Tag: sewing

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!

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!

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!

 

Crafty

Free Fabric (and Fancy’s reaction)!

LSiehLeave a comment

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.

 

Monthly Review

Monthly Review

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Looking back on the past month, I have been terrible at taking pictures of the few new craft things that I made. I’m still struggling with actually making time to craft things, as my caseload is picking up and my schedule evolves into more time at the office, instead of at home. I’ve also been sick with no desire to eat or cook for about a week, which has thrown off all of my dinner plans.

I’m also starting to think more seriously about the garden. Last year, since we were moving, we just had containers, but they did fairly well. I had a lot of herbs, tomatoes, and jalapeños. This year we are going to try a cinder block raised bed, in an effort to keep Fancy out of it. She has recently started digging in the bushes by the house. The Husband is determined to have us grow a lot of the produce that we use and hopefully be able to can or freeze a bunch of it. I love being able to pick fresh herbs and veggies as well.

I am happy to report that it appears one of my blueberry bushes survived the winter in the garage. It had leaves on it the other day. Lately it’s been too cold and rainy to actually put it outside, but I’m hoping it continues to grow. My second one doesn’t appear to be growing, but I will see what I can do with it. I think they would appreciate bigger pots. Maybe it will help them grow more. Last year, I had a volunteer Thai Basil plant sneak into my blueberry pot and grow like gangbusters.

Recipe Update:

I used 17 new recipes and 10 of my methods/recipes. I used 7 new cookbooks, which was a lot better than I thought I had done. I used two cookbooks with double recipes, both for my birthday party.

Hits were the pizza, Irish Stew, truffles, Chocolate Strawberry Cupcakes, and Silver White Cake. The Husband requested the Szechuan shrimp sauce as a sauce for chicken too. I learned I can add butternut squash to mac and cheese, as long as I add enough fancy cheese to it. It was a pretty good food month!

The misses were the Chicken Stir fry that I attempted with no recipe, and the chicken potpie filling that was so dry and horrible. We won’t say much about either of those, except that the Husband still won’t admit that I can occasionally make terrible foods, even with the evidence in front of him. I think I’ll keep him. 😉

Food goals for the next month:

*Use 2-3 new recipes per week.

*Weekly Meal planning- I wrote down a list of the cookbooks that I still have not used and am planning to try to grab those first.

*Sort through my recipe cards, magazine pages, and recipe binder, and be realistic about what I would actually like to make. This one may take longer than a month, but I would like to at least attempt to start organizing them.

*Take better and more frequent pictures of meals, including side dishes.

Crafting update:

I had one vending event in the past month. I made one skirt, a cute Ball jar candle holder for my office, and several more fabric flowers, which are currently buried in my vending boxes.

Writing out that small of a list makes me sad. I’m going to try to stop having excuses for why I didn’t make things and just find a time to craft. It is what I love to do, after all.

My fat quarter trunk is now organized, which is a good step toward a workable crafting and sewing space.

I did run into a legitimate snag with one of the sewing books though. My Chic and Simple Sewing book is definitely sized for juniors. I’ve had it for years and found it new, with the patterns still intact on their sheets, at my local thrift store. I’ve made three of the projects from it, two wrap skirts, a few A-line skirts, and the Opera dress, which is no longer with us. The deep neckline looks amazing on the skinny model, however; on me, it’s not fit for public eyes… It was also really hard to get off and on and the hemline was accidentally asymmetrical. Those were all very early efforts. The skirts are still in my closet and I do wear them.

Now I can tell you for sure, that I am not going to figure out all my extra measurements, trace all these pattern pieces to the correct size, and make these patterns. It was one of first clothes sewing books I bought, so I was resisting giving it up, but it might be time. There is no sense in keeping things that are not useful and I have patterns better suited to my figure.

I think I’m beginning to realize that part of this challenge for me is to develop my own style and begin to weed out the things that don’t inspire me. I have so many crafting and sewing materials that are just gathering dust when they could be inspiring someone else instead. Giving up this book will let another beginner sewer experiment and learn their own style. If you know of a younger, or beginner sewer, who might like it, let me know, otherwise it will go to the giveaway pile.

Fun sewing fact, Joann’s now lets you use coupons on books and I had a 60% off one that was burning a hole in my pocket. I found this fun looking book called Sew Many Dresses, Sew Little Time by Tanya Whelan, which promises “interchangeable patterns to create 200+ unique dresses.” It has a section on alterations and the styles are much more flattering and sized with measurements, not just S/M/L. I can replace the simpler book for this one and get a lot more use out of it.

So, after that long-winded explanation, on to my crafty/sewing goals:

*Sew the pillow for my office with the inspirational quote fabric.

*Iron, back, and tie the Rainbow Snowball quilt.

*Add the fabric flowers to Etsy.

*Finish one project from the UFO tote.

*Continue organizing basement craft area.

*Take better pictures for the blog and for Etsy.

Some of these are shorter term and will hopefully be easy ones to finish. I don’t work Tuesday and will try to get the table cleared so I can at least get the quilt ironed and pinned.

Fancy has been super snuggly lately and would like me to add more walks, snuggles, and homemade treats to my goals this month as well. And really, how can I resist either of these faces?

 

She’s currently draped over my lap, snoring peacefully  away. 🙂 I should go and do the same!

More Crafty Organization
Crafty

More Crafty Organization

LSiehLeave a comment

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!