Category: Crafty

Canning and Gardening and Crafts, Oh My!
Canning and Preserving · Crafty · Gardening

Canning and Gardening and Crafts, Oh My!

LSiehLeave a comment

We had a lovely weekend. We had friends over on Sunday for crafting and video games and it was lots of fun. They helped us cook and we used the grill two days in a row!

Fancy was in heaven with two other people to pet her, plus we got her the treat she likes the best from the dog bakery. She’s currently recovering with multiple naps.

My craft this weekend was canning. I made five jars of pickles. There were originally 6, but one popped in the pot. I have always been afraid of it, but it’s probably good it happened with pickles. The mess that exploding jam would cause makes me cringe just thinking about it.

I found out when I went to check the  pot and there was a floating jar. That’s not a good thing to see when canning. The bottom just popped right out with a pretty clean cut. All the pickles stayed right in the jar too, so it wasn’t too bad to clean up. There wasn’t  good way to take a picture of it while it was still hot, but the picture up top is the circle of glass from the bottom.

Here are the intact pickles:

My friend had the brilliant idea to cut the cucumbers into chips after I found out I didn’t have enough wide- mouthed jars. Sometimes my prep skills could be a little better, but I thought I had more and was trying to avoid having to smuggle more jars past the Husband. Apparently I still haven’t canned enough for him. 🙂

I have a few more pickled veggies to add to my list, but not during this week. We are way too busy! I need to outdo my Mom’s pickle trays though, now that it’s become a thing.

My craft ladies discussed the differences between pickle and relish trays for about 45 minutes after they heard the story. My Mom was so proud when I told her. 🙂 This year for our parties, we’ll have homemade pickles!

On the crafty front, I cut a bunch of tea wallets over the last few days. I pulled from the red, brown, and purple scraps this time. I got in a groove and found myself with a huge pile of tea wallets needing to be made.

I worked on the purple ones first this time.

Here are the insides. The blue one at the top right has planets on the back and on the inside!

The garden is growing pretty well. We have three zucchini on the plant and a whole bunch of tomatoes coming in. The green pepper plant has two peppers on it. I couldn’t get a good picture of the “massive” jalapeños. There are three of them starting, but they are so far not living up to their name.

I did have a problem with blossom end rot on three of my big tomatoes. We’ve had a few days with a lot of rain and I probably need to add some more special fertilizer. I had the same problem with them last year and the internet said it was probably due to inconsistent watering. I was really terrible about watering enough last year.

The lettuce will be a wash this year. It’s completely covered in spiders and is starting to go brown. It’s quite sad. I have successfully grown baby lettuces before, so I think in the future I’ll stick to that.

I brought home my personal clipboards from work to collage, as I wanted to make sure I could tell them apart from the work ones. I’m going to just do the backs, so that there is still a smooth surface to write on. It will also let me go through some of my art supplies, as I need to have a bit more of it in the office right now.

Have a good night!

Craftiness and Garden Update
Crafty · Gardening

Craftiness and Garden Update

LSiehLeave a comment

How did it get to be Monday again? It seems like it was just Tuesday and now I need a weekend to recover from the weekend. We had friends over for a Driveway Movie Night, where we projected “Moana” on the garage door and watched it from lawn chairs in the driveway. Fancy got to see a dog friend again and did really well when the other dog was in the house. We were happy with that, as she can be territorial.

It’s pouring rain and thundering this morning; the perfect kind of day to stay home and do nothing. I don’t have that luxury, sadly, but do have French Onion soup in the crockpot for later which will be comforting.

Fancy had the right idea this morning. She hid under the bed and refused to come out. I was making chocolate ice cream, so bribed myself with that, otherwise, I would have been under there with her.

I was pretty crafty last week. Having to be in the basement with Fancy helped me get some more fabric cut up and organized. I had to start a new box for purple fat quarters, as I kept finding more of them. I also almost completely cleaned out a box with random fabric and crafty things in it. I also made 12 new tea wallets for Twinflower Fancies, or Hawthorne and Vine, a flower shop where they are also currently being sold.

When I sew these, I organize them in color groups based on what color thread they will be sewn with. I chain sew them as well. It doesn’t make sense to do them one at a time, as I would have to switch thread colors constantly. Normally, I wait until I have three or more in each color before I start sewing them up. I tried to expand my color range this time. I know I tend to stick to colors and patterns that I like by accident, but need to remember that it may not appeal to others as well.

Here are the green ones:

These three buttons were my favorites, I think, from the whole stack.

Here are the two black ones:

And the blue ones:

The octopus one might have to be my work tea wallet. I just love it and don’t know if I can give it up, despite already having a Red Riding Hood one in my purse. It’s just too cute.

It ws fun to go through the fabrics and remember what they were from as I was sewing them. This batch had a lot of familiar prints.

The owls are from a baby quilt for my cousin’s little girl. The dark green and vine print one is from a purse that I had tried to hand sew when I first started out. It was not a good idea and I finally got up the nerve to just rip it and reuse the fabric.

The geranium one and the holiday recipe one are both made from scraps of aprons that have been made for my Mom. When I bought the geranium fabric, the lady at the cutting table asked if I could adopt her too, she was jealous. 🙂

The gold treble clefs are from pillows I finally made the Husband this year after buying the fabric when we were dating. The blue and white waves with the boat is from one of the first skirts that I made.

All the other fabrics are from the stash. It’s nice to think if those special fabrics being used for something else too. That’s why I love scrap quilts so much too, there are a lot of memories in each of them.

Now for the gardening update:

I keep accidentally almost killing my lettuces. Plus, there are spiders living in them. Gross, hairy spiders, who have made a home in the lettuces themselves and in the pots. The Husband is going to have to cut them when, or if, they survive. I am not having spiders crawl on me. I think I’ll stick to farmer’s market lettuce next year. Any tips would be appreciated.

We have been getting some strawberries before the squirrel does!

These were all from yesterday and I found another one today. There are still a bunch of green ones on the plants too.

My peppers are looking good. The Mammoth Jalapeño has a pepper started. We’ll see how big it gets and if it lives up to its name. 🙂

The tomatoes all have some started. This one is the Roma, I believe and it had the most on it. I need to get some more stakes.

Here is the cucumber. This sucker is huge! It has a lot of flowers, but no starts yet. It keeps trying to escape into the yard.

My herbs are doing alright. The basil doesn’t look good. There has been a beetle that keeps eating it and it got very leggy and scraggly looking. It has yellow bottom leaves too, which I’m sure isn’t good. The oregano seems to have bolted. It keeps sending up flowers. I’m going to prune them off and see if I can get more out of it. Everything else seems to be growing well.

This week I have a few late nights, but most of my other days have a little more flex in them than usual. The weeks that my biweekly clients all come can get a little crazy, but it evens out with a few slower days occasionally. I’m hoping to get the fabric washed for the Rainbow Quilt and get it ties this weekend. Our friends are coming over this weekend for another sewing/video game day, so I can get some sewing done then too.

I also have a goal of canning three recipes, blackberry cinnamon tequila jam, nectarine orange marmalade, and dill pickles. I have some time tomorrow and a few other times this week.

I’m considering starting a “Simple Sunday” post which would be a quote or two, either funny or inspiring. I found my quote book from a while ago and was sad that the quotes I liked were just sitting in a book and not getting shared. It would be a good way to find out other quotes too, so I think that will start this Sunday.

Have a great Monday!

Monthly Review
Canning and Preserving · Crafty · Gardening · Monthly Review

Monthly Review

LSiehLeave a comment

It has officially been six months since I started the blog! So far, I have been pretty pleased with my progress, but can always do a little more.

I’ve decided that when I do extra things, instead of my written goals for the month, I should just get to call them “bonus goals.” That way I won’t feel bad about getting those things done instead. Like deep cleaning my kitchen cupboard…I knew it should be done, but wasn’t actually adding it to any list until there were ants. I do need to start a regular cleaning list for things like that. I tend to do them when I get frustrated, which would be prevented, if I was doing them regularly.

I am going to start with the craft part of the review today, as I am proud of what I had gotten done.

Crafting Review:

I’m in a weird sewing rut right now. I want to sew, but there are too many projects to choose from and I get consumed with anxiety about what I want to get done. I’m also not sure how many elastic waisted poofy skirts I need in my closet, which is the easiest thing I feel like sewing. I want to sew rainbow scrap quilts too, but since I have been attempting to finish one for three months at least with no joy, I’m not allowed to start another.

I’m also struggling with starting new things right now. My brain is telling me that I need to fix the things in the mending or that are half done first. My brain is right of course. I did finish one thing from the UFO/mending pile, just today actually.

I made this tunic dress about a year ago, washed it, and promptly discovered all the places the very tiny bias tape didn’t catch. This included the left sleeve, which had also frayed and was literally hanging on by a thread. I took off the edging on the sleeves and neck and sewed new hems. I also blind stitched the pocket edges down, to make them look neater. Now I can wear it again!

Here’s closeup of the pocket: You can see where the wash made it a little wrinkly, but I think that won’t be too noticeable while wearing it. Really, if anyone is inspecting the pockets that closely, I will be firmly requesting some more personal space.

The dress is a beautiful cotton batik and it has a blue linen like material on the bottom to add length and interest. It’s based on my favorite shirt pattern and is pretty comfy. I’m counting this as my piece of clothing for the month, as it was unwearable until I fixed it. 🙂

Other things that I have made:

Covered boxes for the games at work.

I decided to keep the plastic bin for my Legos, but then needed a few more storage containers to keep other card games and other small games in. I had thought about buying something, but already had shoeboxes and cute fabric. Who wouldn’t want rocket boxes?

These are just hot glued and could be neater on the inside, but they work perfectly for me, and the kids I see are not going to care.

I added black buttons to the tea wallets that I made. They look really nice. I’m hoping to get them up on Etsy soon.

Speaking of Etsy, I did end up listing 3 new things and renewing a few more. I also sold one of my older bags soon after renewing it, which was nice. I know I need to get some more stock up there. I am hoping to get pictures outside.

I also organized some more in the basement. It still doesn’t look like I did anything, but I did make my way through another pile of ironed scraps to be cut up. I did get my 1 yard totes and patterns squared away, so that helped.

I decided against making a whole new purse. The vintage ones I had book marked didn’t look as fun. I switched to a messenger style one with books on it. It has no pockets though and I desperately need a wallet and coin purse for it.

Crafting Goals:

* The ever-present Rainbow Snowball quilt.

* Make a wallet and coin purse.

* Continue with basement organizing.

* Make art for office.

* Finish a UFO/Mending project.

Garden Review: 

Everything is still alive! I picked two strawberries and two cherry tomatoes today and they were delicious.

All the food plants have buds or vegetable starts. The herbs are growing well too. I’ve been using them while cooking and have had the basil in Caprese salad about six times this month.

Garden Goals: Keep everything growing! Eat everything!

Recipe Review: 

Hits were the new chocolate chip cookie recipe, the yogurt, a caramelized onion grilled cheese, and a custard based ice cream from Pinterest-recipe to come.

We didn’t have any misses, just a few recipes I need to bump up the spice as usual. This month, I promise to actually measure once in a while to make sure I’m not under spicing the food.

I used 9 new cookbooks this month and made 25 new recipes total. I made up one new recipe, which turned out to be good. I canned 1 savory item, 2 marmalades, and one juice concentrate.

I also bought three new canning books… I couldn’t seem to stop myself at an outlet store. One was a paperback set of two for $.99 and the other I blame on the Husband. He found the Southern Living Small Batch book, which includes seasonal “Putting Up” party ideas. How was I supposed to resist that? 🙂

Meal planning went pretty well and I made at least two new recipes per week. I finally made yogurt and we’re on our third batch of ice cream. I ate good lunches too and planned enough time to figure them out before I had to go.

Sadly, I wasn’t able to find a biscuit recipe for Fancy, although, I was given one by a friend. We just bought her a large bag of chicken treats, but I would still like to find a crunchy biscuit for her.

Our bacon plans had to be put on hold, as I wasn’t able to find the right salt and had to order it online. It also takes a week to cure. Eventually we will have homemade bacon.

Fancy doesn’t seem to mind fireworks, as long as they are small ones. She does not like large booms or screamers and definitely does not like the ones directly across the street. I’m going to take her with me to organize the basement and see if that helps. We’ve got lots of cuddles, treats, and chew toys at the ready too. This is her before the fireworks.

I hope your plans for the 4th are good ones. On Wednesday, I’ll share one of my family traditions for the 4th that cause people to want to be adopted by us.

Have a happy holiday!

 

 

 

Crafty · Gardening

Crafty Weekend

LSiehLeave a comment

It was too hot to work in the garden, but everything is still alive! I’ve been watering frequently and the zucchini grows every time I look away. We have buds on the strawberry plants and a few of the tomato plants. I’ve used some of the oregano and the rosemary in a pot roast recipe and it was delicious.

I did some work in the basement and cut some more scraps down into squares and strips. I cut them into squares and strips measuring 2 inches, 2 1/2 inches, and 3 1/2 inches. Then I store them in baggies separated by measurements. Those bags are in suitcases. The theory is that I can then pull them out of the bag and have scrap quilts go together quickly. Most of the time it works. The quilts I’ve been working on lately have all been scrappy quilts, so I haven’t had to use them. My bags of 2 and 2 1/2 inch strips are currently overflowing, so I should find a quilt that needs those measurements.

I also cut out some new tea wallet pieces and made four tea wallets over the weekend. They just need their buttons to be completely done.

I tend to work on tea wallets in batches. It’s easier to chain piece them like you would a quilt square. I sort them into colors too, so this batch needed black thread. Two of these wallets have plain black fabric for the inside and two have black music print fabric, which doesn’t photograph well at all. It has treble clefs printed in black on a slightly darker black background.

It felt good to get some more scraps cut. I need to make some more tea wallets again. I changed out my order at the floral store and now have many more for Christmas, but not a lot of generic ones. I also need to figure out some more masculine fabrics. I figured the circle ones could go to either gender and I have more plaid and gun fabric I can use. I have a lot of floral wallets and pastel colors at the moment.

More fat quarter pieces got folded and added to the trunk. It still looks I did absolutely nothing down there, despite working for a couple of hours. My latest Netflix/fabric sorting show is called The Dr. Blake Mysteries. It’s set in 1959 in Australia. My Netflix watching gets progressively weirder the more fabric I want to cut. It’s pretty good. A bit laid back, but has social justice themes and murder, so what’s not to like?

We had people over this Sunday. My friend needed help with a bellydance costume and her husband plays video games, so is friends with my Husband. There was supposed to be an Atari marathon, but our TV is too new and they ended up playing Lord of the Rings in the Wii. I am atrocious at those games, so I was glad that the Husband had someone to play with who was actually good.

We had a new recipe for pot roast and a huge salad for lunch. It was lots of fun. My friend took some of my give away fabric too, which made the Husband very happy and her husband not so much. 🙂

Fancy was extremely excited to see them. They give her lots of love, because of course, the Husband and I never pet her…

This was Fancy shortly after they left. She was tuckered out.

In other news, I am getting ready to use my yogurt maker. It just came in the mail today. I’ve made my own yogurt in the past, but the texture wasn’t quite right. I need a plain starter yogurt and will be getting that tomorrow. I’ll let you all know how it works out. I’m excited to be making it again. My yogurt habit was getting expensive and one of the Food Network magazines has a “50 Things To Make With Yogurt” booklet in it. I see tastiness in my future!

Organization Progress and Fabric Stash
Crafty

Organization Progress and Fabric Stash

LSiehLeave a comment

I did some late night organizing yesterday, but was too tired to post about it. I did remember to take pictures though!

I was able to clear two small blue totes that had a very odd mix of kitchen stuff in them. One of the things I found was this thing, which I was told was a device to make bread in the crockpot. A former coworker brought it to me and said “you like weird kitchen stuff, right?” I’ve never used it and haven’t been able to find out much information about it, so I think it will be donated. Unless, of course, someone can tell me how it works, or wants it.

I also found our King of Sweden mugs, which we bought at a very odd rummage sale last year, or maybe the year before. They say “By appointment of His Majesty, the King of Sweden.” We thought they were kind of funny.

The third tote was storing larger pieces of fabric that had been pulled from the fat quarter trunk. They are now refolded and have been added to the tote that holds my 1/2 yard to 1 yard pieces.

I also cleared and reorganized my pattern stash and found 2 patterns to give away. 

The raised, under the bust waistline on both of these patterns is not a good look for me and I haven’t made either one. The one on the left is one of the first patterns I ever bought and it’s been long enough that I don’t remember when that was. Now, my patterns are in one small blue tote. I do have a few pulled out, so I’m not sure if they will stay in this box or not. They were exploding out of the other box they were in.

There is also a small stack of (brace yourselves!) fabric that is headed for the giveaway pile. I’m seeing a sewing friend this weekend, so I am going to see if she wants any if it, but after that it goes away. I haven’t done a true fabric purge in at least two years, so it’s definitely time. I was pretty ruthless too. If I couldn’t think of a project to use it for, or someone that needed something made from it, it was gone.

This fabric has been in my stash for at least three years and is a nice turquoise linen, but I can’t figure out what to do with it and don’t have anything that matches. (Sorry for the terrible lighting. I was on a roll in the basement and didn’t want to stop to bring it upstairs.)

I’m not even sure if there’s enough to make anything useful out of it. That darn remnant basket got me again with this one. All those little pieces of fabric, sadly contemplating the end of their usefulness, desperately hoping someone would take them home… I must save them all! (This would be why I am not allowed to be unsupervised in Joann Fabrics, or any quilt store.)

Our next giveaway contender is sparkly cloud fabric. When am I going to use sparkly cloud fabric, you may ask? I have no idea either. I kept it for the sheer novelty of it, but obviously haven’t done anything with it. Take my word for it, it is very sparkly.

I also found a bunch of fun fabrics that I had maybe forgotten about. Some of them have specific projects linked to them and some were just too cute to pass up. I try to have a rule that I need to have a project in mind for any of the fabric I buy, but sometimes things slip by. These are all staying in my stash.

This one was bought with the intention to make a mixer cover. It matches my KitchenAid! I have a mixer cover tutorial hanging around somewhere, but of course, can’t find it. I’ll have to look up another one. How cute is this fabric though?

The next fabric was bought for a project when I was younger. I think I was making ballerina wall hangings. I know I have one waiting to be finished in the UFO box. If there is enough left after making it, I will use the rest with some pink fabric to make a child-sized tote bag for Etsy.

This one has been used for a few bags, but should probably be an apron for a friend of mine. Her kitchen is all blues and yellows and she loves tea. (I don’t think she reads the blog, but if so, just forget about this post.)

And here are the fabrics that I have no idea what to do with, I just liked them.

Sandra Boyton jersey. It’s really thin and pretty see through, but there are hippos. This and the eyelet were free from a fellow crafter, so I don’t feel as bad. I mean, there’s a hippo riding a unicycle! Really, that should be reason enough. I could maybe pair it with fleece or something and make a baby blanket.

This one was just adorable and a half a yard leapt into my basket of its own free will. That’s my story at least. The Husband doesn’t believe me.

This fabric was in a Christmas box from Mom, I think. It’s a little odd, but charming, and I’m not sure what to use it for. I have quite a bit of it. Any ideas?

Also, bears. I may have kept this one for either my brother, or the Husband, but now I can’t remember why. There isn’t much of this one. This one was a gift as well.

There’s more of course, but I’ve got to save something  for another post. My fabric stash has some seriously weird stuff in it. I’ll try to take some pictures of the weirder fabrics to share, as well as the cool ones too.

For now though, I’ll share the newly organized 1 yard totes.

Don’t worry, I’m sure this second tote won’t be empty for long. There is still fabric everywhere downstairs. I swear it breeds when I’m not looking.

Tonight I have plans to iron and cut scraps down into usable sizes. I only do this when I have a built-in distraction. It bores me to tears otherwise. I’m hosting my craft group finally, after not being able to attend for what seems like forever, due to work.

Depending on Fancy’s behavior, I may or may not get anything done. I’m not serving cheese, so I’m hoping she will stay off the table. I’ll freeze her treat dispenser with peanut butter and other lovely things in it and that should help too.

I’ve started a Pinterest account for the blog to keep track of recipes and projects. Feel free to follow along if you are a Pinterest person. It’s under Not So 50’s Housewife.

I hope your Tuesday is as interesting as my fabric stash, just without the random bears and strange looking clouds. 🙂

 

 

 

 

Monthly Review
Crafty · Gardening · Monthly Review

Monthly Review

LSiehLeave a comment

I’m embarrassed about how much I didn’t get done this month… I had a lot of goals and got some of them done, but not as much as I would like. Knowing I was going to write this post did motivate me to get a few things done right under the wire. In fact, I waited to post until I had posted some flowers on Etsy, so I could cross off one more goal. 🙂

The garden was a big accomplishment too. It wasn’t actually written down as a goal, but should have been. It is going well so far. I have blooms on a few strawberry plants and my zucchini plant got bigger while I was at work yesterday. The Husband is helping me water the plants after he gets home from work, so they are staying nice. Fancy hasn’t shown any interest in digging in the containers, so that’s good.

I did make a few new recipes this week, but not really enough to write a full post, so I thought I would just combine them with the review. This week we had taco salad and mac and cheese with butternut squash and homemade sun-dried tomatoes for old recipes.

Here are the two new recipes I used:

1- Mushroom Pork Loin from the Taste of Home Slow Cooker Cookbook. Section: Pork, Lamb, and Seafood

Modifications: I was only making one pork loin, so I only used one can of cream of mushroom soup and about 2 cups of broth. I used a pre-seasoned Italian pork loin, so didn’t add much additional seasoning. I also added onions and chopped mushrooms to the bottom of the crockpot to make sure it was full enough and for additional flavor. The Husband had it over noodles and said it was good, but a little salty.

2- Asian Cucumber Salad from Food Network Magazine, June 2015, V. 8, N.5. 

Modifications: I think I accidentally got a Fresno pepper instead of a red jalepeno. It was hotter than I expected, but was still delicious. My in-laws enjoyed it as well. We had beef franks with sautéed mushrooms and onions and a side of peaches as well. I will be making this again. 

Food wise, I did alright with my goals. I used 2 new recipes each week, I think, if not more, and we did do some more meal planning. I was a little bit better at taking pictures of new meals, but have to remember to take pictures of the other meals too. Plating needs to be worked on too, since you eat first with your eyes.

I didn’t even start on sorting my recipes, but have been remembering to put the cookbooks away after meal planning. Sometimes it seems like the tables sprout piles of books when I’m not looking.

I used 13 of my old recipes, 7 new cookbooks or recipes, and 4 repeat cookbooks. I think my totals are shrinking. Maybe I need to throw another party to bump them up again. 🙂

Hits for the month were the dog treat recipes, the roasted garlic parmesan mashed potatoes, and the shrimp albondigas soup.

Misses were a pork chop dinner that was too dry, and the rosemary flank steak, which had no flavor.

The Italian Turkey/Chicken meatballs were sort of in the midway point. They were good, but needed extra seasoning. I would still make them again, just bump up the seasoning a lot.

My craft goals didn’t go so well. I did iron the Rainbow Snowball quilt, but still haven’t washed the backing or finished it yet. I also didn’t finish anything from the UFO bin. The basement is still a disaster. The area around my sewing area is slightly less of a disaster, but that’s it.

I just listed 3 of my fabric flowers on Etsy (http://Etsy.com/shop/twinflowerfancies) and finally managed to take pictures of them. I promoted the listing as well, which is something I always forget to do. They are a great hand sewing project, so I plan to make more.

I did finish my inspirational chair pillow for my office and managed to remember to take a picture of the candle jar I made.

The pillow is definitely helping me not sit cross legged all day, which hurts my back, but it does tend to fall on me when I get up.

I did have one vending event which I made a small profit at this month and remembered to take pictures of the table. I used one of the close up pictures for my Etsy cover picture and made sure to get my business cards in it.

I found myself doing things that weren’t on my list instead of focussing on things I had wanted to do, such as making these fabric trays for vending and the ones for my office. I do need some more storage options for my office and it was fun to make them, but it wasn’t exactly what I needed or had planned to do. The small ones work perfectly for pencils and my smaller fidget toys.

Another highlight for the month was getting to take Fancy to the lake. She did so well and she seemed to really enjoy herself. It was a relaxing weekend, for sure.

Food goals for the next month:

*Meal Planning: use more of what we have, spices, pantry foods, etc.-Ongoing

*2-3 new recipes per week.

*Make good lunches. Use my lunches to try vegetarian recipes.

*Sort recipe binder and loose recipes.-Ongoing

*Find a good biscuit recipe for Fancy. We go through biscuits quickly.

Craft goals for the month:

*Finish Rainbow Snowball quilt so it can go to its new home.

*Make a container for Legos at work.

*List at least one new item per week on Etsy.

*Sew one item of clothing.

*Make a new purse. I shredded my current music purse bottom yesterday while running through the kitchen on my way to work.

*Organize the basement.

Garden goals:

*Don’t kill anything!

I’m going to write these goals in my project book too, so I can have another reminder without having to go back to this post. Hopefully remembering how it feels to not achieve many of them will help me stay motivated. Feel free to check in on them throughout the month. I’m sure the extra push will be helpful.

Now I’m off to take a certain puppers for a walk, if I can get her to move out of the sunny spot in the yard. She had a big morning with lots of barking and chasing of the squirrel that lives in the yard. Hopefully your day is as happy as hers!

 

Garden Woes and Crafty Happiness
Crafty · Gardening

Garden Woes and Crafty Happiness

LSiehLeave a comment

This past weekend was so busy! I woke up today thinking it was Saturday. Sometimes I think I need a weekend to recover from my weekend.

I worked my last shift at my third job yesterday and now plan on using the extra weekend time to garden. We picked up our pallet of cinder blocks for the raised bed on Friday and while I was vending, he started tilling the space up. We had planned to dig down about 8 inches and put the first row of cinder blocks in the hole itself. Unfortunately, he found 3 buried cable lines and a huge tree root that was very shallow and goes diagonally across the entire garden spot.

Fancy was very pleased with the new hole to play in. She was too hot outside and it was nice and cool. The orange cord is the extension cord for the tiller.

We are going to have a container garden again this year instead, while we figure out what we can do to make the raised beds work. It is a huge disappointment for both of us, but the containers worked well last year. We’ll just have to buy a few more bushels of tomatoes to can is all. Hopefully we can get it started soon.

My list hasn’t changed for what I want to grow, just maybe scaled down a bit. Tomatoes, cucumbers, herbs, squash, and peppers.

In crafty news, I did have fun vending this weekend. It was a great workshop and fun people. I wasn’t able to go to the show. I ended up with a migraine and had to stay home. I had a few repeat customers and got good reports on the things that they had previously bought, which is always a good thing.

I also made some new items. The flowers I made a while ago are in the featured picture. I made a set of cute fabric trays with boats. I want to make this into a set of four with a 14 inch tray in there as well. The 10 inch seems a bit too small.

I have a few more cut out to finish and I’m going to post both the flowers and trays on Etsy.

The trays I made for my office are working out well. I want to make a box for my puppets too, but may end up buying one. I haven’t figured out quite what I want to do yet.

Now I have to go finish clearing off the table and make something. I have a whole day to be productive, but so far I’ve just walked the dog and cleared the table. She is currently napping and it’s hard to resist joining her.

Crafty

Free Fabric (and Fancy’s reaction)!

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I know, I know! I should be saying “no new fabric,” but our friend Katy came to stay with us for a few days with her dog Moose, and brought a whole lot of free fabric from the costume shop. How could I say no to that?!

We did make an agreement though. The fabric I won’t use, I can donate or get rid of. I have the same arrangement with my Mom when she gives me fabric and I’ve been pretty good about it. Katy wasn’t sure what was in the bags, so it was lots of fun to go through them and see what could be discovered.

This may have been Fancy’s reaction to seeing all the new fabric. I think she thought I was going to take over her toy closet.

Here are a few more pictures of some of the fun fabrics.

This is a cotton fabric. I’m thinking about making a bellydance hip wrap, as it is long and a little too narrow for bags.

Red sparkly bow ties. I believe these are hand sewn. The stitches are very neat and orderly. They are also a cotton material.

Stretchy fabrics! The polka dot one is a very odd shaped remnant and is a pretty thick poly material. The yellow poly is in two slightly bigger pieces and is thinner. I’m kind of fascinated with it, but have no idea what to make. It should be enough to cover a dance bra though and would be quite sparkly on stage.

Olive Green jersey. There isn’t a lot of this and it is bottom weight, or heavier, so I am going to try to make a pair of sleep shorts or a casual skirt. It feels nice and smooth. I forgot to take the pin out, so that’s not a hole.

Stretch poly. This is very thick and makes my texture issues go wild, so I may not keep it. There is a bunch of it though and it’s very shiny. I’ll see how I feel about it in a month or so.

There were a ton of other fabrics too, some lace pieces, a bunch of blue satiny stuff, and some solid color broadcloth. There was also a full bag of little scrap pieces of all kinds of material, which might come to the office with me to be part of my art kit.

Speaking of the office, I have discovered that the totes I bought to store things in were not quite all that I needed. I’m constantly switching what I put where depending on what I am using at the time. I had thought that I might need to make some containers and I was right. I need a pencil trays for colored pencils, a container or two for my loose games, and a big basket for my puppets that I just acquired.

I went looking for what might work the best and found a few tutorials. I think I’m going to go with the fabric trays, as being able to see what is in things would be good. I am going to use fabrics I’ve been saving, primarily in blues and browns to go with the color scheme, but a few flamingos might slip in there as well.

Here is the website I used, in case, you might find something useful as well. http://noodle-head.com/2011/10/fabric-tray-tutorial-2.html

If the trays work out, I may put some on Etsy. I want to diversify my bag options a little more. If not, all I will be out is some fabric. I’ve got all the materials already.

I have a vending event this week, which is a local one, so it should be good. We’re also picking up the cinder blocks for the garden, which should be exciting. . Then, this coming Sunday is the second to last day of my third job! I’m excited to focus on growing my caseload and more on Etsy and the blog.

Tomorrow I plan to make one of the trays with some octopus fabric and some fabric that looks like sand. I’m hoping it turns out as cute as I think it will. If I can get it done on time, maybe I will post a picture on Wednesday. For now though, I’ll go dream of new fabric ideas.

Crafty · Gardening

Garden Thoughts and Sewing Update

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It finally feels like it might be turning into spring for real around here and I’m starting to think about gardening. I meant to start from seeds this year, but as usual, time kind of got away from me and I wasn’t able to do so.

Last year, we had just decided to buy our house, so I ended up using a container gardening system. It worked pretty well, we had a ton of jalapeno peppers, a fair amount of tomatoes, and fresh herbs. Two years ago, I grew tomatoes and basil on an apartment balcony and got enough to make Caprese salad for a party. This year, I’m hoping to beat both of those years.

We are planning out a raised bed using cinder blocks. We’ve got a space about 5 feet by 16 feet marked out right now and know how many cinder blocks we will need. We’re planning on digging down a bit of the dirt, so we have enough space for the plants to grow. I’m excited for the garden, but not necessarily for the digging part. The spot is along our side fence and we’ll leave enough room to walk around it to weed. It gets mostly all sun, with some shade in the afternoon. I used this website to get some ideas for garden beds.

https://www.weedemandreap.com/12-raised-garden-beds/

So far our list is probably pretty ambitious. I’ve grown or attempted to grow most of these before, so hopefully the garden will be good. I’ve also got some friends who are excellent gardeners, as is my Mom, so I should have enough support if it all goes horribly wrong. 🙂

We’re trying to grow the things we most commonly eat. It doesn’t make sense to grow things like pumpkins or beans, as the Husband doesn’t eat them, so it would just be me. We are growing zucchini though, because I can shred them into soups and things and the Husband will eat it that way.

Our list:

Cucumbers, lettuce, onions, hot peppers, bell peppers, garlic, carrots, zucchini, and tomatoes.

I go through canned tomatoes like water sometimes, so if we can grow some to can as well, it would be a very good thing. I am expecting to buy some canning tomatoes still, but we can try to at least get a good start.

These are some of the cherry tomatoes I grew last year. I had a really cool variety called Indigo Rose, the bigger ones, which start out black and gradually turn red. They seemed to have a richer flavor than regular cherry tomatoes.

Herbs on the list:

Basil, Thai Basil, oregano, rosemary, thyme, parsley, and chocolate mint. I’m sure there are some more that I will see and immediately want to grow, but these will be a good start.

The herbs may be grown around the edges in pots, depending on how much room we have. The chocolate mint will be put in a pot and kept very controlled. The Husband says I shouldn’t grow mint, but I have Christmas present plans for it…

I also have this cookbook called Cooking From the Gourmet’s Garden that is herb based and I’m excited to grow my own herbs to use in the recipes. They all look so fancy and intimidating!

Two things that concern me are the skunk that seems to come around about once a month and the squirrels that are constantly around.

Last year, one of the squirrels kept eating my tomatoes halfway and leaving them by the door for me to find. What a jerk! He stopped when I started sprinkling cayenne pepper over all my tomatoes with great glee. I like to imagine his imagine his reaction at the first spiced tomato that he bit into.

As for the skunk, some friends use a dog safe deterrent, so I think we’ll try that and see how it works. I haven’t smelled the skunk in a while, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t still around, or won’t be attracted to the food.

We are planning to start composting again. We did for a while, but it was too difficult in the apartment, so the bin got retired to my in laws’ house. This year we are planning to get a compost tumbler to make it easier on both of us. Hopefully, this will get our trash down. We’re already doing pretty good with this, most of our trash gets recycled, but it will be nice to do it again. And as a plus, we’ll be making more food for the garden.

I’ve been exploring natural pest control options lately too. Since we have Fancy, we want to make sure that everything we use is pet safe, especially as she has been wanting to be outside more. We’re hoping she doesn’t decide the garden is her new digging spot, so we’ve got some fencing options lined up already. I’m planning on companion planting to encourage good growth and using marigolds around the edges to stop some of the bugs. What other methods are out there for natural pest control?

Those are all our plans for the garden. Hopefully we can get things done in the next couple of weekends and can get started soon!

A small sewing update: I did get the Rainbow Snowball quilt ironed today, but the backing flannel needs to be washed before I can use it. It is very red and may run, so I need to find my other similarly colored fabrics and do a big load. I also got my sewing machine set up downstairs again and unpacked a sewing crate to add to my shelves. No pictures, as is all in the basement, and there is no good lighting down there. It felt good to get it a little more organized.

 

More Crafty Organization
Crafty

More Crafty Organization

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I made a skirt! I finally got around to using my gift certificate for a new fabric store that I received from my in-laws at Christmas and it was glorious.

I’m very inspired and the ladies there were so nice. The store is also trying to start a garment sewing guild and I am excited about the possibility of learning how to do things properly. I think it will force me to start reconsidering cutting corners and will be a good place to learn the things that I’m struggling with learning out of books.

I got clothes fabric there, as I’m trying to use mostly scraps for quilts, but I did find a cute fabric with inspirational quotes that will be a pillow for my new office.

This skirt is made from one of the fabrics I bought. Batiks are my weakness. I can’t seem to pass them up. You’ll see more of them, I’m sure.

The skirt has an elastic waistband and two in seam pockets. It had the same hexagons on both sides of the fabric, so I split it down the middle, added a casing for the elastic, gathered the skirt around the elastic and sewed it up. Since I used the selvege edges, I didn’t even have to hem it.

It is a full yard of fabric, so it’s very poofy and it seems to wrinkle quite a lot. I wore it twice, and didn’t want to iron any messy things in it, so that’s why it’s so wrinkly in the pictures. It’s also quite saucy in wind. I’ll probably always wear this with full leggings or shorts, as I don’t trust it to stay well-behaved. It’s much brighter in real lighting. It has yellow, pink, blue, and purple in it.

I have plans to make two more skirts, a tunic style shirt, and two dresses from the other fabrics.

The green one in the picture changes colors from green to blue in different lights. There was exactly 2 yards of it left, so I think it will have to be a simple sleeveless shift dress, but I think it will be a good summer dress. I may end up making it into a tunic, or adding a contrasting band on the bottom if I can’t fit the pattern on it.  I’m not normally glad that I’m short, but in this case, I’ll take it. One of the ladies at the quilt store was very jealous that I was buying the last of the bolt.

In other crafty news, while I was waiting for my new fabrics to wash, I finished my fat quarter trunk project. All the fat quarters are now neatly sorted and in their own boxes. I might need to find bigger boxes for some of them, if I find anymore of the colors, but they are all done and it looks nice.

It’s not the perfect solution, but it’s getting better. I won’t get any sewing done today, most likely, as I work until late. My birthday is tomorrow though and after my one appointment in the morning, I am free to sew away!

I have plans to make the middle lighter blue fabric into a sundress. It has an ombre effect from light blue to dark blue and if I can get it done in time, I can wear it to my birthday dinner! I’ll be sure to post pictures when it’s done.

It felt good to sew again and I’m spending some time re-ordering my priorities. I really need to finish the wedding quilts I owe people, so I think that I am going to make a push to get those done first, with a sprinkling of new projects in there as well.

Now I have to go get the dog back inside before I leave for work. We have a fenced in yard and lately she has been very interested in napping in the sunny driveway. She tends to give me a look when I suggest that she come in that’s very similar to this one:

Wish me luck!