Tag: garden

Musings
Canning and Preserving · Crafty · Gardening

Musings

LSiehLeave a comment

I’ve been doing some thinking on how the blog has changed in the past few months and especially at the amount of change since I started this project. I started it as a way to keep myself accountable for using my recipes and craft books and so far it’s definitely done that. 

I think though, I may have outgrown that strict model. I am still more likely to pull out a cookbook or to find a Pinterest recipe when I want to try something new, but I am finding it very limiting for some types of recipes, such as baking.  

The blog has definitely helped inspire me to sew more too! I am much more adventurous and willing to try new things, as well as finding a ton of new inspiration. I even wrote a short piece with a picture for a huge site, Sewcialists. A year ago, I was still not putting pictures of myself on the blog at all! Now there’s a picture of me with messy hair, wearing bellydance pants!

Don’t worry, I’m not planning on going anywhere, but you may start to see different content. Maybe some original recipes, maybe some tutorials or sewing tips. Possibly even some dog treat recipes! 

I’m also experimenting with the new editor, which is still in the Beta stage. Supposedly, it shows me all my pictures how they appear when loaded, but that’s not true… I was only recently logging into the blog on my desk top and saw that the pictures taken with my phone held a certain way loaded sideways. For the record, they look the right side up when viewed on my phone or IPad. Technology and I do not get along. So be patient please, I will fix them as soon as I can. In the meantime, maybe just use it as a way to stretch your neck? 🙂

I have gotten so far off my posting schedule with all the crazy going on here, that I figured tonight would be a great time to just admit it and start over. Fancy, our adventurous pup, got sprayed by a skunk last week, and we’ve spent most of the weekend attempting to make her smell less disgusting. She’s super stressed, as she doesn’t understand why she isn’t allowed in the bedroom, or why we don’t want her cuddling with us. Poor thing. Hopefully the shampoo and other things will help and she can be a snuggly dog again soon. 

Other things are going well though. The garden is booming! We have peppers galore. I think I may have to can some more salsa this Friday and use these tiny, but super hot peppers in it. We may not be able to eat it, but it will be delicious!

We also have Jalapenos and cayenne peppers growing. 

I will also use these in salsa. 🙂 We even have red bell peppers popping in. I think once I cut back the zucchini enough, they were finally able to grow and get the nutrients they needed. 

I am very excited. I thought the red peppers were going to be a wash this year. I had such lovely plans for roasted red peppers in the freezer. 

The herbs are growing well, except the bee balm. I killed that one by accident. The lemon thyme is growing back slowly. Everything else is good, but I forgot pictures. 

The tomatoes are, of course, growing like crazy! I honestly didn’t expect them to grow this well, but here we are. The Husband had to buy 6 foot stakes for me, as the plants kept falling down! The tomatoes got too heavy. I froze some green tomato salsa using the ones that fell down while being staked. 

It was meant to be canned, but I didn’t have enough head space to safely can it. I haven’t tasted it yet either.  We have two other jars of salsa opened that I should eat first. It smelled good though and I canned it before work!

Mr. Stripey has yellow tomatoes! They were all in weird places to get pictures of though. I’m so excited! I hope they are lovely. My Indigo rose tomatoes are getting huge! They are supposed to be cherry tomato sized, but they seem to enjoy being in the soil much better than pots. They are in the back. The front ones are a bush cherry tomato.

I’ve also made some delicious plum cardamom jam, which I may have to make a second batch of. I might be selfish and keep it all for me. I guess the Husband can have some too… Maybe… If he’s nice to me. It was from Southern Living: Little Jars, Big Flavors. Here it is on a chocolate chip poppy seed muffin. 

I could eat this directly from the jar with a spoon. Maybe I’ll get some more plums for Friday too. 

I have also been crafting for our Harry Potter party. I want to make it fit in with my fall decor so I can use it again. I’m a fan of multi season and purpose decorations. 

These were jars and vases from the basement that I used mirror spray paint on to make faux Mercury Glass. You know, the old glass that’s kind of streaky and wonderful? 

How cool are these? Here’s what some of them look like with LED candles in them. 

They are so pretty! I’m going to try some with colored glass items as well. For our party, we need lots of different glass vases, bottles, and vessels. These items will work through out the year too. It’s been fun to find new  uses for things. 

I’ll have to catch you all up on my sewing too, but that will come at another time. I should probably get to bed so I can finish more projects before work tomorrow. Have a great night!

Canning Galore!
Canning and Preserving

Canning Galore!

LSiehLeave a comment

Hello! Besides canning this weekend, we also did some yard work. A lot of yard work. It was slightly unexpected yard work, but it made the yard look a lot better.

Notice anything missing? Here, I’ll show you another one…

We took the trellis down! Hooray!

We can see the garden from the house! We can watch the dog when she runs away at night and tries to find the skunk.

We are going to have to rent some equipment to get the two bushes out and are repurposing the trellis by retraining roses to grow on it instead of through the fence.

It was killing the apple tree and whatever else it could reach and really didn’t fit what we wanted our backyard to be.

We can also see the compost, which I forgot to say we started. I think it’s going well. I certainly added a lot to it this weekend. My full-blown canning run took up pretty much two whole days. I had to restrain myself on Sunday from canning more. I still have a list going of other recipes, but not enough time to make them all!

The only one not pictured is the ginger dill pickles from Epicurious. https://www-epicurious-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/ginger-dill-pickles-56389773/amp

I had one today and they need a little more time to cure, but will be good to serve for the summer party.

Here are the other pickles:

Hot Garlic Pickles and regular Garlic Pickles. They are from Better Homes and Gardens Canning from 2015.

I used the little tiny, but super hot peppers from the garden! They need to sit for a week, so I haven’t tried them yet. They should be both garlicky and spicy.

Squash Pickles! This is a recipe I’ve been wanting to try since last year, but I never had the ingredients at the same time. I halved the recipe. The Husband doesn’t eat pickles… I know, I don’t get it either…

These were made from the zucchini from the garden. The recipe came from Southern Living Little Jars, Big Flavors. 

These beans were not from the garden. 🙂 They are also from the same cookbook. I want to make almost everything in it.

This Spicy BBQ sauce was from the Ball Blue Book of Preserving. I made this recipe before, but with less spicy peppers. This year’s peppers were super spicy. I made this two weeks ago, I think. I used tomatoes from the freezer.

Also from the Blue Book is this Spicy Tomato Salsa. We are officially calling this Firebreather Salsa. I used all garden Jale-fuego peppers and a couple of tomatoes.

We have peach salsa too. No garden items in this one, but it smelled good. I’m excited to try this.

The peaches were wonderful. I will have to go back and get some more. More recipes to come!

I will be joining this puppers shortly.

I have to keep my strength up for party prep and more canning! Have a great night.

Not So Simple Sunday- Canning Edition
Canning and Preserving · Gardening · Recipe Roundup

Not So Simple Sunday- Canning Edition

LSiehLeave a comment

I have canned all the things! Well, not quite all, I still have a list. I was determined to make a few things for our party this weekend, so those definitely got done, along with some others. I’ll add the jams to the Recipe Roundup, but the savory ones will get their own post. I had lots of extra time this week, so ended up making lots of new recipes as well. Seeing my low numbers for recipes last review didn’t hurt either.

I’ll start with the jams. 🙂 Several of the canned things have garden or local produce.

Pineapple Sage Preserves from Southern Living Little Jars, Big Flavors. The sage was garden grown.

I have another jar in the fridge, as there wasn’t quite enough headspace to safely can it. It’s delicious! I’m hoping the sage come out more as it sits. It will be going in a cake for our Big Summer Blowout Party. The book includes a vanilla bean layer cake with this in the middle which I think will be wonderful and summery.

When I bought the pineapple, the apricots from the farmer’s market looked good as well, so I made Apricot Riesling Jam from Simple Recipes. https://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/apricot_riesling_jam/

This one is a very lovely orange color and has just a hint of the wine. I’m looking forward to this on toast. I think it would be lovely on ice cream.

I’ve made this one before, but it’s been a few years. I love it because it does taste exactly like strawberry lemonade. It uses Myer lemons, which are slightly sweeter than regular lemons.

This batch turned very dark red and I forgot to mash up the strawberries, as I had them in the freezer first. They are from last year and I had forgotten that I had them. There’s still a bag and a half left for my next strawberry jam endeavor. I have an Instant Pot freezer jam recipe and a strawberry basil that both want to be made.

There are more delicious jams and jellies on my list, but I need to regroup and figure out what I need. I ran out of single rings, but have tons of new lids. I may have to start storing them without the rings.

On to the recipes!

The Husband got special cookies for picking up the puppers from the dog sitter and letting me stay home. Chocolate Chips and M&Ms!

These were from the cookbook 101 Things To Do With Chocolate by Stephanie Ashcraft.

He liked these, but he likes the chewy ones better.

I got bored with breakfast this week and couldn’t sleep on top of it, so I made strawberry doughnuts. They were supposed to be mini muffins, but I couldn’t find the mini muffin tins.

These are from the Pillsbury: Best Muffins and Quick Breads. 

I was hosting craft night the same day, so I made meringues  with leftover egg whites from ice cream. These are super crumbly, but they taste okay.

The ice cream is Amaretto Ice Cream from The Cookie Writer. 

https://thecookiewriter.com/amaretto-ice-cream/

I had it with leftover peaches and it was delicious! The amaretto is very light, but you can definitely still taste it. There’s only two tablespoons in the whole recipe, but it doesn’t get cooked out, so bear that in mind.

We used the new Food Network magazine already. It’s the September issue. The Hoisin Meatballs were good.

I thought they needed more seasoning in the meatballs themselves, but the Husband thought they were just fine. We used Udon noodles, mushrooms, and carrots as the substitutions. It was nice to find another use for ground beef.

We had Macaroni and Many Cheeses from the 2014 Food and Wine.

We had to have it because of the name. 🙂 I had Gouda, triple cheddar, and a Monterey jack mix. It was quite soupy at first, but firmed up over time. It had parmesan cheese crusted on top. It was pretty tasty.

We had grilled steak for dinner on our anniversary, after going to the shooting range and going to the chocolate factory for a tour. We weren’t allowed to take pictures at the factory.

Mashed potatoes and grilled zucchini completed the meal. The Husband is an excellent grill master, so everything was great. We had  fun chocolate from the factory for dessert. I had a peanut butter block and he had cookies and cream clusters.

The range trip was fun, but both of our pistols broke towards the end. My back sight fell off my revolver and Eric’s 22 was not having it at all. They definitely both need to be cleaned and we have the name of a good gunsmith. It was a little disappointing but the rest of the day was fun. 🙂

We had Margarita Shrimp for Saturday. We intended to grill, but had an unexpected rain shower, so they were broiled instead. They were from A Farm Girl’s Dabble. 

https://www.afarmgirlsdabbles.com/grilled-margarita-shrimp-kebabs-recipe/

They were still tasty. We paired them with cilantro rice from Five Heart Home. https://www.fivehearthome.com/cilantro-lime-rice-recipe/

We used jasmine rice and it was delicious. This rice will definitely be staying in the recipe collection for a nice side dish. The Husband approves as well, which is surprising, as he doesn’t like a lot of Mexican based dishes. This one is lightly flavored though. It heats up great as it has butter and olive oil in it to keep it soft instead of dried out.

We had it tonight as a side with Tequilla Lime Chicken and pico with the leftovers from salsa making.

The purple plate was awarded for my enormous amounts of canning completed this weekend.

Those are just the jams!

The featured picture is the second set of zucchini and the others as well. I used the peppers in the salsa and the zucchini in squash pickles.

So there’s the update so far. I’ll have a savory canning post shortly. I figured it would be too long, considering how many pickles I made. 🙂

It’s been so much fun to use things from the garden while canning. I’ve tried to use local produce as well, as much as I can. Somehow I don’t think I can find Michigan pineapples…

Stay tuned for more canning! Sewing too, hopefully, but I have been a little busy. 🙂 Have a great night!

Recipe Roundup
Gardening · Recipe Roundup

Recipe Roundup

LSiehLeave a comment

I’m sitting on the couch, watching sharks of course, with a dog who is quite certain that she needs pets on her head to help her sleep. 🙂 It makes typing quite difficult. The Husband got me a fancy keyboard for my IPad that’s bluetooth enabled, so the typing part isn’t as bad, but the constant nose nudges under my hands do make it more difficult. Dropping my IPad face down without the cover on the screen didn’t really help the other screen issues I was having. It’s kind of interesting to watch the spiderweb cracks spread across the screen. :\

We just came back from what was about a 3 mile walk on the river. That’s where the featured picture comes from. It was just sunny enough that I wore my shark shorts and a tank top, but there was a nice breeze, so it was a very pleasant, shady walk. Fancy is snoring away. We’re hoping to have her mind less that we’re in and out all weekend.

I have not made any new recipes this week! We had delicious food, but we hadn’t meal planned, so we didn’t really have new ones.

I had grilled cheese one night with chips and veggies. Probably an apple or something too, but I don’t remember.

We had Taco Salad with garden lettuce and fritos on top.

It was delicious! I used my taco meat recipe which is a pound of ground beef, half a jar of salsa, about a tsp or so of ground cumin, salt, pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder. I also used chili powder this time, but not all the time. It was a little spicy from the salsa and we had pepper jack cheese too.

We also had Shepherd’s Pie with ground lamb and garlic mashed potatoes. No recipe, just cooked up a pound of lamb, threw in some Worcestershire sauce, chicken broth, salt, and pepper. I used half a bag of frozen veggies and cooked off some of the liquid. The potatoes were smaller yellow potatoes, mashed with cream, butter, salt, pepper, and garlic powder.

Bake it for 20 or so minutes at 400 until the potatoes get a little brown. We had this on a cooler day that had been pretty grey and rainy. A garden lettuce salad went with it.

I made blueberry muffins too, but ate them all! I remembered to take pictures of our waffles this morning that we had with maple syrup made by our friends in their own sugar shack. It was delicious! I don’t typically like maple syrup because I find it too sweet. This is slightly thinner and has a smoky taste. It’s sweet, but not sickly sweet.

MMMMMMM! I enjoyed breakfast very much. We have bottle for my parents too, but it’s going to be hard to keep it for them until we see them. They’ll have to be very nice to us! I think we’ll get two bottles next year, if we can.

The garden is still growing very well. I was a little concerned because we’ve had some really hot days and have a soaker hose in only one of the beds. The tomatoes are so big, it will be tricky to thread the hoses in there.

Speaking of tomatoes, we have a tomato that is orange! Which means soon I can eat a garden tomato!

It might be a Roma, or an Early Girl. These four are definitely on one of the Early Girl plants. 🙂

And Mr. Stripey has a tomato started, as well as blossoms.

No stripes yet, but they will come. I’m so excited to start using the tomatoes. The hot peppers are growing well. They look about the same, so no pictures. The red peppers may be fighting a losing battle with the giant zucchini plant.

This is the view from the front of the garden. You cannot see the back, but the plant now covers the entire box… Maybe next year, I’ll see if there’s a smaller variety. 🙂

We still have some lettuce growing and the marigolds are hiding, but still there.

Well, I should probably go do some meal planning for the week. Have a good day!

 

Monthly Review
Gardening · Monthly Review · Recipe Roundup · Sewing

Monthly Review

LSiehLeave a comment

Well, hello! It’s hard to believe that it’s time for a review again, but I guess it is. My garden has exploded in the past month with all sorts of new growth. I had a salad made with lettuce from the garden just yesterday!

I picked some of both, buttercrunch and romaine. It was delicious! I’ve been picking the basil for caprese salads a lot too. I can’t wait to have homegrown tomatoes and basil for it.

My zucchini plant has taken over part of the garden. (Pictures withheld as to not frighten my father…)  I have five blossoms on it. I may be giving away zucchini shortly. 🙂 I think part of the plant ended up in every picture I took of the pepper box. Except the lettuce.

The tomatoes have absolutely taken over their box. I had to find some sticks to stake up the plants. The Early Girls are huge!

Mr. Stripey is holding his own in the corner.

I have some tomatoes started on the plants, but they are hard to get pictures of, as they are small and green. It’s exciting to see them growing though. So far, no sign of blossom end rot, which was the bane of my existence the last couple of years. I think the garden soil is keeping everything much more stable, moisture wise.

The peppers plants have a few flowers on them and seem to be holding up well, despite the encroaching zucchini. The herbs are also doing well. The strawberries never flowered, but that’s alright. I’ll keep them through the winter again and get some more plants for the berry boxes next spring. A friend has some raspberry plants that we can steal cuttings from too.

I’m pretty pleased with how it’s working out. I think we’ll get a lot of yield this year.

I’m also pretty pleased with my sewing this month. I have made lots of useful wardrobe items and am considering what of my ready to wear clothes I can replace or how to fix previously made items that don’t quite work.

My favorite things this month have been my harem pants, my Harry Potter table runner, the abstract floral dress, the blue lotus Agnes, and my Cocoon Cardigan.

I haven’t blogged about the cardi or the three pairs of shorts I have made in the last couple of days yet. 🙂

I finally found a pattern for pj shorts and pants that fits the Husband. He got his minion shorts a few days ago and I can catch up on Christmas pjs too. He has flannel pants with sweater bears on them that are not yet made. Here are the minions.

They were from the book Weekend Sewing by Heather Ross. The failed slipper pattern was from this book, so I was glad to find a pattern that worked. 🙂

I realized that all of my recent patterns have been ones that I’ve traced! My friend slowly dragged me over to Team Trace when I wasn’t looking. She tempted me with PDF patterns that I couldn’t resist. I’m not very mad about it, for being firmly on Team Cut That Sh*t Out (terms coined by my favorite sewing group on Facebook- The Self Sewn Wardrobe by Mallory Donohue.) I will admit that it does make sense, but I still hate printing and taping PDF patterns.

I will admit, this Cocoon Cardigan by Patterns for Pirates, had a lot to do with it as well. It looked so snuggly and wonderful on everyone online who made it that I had to have it.

The shoulders look weird in this picture. I swear it doesn’t actually make me look like I’m a linebacker. 🙂  They are a dolman sleeve, so they start sloped and pick up the sleeve partway down your shoulder. It was a new technique for me and I was super nervous, but it came out so nice. I have plans to make a lighter weight black cardi with an owl appliqué on the back. It’s going to look so cool!

The stars are french terry, which is a new fabric for me too. Here’s a closeup of the stars. They are multi-colored.

There’s a grey colorway with pink stars on the website and I think I want it too. Next time I make this in a non-stretch fabric, I’ll add a tiny bit in width to the lower arms. They are a tiny bit tighter than I’d like.  I wore it to work and received several compliments.  A very stylish coworker said “I don’t even ask anymore, I figure if you’re wearing it and it’s cute, you probably made it.” 🙂 Also, it has pockets!!

The other PDF pattern I have tried and loved has been the Linen Loungers by Patterns For Pirates. I made two pairs for myself yesterday. I may have flamingo fabric ordered to make another pair…

They are both sleep shorts and have a yoga waistband. They are very comfy and didn’t make me feel fat and horrible, which most shorts do. I will be making more of these. The pattern comes with  curved hem option, pants, and bermudas as well.

I’ve done a bunch of organizing in the basement, so I’d like to keep it that way.

Foodwise, we did pretty well. We mostly planned pur meals and we used the InstantPot. We had 24 recipes, with 9 being completely new.

Hits were Korean Beef,

Chophouse Cheesy Burgers, Cinnamon Coffee Cake, and the chewy chocolate chip cookies. The Husband also tried searing pork and did an excellent job!

We only had one miss, the blueberry muffins that were very dense. I managed to make dinners even though I was horribly sick. Overall, a pretty good month.

We’re looking forward to trying to have more new recipes this month and also grilling some more.

Goals for the month:

Food Goals: 

– Try a new Instant Pot recipe

– Two canning recipes

– Battle Cheesecake

– Meal plan

– Pantry meals

 

Sewing/Craft goals:

– 1 or 2 new patterns

– 1 or 2 UFO projects

– Continue to organize

 

Garden Goals:

– Put together composter

– Keep everything alive

 

Well, I have to to get ready for a family wedding. I’m wearing a me made dress and my starry cardigan, so I will feel cute all day. 🙂 Plus, I get ice cream! Have a great weekend!

Sewing Space and Garden Update- Wordy Wednesday
Life Posts · Sewing · Wordless Wednesdays

Sewing Space and Garden Update- Wordy Wednesday

LSiehLeave a comment

Well, hello Wednesday! I thought it was Tuesday, somehow missed that I have spent two days at work already. Man…

I’ll post some pictures tomorrow for a Thoughtful Thursday post, but in the meantime, here’s an update on the garden and my sewing space.

The garden is growing like crazy! I have to get out there and weed it, but it’s currently pouring rain, so it won’t be today.

Here’s a shot of the pepper and lettuce box:

I lost once lettuce, but the rest are going strong. We’re going to have a lot of lettuce though. More salads, I guess. Next year, maybe I will split lettuce with someone, or start from seed.

Here’s the tomato box:

Holy tomatoes, Batman!

Mr. Stripey is getting very big and my smaller tomato plants, the Early Girl’s have taken off! We’re going to have so many tomatoes!

My herbs are looking good. I used some lemon thyme in shortbread cookies and they were good.

I think being in the ground has really helped the garden. It’s much easier to control the consistent watering and everything seems to be thriving.

Now for the sewing part. I wasn’t up to crawling around on the floor to get patterns cut when sick, so I didn’t do a lot of sewing. I did make a table runner for Thanksgiving.

I also made this maxi skirt. Excuse the late night, silly face.

It’s super comfy and now has a slightly shorter hem. The skirt is a cotton rayon blend and I used black double brushed poly for the waistband. It’s lovely ans swishy, but I have to wait until it stops raining to wear it. It originally had a pocket, but it looked hideous, so I took it out.

I’ve done a lot of organizing to get my space ready to sew downstairs again.

The desk still has a few things on it, but now where near as bad as it was. The new lights the Husband hing are glorious, but I think I need one in front of my machine too. It’s a little backlit at the moment. It’s much brighter though, so that’s good.

I even cleaned the little messy area on top of my storage shelves.

That’s where I lost my serger pedal. 😳 Now I can’t lose things there anymore.

In Fancy news, that darn fireplace dog is still turning up trying to stealing her toys!

Shortly after this was taken, she started pawing at the door. Silly pup!

Well, that’s all my updates for now. I hope you’re having nice weather wherever you are!

Monthly Review
Monthly Review

Monthly Review

LSiehLeave a comment

We have been busy beavers lately. Last year at this time, I had three jobs and was rapidly losing my mind. This year, I can actually focus on the house and yard. I feel much more settled.

We finally put up the hanging pegs we decided we needed in the bedroom. I think we’re going to paint it blue maybe, to match the bottom walls, but for now it’s grey.

We have some spring bugs coming in again, so it really was time to get my purse and work bag off the floor. The Husband also hung new work lights downstairs over my sewing area and now I really need to clean it up. I can see everything! 😳 I knew I had to clean up anyway, in prep for moving back down there for the summer sewing season, but those lights make it hard to ignore things.

We also broke down yard projects by section last weekend and started on some of them this weekend. We chopped a bunch of the out of control front landscaping and I pulled everything from the side of the garage. This was about halfway through.

I ripped weeds! Pulled dead things! I tore out trees! With my bare hands! Well… with a huge trimmer, while wearing gloves. 🙂 Now it looks like this:

Doesn’t it look so much better already? I’m going to put my fairy garden here. It will mostly be in planters and will have butterfly and bee friendly flowers in it. If the ground cover gets too crazy, we may rip it all and put down mulch.

The Husband chopped up some tree limbs that had fallen on our windy day, mowed the grass, and wielded the leaf blower and hedge trimmer. I feel much better about the yard now knowing we can take it in small chunks and get things done.

We were going to get the garden started, but we couldn’t find the tiller at our inlaws. We did get it staked.

Hopefully next weekend, we can till that spot up and get started. So that’s some yard/ house projects from the month. Let’s move on to the food!

Food Review

I used 19 recipes this month. 10 were new recipes. Hits were the fried chicken, prosciutto wrapped chicken, the white pizza sauce, and the dulce de leche ice cream.

The pasta in this picture is homemade fettuccine! Pasta is definitely not as scary as I always thought it was.

Chicken seems to turn out well for me. It’s one of the meats I can regularly eat more than once without texture issues. I also made a different version of spaghetti with a can of sauce and 3 cans of tomatoes. It was much less liquid.

We did have some misses, including one that was so bad, I didn’t even blog about it! 😬 It was a crockpot version of Italian Wedding soup,  but it got weird after the noodles were added and got all slimey and starchy. Blech. I don’t even want to talk about it, except to say, don’t cook noodles in the crockpot ever… The other miss was more of just an “eh..” moment. Beef stew in the crockpot. Wasn’t great, wasn’t horrible.

I honestly think that this blog has improved my cooking skills. I wasn’t as confident about trying new recipes, or trusting my instincts when it came to seasoning. We also haven’t had very many misses lately, so that has to count for something. I also used my spice grinder that I got for Christmas and will be definitely using it again. It made it very easy!

Speaking of skills that have improved, let’s move on to the sewing review.

Sewing Review

I have made 5 projects this month. I have made four more in the past three days, but those haven’t been blogged about yet. Stay tuned for Monday or Tuesday!

My favorite has been my polka dot maxi skirt.

It’s so comfy and lovely. Plus, I saved $36, plus shipping! 🙂

I actually loved everything that I’ve made and am proud that I’m using my stash. It’s so fun to walk in wearing something I made and get to tell people that.

Here’s my other polka-dotted item.

My secret pajama shirt with my very first knit neckband. It’s a proud moment for me. I blame my friend and Instagram for that. She and all these other people keep making all these cute knit things and I couldn’t be left behind!

So far, I’ve made 28 or 29 projects since January. If I keep this up, I might beat last year’s record!

So, for goals this month, I have mainly the same ones.

Food Goals

* Try a new technique, or equipment

* Meal plan consistently. I don’t know why this one is so hard for us, but it is. I end up panic cooking halfway through the year

* Pantry meals 1x per week, at least

* Make more side dishes

 

Craft/ Sewing Goals

* Complete decorating office clipboards

* Decide on summer decorations/ make summer decorations

* Complete Me Made May

* Go through clothes and get rid of unworn ones

* Make 2 solid color or neutral pattern dresses

* Use my serger!!

I think that’s it. I’ve got another shirt waiting on me to sew, and a sad puppy wanting pets.

Have a good night!

Monthly Review
Monthly Review

Monthly Review

LSiehLeave a comment

I have made 75 tea wallets this month. I went a little crazy. What’s also crazy is the fact that my scrap boxes look very similar to when I started. I need to get my already started quilts done so I can start making some more.

These are waiting on the last threads to be cut. It’s my least favorite part. Some of them will also need buttons.

I got tired of having nothing to report on for my craft goals this month, so worked pretty hard to get them done. I still need this darn Rainbow quilt to be done, but may be able to get the fabric washed tomorrow.

Crafting and Sewing Update

So my completed craft goals for the month were to figure out a wallet and a coin purse, organize the basement, and fix something from the mending or finish a UFO project. Some of the tea wallets were actually in my UFO bag and I fixed a skirt where the elastic had snapped.

I found a stash of wallets that I made when I was first sewing for Etsy, but had decided they weren’t as professional as I would like, so haven’t sold them. I pulled a black one made from a shrunken sweater with a daisy print fabric and daisy embroideries on the front. It’s not too big and looks cute.

I also made a zippered coin purse from some scraps from a shirt. It gave me an excuse to use a tiny 4 inch zipper.

It’s lined with the same material. I have so many zippers right now and really need to make some zippered bags for my Twinflower Etsy store. I have a bunch of weird colors though, so hopefully I can find enough fabrics that match. It would be terrible if I had to buy new fabrics after all! Well, the Husband would think so at least.

This is the skirt that I fixed. The elastic popped while on a work trip a few years ago and it got stuck in the mending pile. I finally pulled it out, picked a few stitches and re-threaded the elastic.

Such a simple fix and I just never did it. Now I can wear the skirt again and it will be even more appropriate since I work with kids.

My office art and clipboards were two things that I only got partially done. I lost my Modge Podge in one of the moves and will need some more before I can collage the clipboards.

The office art is drawn out, but I haven’t quite decided if I like it. One of the songs I had picked out, “Heavy,” is by Linkin Park. With Chester Bennington’s recent suicide (the lead singer), I’m debating the wisdom of having the song in my office. The song itself talks about not holding on to things you can’t change and recognizing that you need to leave some things behind. It’s a beautiful song and sparked a few discussions in my teen group, I’m just not sure if I should have it up right now. I can see both sides. On one hand, the song itself can be inspiring, but it now is connected with someone who died by suicide. Maybe I will still make it and put it up in a few months. This piece will have a stick figure trying to support a globe on it’s back with the words in the globe. It will either be oil pastels or collage pieces with cool colors.

My second song, “Brave,” by Sara Barellis, is one that I have wanted in my counseling office since before I had an office. It talks about saying what needs to be said and being brave. For a little while every time I had to do something big, the song would be playing on the radio. 🙂 This one will have a stick figure shouting the chorus. It will be warm colors.

Garden Update

Most of the garden is growing well. I’m still waging a war on squirrels and they are still winning. Here are some garden pictures.

These are the “mammoth” jalapeños. They still aren’t what I would call mammoth…

Green Peppers

Roma Tomatoes

Cooking Update

I used 12 new cookbooks and 25 new recipes. We had one family recipe and 4 or 5 recipes/methods by me. That’s a lot of food. How did we eat so much food?

Hits for the month were the Gold Beach Burgers, the Korean BBQ ribs, the Greek Grilled Chicken, and the Shrimp Scampi. Most of the ice cream recipes were also hits.

Misses were the Slow Cooker Soy Citrus Chicken, the Garlicky Baked Chicken Thighs/Drumsticks, and the carrot puree.

We had at least two new recipes per week and I made lots of new ice creams. I made two last night actually! This week’s recipes will be posted later.

Goals for next month: 

Sewing wise, I am relaxing my goals a little. I’m picking general categories this month. Sometimes I don’t want to work on the things I’ve picked. The only firm projects are the Rainbow Snowball Quilt and my office art.

Categories:

Clothing item, Etsy stock, and UFO/mending pile.

Continue to organize basement.

Get new storage for small pieces of fabric.

Garden Goals: 

Dry herbs for a tea making party in September.

Food Goals: 

Continue to make 2-3 recipes for week.

Try new ice cream recipes.

Use new recipes for Anniversary party.

Get freezer recipes made up in freezer.

It seems I may have a busy month ahead of me. I think I’ll join the puppers in a good night’s sleep.

Tea Wallet Frenzy and Organization Update
Crafty

Tea Wallet Frenzy and Organization Update

LSieh2 Comments

Apparently cleaning the basement makes Fancy sleepy. She napped for most of the weekend, when she wasn’t running frantically around in the basement pretending to be a shark guard dog. She must have been getting into the spirit of Shark Week, since I’ve been subjecting her to it all week.

She likes to think all boxes are hers and hers alone. And how dare we try to pick them up, or take them away from her! We did manage to distract her with some box flaps so that we could clean the rest.

I took one picture of part of the basement before it was organized. It’s terribly embarrassing, but I thought maybe I would be more likely to keep it clean, if I posted it. Try not to judge us too much…

We were able to recycle some of the boxes and the rest are in the garage waiting to be recycled. The city finally figured out the recycling program, so once we get our can, we can really get it under control. Moving takes a lot of boxes.

The Husband put together two more shelves for my crafty things, so that was very helpful. Now even if the inside of the totes are messy, they will be at least on shelves and off the floor. Here are two after pictures:

We still have to figure put storage for the Husband’s Legos and there’s more craft and general household items to figure out, but it’s nice to be able to fully work in the basement.

I cleaned up and put away ton of fabric. I need to get a different storage option for my fat quarters. They are outgrowing the shoe boxes and all the boxes are different sizes. I’m thinking the bigger shoebox type clear boxes will be the best.

I also went crazy with tea wallets! I kept finding good pieces for them while I was putting away fabric. I did them in color batches again. This time it was reds, browns, grey, and some pinks. I specifically needed rose and fall themed ones, so tried to get those done so I can mail them out.

Here are the groups. Fair warning, there are a ton of pictures. Most of them will go to Etsy, some will go to Hawthorne and Vine, the lovely flower store where they are currently being sold.

Grey batch. Yes, those are shiny unicorns…

Pink batch. This one had a lot of the roses in it. It also has one that looked like frosting, so I used sprinkle fabric s the inside.

Red, brown, yellow. With beer! And rockets!

More brown with fall leaves, tea, and revolvers.

Sometimes once I start sewing them, I can’t seem to stop. I suppose there are many worse things to be addicted to than sewing, but it does make getting anything else done a problem. I’ve put the rest away for now, but do need a few more rose themed ones for my flower store package.

I was experimenting with new Etsy pictures this week. My pictures on the website definitely need an update, so I was playing with backgrounds and props.

I sent the birch tree picture to my husband and he said  “Are you being weird in the front yard?” The answer, is of course, yes, because that’s where the tree is…

I figure the neighbors might be ready for our true selves to come out anyway. It’s been a year and there’s four flamingos in the front yard. So I need opinions on which picture looks the best. I don’t mind being weird in the birch tree and think it looks the best after editing, but want a second opinion. Which one highlights the bag the best? Birch Tree or Trellis? (My pics upload fuzzy on the blog. I haven’t been able to figure out why yet.)

I have a picture of our garden harvest too. It’s not being as prolific as we would have hoped, but we are getting a few things. The pepper had a bad spot on part of it, but was good on the other side.

So that was my week and weekend. Busy and very productive. Now that the basement is a bit more organized, I have more room to get things started down there and be able to work with the bigger projects. We have to get the Husband another Lego table too, so he can have more room to build more pieces. He’s filled the one he has with Lego city pieces.

We just have to keep working on the bits that need to be finished and we’ll be all set. It’s definitely encouraging to see our progress. I know we can keep it up too, if we just do a little bit at a time. Wish us luck!

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!