, you don't have to use a leather chamois. It's just what I had on hand.

You can also use a synthetic chamois or you can get a large, used, dinner napkin for a couple bucks on "that auction site". I don't like cotton because it doesn't like to let go of water but linen is made from stem material, which is configured to accept AND let go of water - as opposed to seed material, which just doesn't like to give it up once it has some.

Another alternative - if you want to get "fancy" and spend more time on it - is to sew whatever material you choose onto a hoop of 1/8" fish tape so that once it's dry, you can twist it up and make a little bag for it. It will twist and fold into 3 flaps and be about 1/3 the size of the hoop.

You could also simply get one of those pop open child sun shields for in the car and use velcro or even magnets to attach your chamois or material to it. Or, you could do it a hundred other ways, ROFL!

WARNING!!!!

If you use fish tape, be very careful. Keep it under control or under something heavy or clamped to the table at all times and clamp it down good before you cut it and be extra careful playing with hoops without any fabric on them because if you twist them and let them pop open, you can break nearby objects and/or get smacked in the face or arm or chest or shoulder or wherever it can reach - which hurts. A lot. So learn from my mistakes, grasshoppers...I was extra, super-duper careful, secured it when it was unrolled, clamped it down before I cut it, secured the ends when I made the hoop and then BAM! Right in the mouth. So, don't do that.