Recently Completed Sewing Projects

I made the cutest little crayon roll-ups this past week. One is going to my eldest. And one is going in the market basket for sale. 

Also done is a cover for the computer chair. The seat had just about worn through, and the boys were pulling out foam. No beuno. So I made a simple cover out of some spare minkee.

Looks beautiful!
There was also a batch of diapers that got finished, but they went directly onto baby butts and I didn't snap a pic.
Mom and I are go for a charity quilt! I have a small start on things, need to get a wiggle on though, so I can mail the top to her with plenty of time for the long arm quilting.

Do you have any finishes to brag about? Hollar in the comments!
-Jennie

Charity Quilting

There's been plenty on this blog lately about me and my struggles.
Let's spend some time talking about others.
Better yet, join me in spending some sewing time dedicated to others. 


100 quilts for kids
http://swimbikequilt.com/2013/07/100-quilts-for-kids-charity-quilt-drive-starts-today.html
July1- Sept 30th 2013 
Ready to get started?
1. Make a quilt.  Great time to use bee blocks, try a new pattern, or experiment with a design of your own.
2. Donate it to a child in need, locally if you can.  Consider donating your quilt(s) to a local foster care program, domestic violence center, homeless shelter, children’s hospital, or to a local military family support organization.

Slabs for Southern Alberta
http://naptimequilter.blogspot.ca/2013/06/slabs-for.html
Just make a 15.5x15.5 slab and snail mail it to her, and she'll combine them into quilts, and send the quilts to long-armers who are volunteering their time. The quilts are headed to Calgary and Southern Alberta to help in recovery from the flood there.

"How do you make a slab? If you have the book, [Saturday Morning Quilts] refer to the directions on pages 48-49. If you don't have the book let me summarize how to make a slab:

Take two pieces (scraps) of fabric and sew them together. Do that a few more times. Then start sewing more pieces to those first pairs. Sew groups together. Add additional pieces of fabric as necessary to get up to your finished size. Start with small bits or big ones, it doesn't matter. Raid your scrap bins and go with what you've got.

Feel free to grab that top image and share it on your blogs/web-sites. Tell the world about how you made your slab. Link back to this post if you do.

DEADLINE - July 30, 2013.

I plan on assembling the blocks, with the help of some local friends, in early August. "

I know I can get a slab done this month.  A whole quilt for charity, by Sept 30 may be more challenging. Anyone want to team up with me? Mom?
- Jennie

Sew and Tell - Space Skirt!

Got my Blue Nebula skirt done, I think it looks cute. As usual, I totally winged it. I knew what I was aiming for in the finished skirt, and I did some measurements then just started cutting and sewing till it looked close. :-D These shots aren't the best, inside lighting and a shirt that's too long, so you can't see the nice looking waistband I put on it. But, I'm sure I'll wear it this summer and get some better shots up for your viewing pleasure.

 Baby did not want to be put down.

 Here's a side shot, you can see the under skirt which is a light eggplant color. And my oh-so fashionable wool socks. (Because it's not quite time for skirt wearing here.)

Also recently off the sewing table -
A couple of bundles of cloth wipes for the Market stall, and one for our own use.

Bags and decorations for the 4 year old's birthday party! I made a string of pennants for Rowen's birthday party at the end of March. I was a rock star with these. More of my cutting and sewing till it looked right. Literally, in the 15 spare minutes before the party started, I cut out an old lining from a wetbag that bit the dust, and then cut triangles out of it, and matching triangles from some scrap fabrics, and voila! I used a strip of light green to sew it all together and tie it to the wall.

  Rowen thought it was great decoration, promptly declaring the party was started when he saw them. "Mommy made me a party!"  -Rowen

Gift bags for the kiddo. Nothing fancy here.

Well, that's about it for my sew and tell.  I have cute stuff in the queue for the sewing machine already. Some matching shorts for the two boys. Because how cute is it when little boys match? lol Then diaper sewing, hard core, we need at least a half dozen for the boys, and I'd like to have a couple for sale in the market stall. And I need to finish the second curtain for the large window in the living room.  Will I get it all done before the last frost date on the 27th?  :-D Nah, probably not. But, I'm happy with where my sewing is as winter gives us a final blow. I've wrapped up a lot of WIPs, and the organization in the craft den is much better than where it was at the beginning of winter. There is now a lot of wall space open that can be used for homeschooling projects, and there is a lot more stuff out of baby's reach for safety.  I feel like the organized space has made me more productive already. :-D

Thanks for reading! Link to your own finished projects if you got them! We like show and tell's.
-Jennie

Sew and Tell!

As promised, here are a couple more of the projects I've finished up lately.

The purse was completed right before New Years. I wanted something nice to take to the New Year's salsa dance I went to, as well as the wedding on the 19th.
I put interfacing on both the outer and inner layers, so it would hold shape as a clutch purse.  Currently clutch purses are the only ones I can stomach. I'd still switch to a wallet in a heart beat if women's pants were actually  designed to handle that.   Since they aren't, I try to keep things as minimal as possible.
I wasn't 100% happy with how I executed the sides of the purse, but overall, especially since I free handed the whole thing, I'm very happy with it.

The table runner, in a fun fall pheasant scheme, matches the ones I made for various relatives this Yule. I liked them so much I had to have one too!  It may not come out to decorate my house until the end of next summer, but I'm ok with having it done early. :-D

On the list next for the sewing room is a padded bag for Dave to carry the coffee press in for camping trips. Also, some more clothing for me I think. Probably need to sew a few diapers or covers too, just to keep up with things on that front.  I have curtains for the living room to design, and a large quilt (butterflies!!) to design, well it's already designed, but I'll need to tweak the design that the pattern has, to match the fabric I have and the finished size I need. :-D  Because how boring would it be to just follow some one's directions?! lol

-Jennie

WIP Weekend

WIP stands for Work In Progess.  It's a handy phrase for the half finished projects that seem to follow around every seamstress I know.  It's a little hard to explain to non-sewers how these things come into existence, but I'll try real quick.

A lot of times I make more than one of whatever project I'm working on.  If it's quilt blocks, a few extra are nice to have on hand, in case one or two blocks don't work for whatever reason. If it's a present, like a table runner or bag, a lot of time I have enough material to make more than one, and it's just as quick to cut out double if I fold the fabric and cut them both at once.  That double though, often doesn't have the same priority as the first one. The first one might be for a birthday or holiday present, and has a deadline for completion. The second one might be for me, or as a backup gift to have ready for the next holiday or something like that, so it often languishes in the pieces form, until I get done with the high priority stuff. Sometimes I have a project that stalls because I'm missing a component, whether that's batting, or a zipper or the right color thread. 

In order to keep clutter down, I have a place dedicated to WIP's. That way they stay together, out of my way, and the amount of WIPs can be monitored. The size of my pile in the wake of Yule/birthday/wedding rushes, is a little too big. So, this weekend was dedicated to whittling that down a bit.

 I finished up the last of the cute mug rugs that I made for Yule.  A ton of those went out in boxes as presents, but they were too cute not to make any for me. So I have a set of 4 now. Or 5.. I don't know. :-D

I also finished up one last cloth present bag.  It got cut out after the holidays, from sale fabric, but then wedding prep took over and I didn't get around to sewing the sides together.  It does still need some ribbon to go in the top as closure, but there are a few like that, and I'll buy some more ribbon next year and get all of them at once.

Finally, I completed Knitting Project #2!! A wool earwarmer. I learned how to do a bit of ribbing, and a new cast off method that works with said ribbing.  I also took the time to do a bit of embellishing, since I intentionally made the project out of a basic black wool.  Some pretty white made a nice contrast, I may yet put some more color in it. We'll see. Fits great. Feels great.  I LOVE getting this one finished and off the needles.  I was a bad girl and went ahead and started a new knitting project, flaunting my self imposed rule to only finish projects. Project #3 uses some more new stitches, YO and K2tog for you knitters out there, and a gorgeous bunch of yarn I picked up at the Des Moines Quilt Show, (2011 I think!!) and big circular needles, which is another first for me. I even made my very first yarn ball last night. Since the yarn is a hand dyed batch of fashion yarn, it was not in a ball.  This project has been waiting for so long because I didn't have the skills to take it on until now. And I didn't want to mess up my pretty (expensive) yarn with failure. I'm 3 rows into the project now, so far I think it looks like it's supposed to, but I may need to get to the 10th row or thereabouts to get a good feel for the pattern.

I almost had another finish for the weekend. I worked on a table runner from the WIP pile, and got halfway through sewing on the binding. So that one will be finished this week I'm sure.  It will look familiar to the Erwin's in the audience, since it's a matching table runner to the two I sent out as Yule presents.  This one of course is for me!  :-) No pics of this one yet, as it was still attached to the sewing machine this morning and not available for photo op.  It's super cute though, so I'll make sure to grab a shot when I finish it up.

While I'm bragging about finished projects, I didn't get a chance to Sew and Tell the Coffee Carafe Cozy that I made for Dave's birthday. We use a french press at home for our coffee brewing needs, and the only complaint is that it gets cold so fast in that glass carafe.  So I made him a cozy that velcros onto the carafe, over the metal struts and under the handle. And yes that is space invaders on the trim, the entire back side is space invaders. It's kinda reversible, and sometimes Dave puts the space invaders on the outside for fun. :-D

 

That's about it from me today. Anybody else get some projects finished up this weekend? You can Sew and Tell here.  The invitation is open for those of you who choose not to create with fabric/fiber. :-) We're equal opportunity crafters here.

-Jennie

Out with the old, in with the new

I got a lot of sewing done this past weekend. Show and tell time!
I finished up a cute new pillow case for me. It's all cheerful birds and bright colors. I think the winter blahs have set in.  I saw the fabric in my local quilt store, and I HAD TO HAVE SOME.  I was tired of my old maroon Walmart pillow case, and I knew bright cheerful birds would be a vast improvement.
No word on whether Dave wants a matching one for his pillow. :-D :-D

I also got some new diaper covers done for Rowen.  Some of his current size have met their grungy end. They are stained and faded and some are even ripped.  These new ones should help, until he potty trains, and then they'll be around for boy #2.  The frog one is made like all the rest, with one layer of solid colored PUL material and an outer layer of cute cotton fabric, joined with the fold-over elastic.   The owl cover is a new method, using just one layer of PUL material, with the cute pattern printed on the non-laminated side.  It was a lot faster for me to make that one, and I'm curious to see how it holds up in comparison.They both use velcro for fastening. Bonus, the frog one was a WIP that had been sitting around my sewing room since I sewed up the first batch over a year ago.  Yay for getting one more WIP out of the way!

I also got some curtains sewn together for the boys' room.  They are jungle themed, which should go well with the ducks and monkeys and zoo animals that are already abundant. I still need to get the jungle animals appliqued on, then I'll snap some pictures and show them off.   I made progress on the blue and yellow quilt for Rowen's bed, and progress on the mini-quilt that I'm making for the mini-quilt challenge at Ellison Lane.

And now, for fun, here's some belly shots of me and baby this weekend, 3rd trimester gigantic.

Organizing and Getting Stuff Done

I had a huge push to get sewing projects done and out of my sewing room the past few weeks.  Some went as presents for Yule, others are hanging in my living room, yea, I'm looking at you big blue.  Others went straight on Rowen's butt.  hahahah

Show and tell time. :-D  First up were Becky's curtains. She loves purple, and fairies, so I used some Fairy Frost and Flower Fairy fabric.   Her window is large, so it was hard to get a good picture of this once it was done.   She really liked it though.

 

Next up was Willie's flag for his fort that Becky built in the backyard for him.  He requested a red and black flag with a spider on it.  So of course that's what he got.  I free-handed the whole thing in an afternoon.

 

While cleaning the sewing room I dug up some old projects that never got completed when Rowen was a newborn.  A couple of bibs made with some yellow terry cloth and blue fishes, and a green froggie bib that my mother started and only needed velcro attached to finish. Those are finished and will be put to good use I think.  Next to the bibs is a random Mama Pad that was cut out and ready to go. I think that green dot pattern was what I used for Sarah's set last X-mas.  I think I'll probably keep this random one, since I'd bet good money she's not used the pads.  It sewed up quickly, and reminded me that I need to find time to remake some postpartum pads.

 

Under the Mama Pad is the last of the prefolds that I finished up.  These were cut out during the sewing weekend with my mother back in Nov? Dec?  I made a set of 6 and I really liked how they turned out. Sadly, in spite of prewashing, the birds-eye fabric shrunk a lot more in the first few washes, so they are already a little small for Rowen.   Grrrr. So, memo to self, add a couple of inches to allow for that shrinkage when dealing with this nice birds-eye.   Another project started at that sewing weekend was a set of swaddle blankets.  Purple, Blue and Green, (chosen before I knew the gender on baby #2 lol) flannel with some cute jungle animals cut from a fat quarter and appliqued on to a corner for interest.  We really liked swaddling Rowen, and never seemed to have enough light weight blankets of the right size to do it.
 

Next up, and again, started at the sewing weekend, was a set of 4 fitted diapers for Rowen.  I have 2 done, and 2 left to complete, hopefully this week.  I used bamboo velour for the inner layer, with a soaker layer of hemp terry cloth (4 thick) and Ooga Booga cotton velour for the outer layer.  Velcro closures.  It took about half a diaper to remember the tricks of the elastic and such with these, so the left leg on the left diaper isn't as stretchy as it could be.  I'm a terrible seamstress and didn't rip it out and fix it. :-P

 

After getting all that goodness done, I spent some time returning the sewing room to a state of order. My spools of ribbon went up on the wall. There they are contained, easy to use, and out of reach of both babies and kitty. I threaded them onto a couple lengths of random yarn and ribbon and tied the ends to two tacks. I put some fabric on the mini-bolts that I bought at the quilting show in Des Moines.  I don't have nearly enough of those to put all my cotton interlock on them, but it is nice to have a few projects worth of the especially pretty stuff organized and out where I can enjoy them. The rest of my fabrics live in Rubbermaid totes and I went through those as well.  They are now organized by type of fabric, and LABELED so that if someone other than myself wanted to find something, they could conceivably do that.  All of my patterns got a going through, and they are organized in an old hanging shoe organizer. 

The last piece of organizing took the longest. I had put the mail sorting baskets in the sewing room, just due to lack of any other place. It was clearly  not well thought out. Mail was just piling up on the kitchen table. So, I dug it all out of the sewing room, and off the table, organized the 2011 mail and filed it away. Then I moved an unused TV hutch out of the sewing room and into the dining room where it now holds all the sorted mail from years past, and the mail sorting baskets for this coming year.  It looks much nicer, and gives me more room to work in the sewing room.

There's still a bit more work to do before I call it good.  My mother sent me some yarn that needs going through, and I need to rearrange now that the TV hutch is gone.   I'm pretty happy with the progress though.

Fall harvests

Well in spite of the frost a couple of weeks ago, my tomatoes are finally ripening. :-D
The row cover protected them from the cold, and the wind, and we've had just enough warm sunny weather to ripen a couple dozen nice fruits.   So, I spent the weekend canning, a rainbow of deliciousness.  I did something fun this time and canned red tomatoes together, and canned yellow tomatoes together and one small jar of Green Zebra tomatoes.  The Green Zebras don't look so hot. That nice sunny yellow and light green stripe that they get when ripe, all that disappeared in the canner, so they look like unripe blotchy green tomatoes. lol

Red, Yellow and Green goodness

I still have a small pile of tomatoes on the counter. Not sure what we'll do with them, it's still being discussed.  We've got plenty of jars,  (Thanks Mom!!) so we may roast and can another batch of basil-less sauce for me.  (The zygote has decided basil is nasty and not to be eaten, seen or smelled, and is willing to upchuck food in order to enforce that opinion.  This is very annoying as I've had an awesome year for basil production.)

Dave has finished the chair he was making for Rowen.  We took some birthday money that Grandma DeeDee sent for him, and we bought some wood and a few hand tools and Dave made him a chair, just his size!  We got some stain, so that still needs to go on, but it looks pretty good.

As the days darken and the garden bounty wanes, I'm once again drawn to my sewing room.   I have a massive window quilt that was supposed to be finished earlier in the spring, and is still patiently waiting to be finished with the hand quilting. I have a vest for Rowen made out of fleece, with a zipper and hoodie.  I ordered the zipper this weekend, and I've sewn as far as I can go without it.   While I'm waiting on the zipper, I have started tree pants for the yule tree I'm determined to have this year.  (Tree pants, because not all trees like to wear skirts. hahaha)  I'm making crimson stars on a cream flowered background.  I've not done any stars yet, this will be my first attempt, I'm following the Happy Zombie sew along to help me through the bumps. Thankfully her pattern is a square tree pants, because round things are yet another aspect of quilting I've not got to. :-D  I'll try to put together a star or two and post the results in a day or two. Wish me luck!

Crimson stars on the cream/flowers.

National Sewing Month Wrap Up

Yes indeed, September was National Sewing Month. So, I'll show off some home-made goodies.

Here is the new curtain I made for the bathroom.  This is a window that used to be covered with just the blue checked fabric, donated by my mother and tacked to the wall.   I thought to myself, "Self, we can do better than that."  So, I designed this little piece to cover the window and use the donated fabric, plus some remnants that were languishing in the fabric pile.    The bottom third is unquilted, because in the summer the bottom of this window is often open for airflow. So, I wanted to keep that part of the window covering light enough to allow for that.  The butterflies are my first attempt with iron on embellishment.  Not bad. I'll probably never do it again. :giggle:  I'll spare you the list of goof-ups, you can see them yourself if you look. :-D  All in all, I'm rather pleased with how it turned out.

Mom made Rowen the cutest little train bag to hold all of his Thomas the Train pieces and cars.  Utterly adorable. Super sturdy, and he loves it already.  Thanks Mom!

The two of us are headed to the AQS show in Des Moines this weekend.  She's headed that way right now, and I'll be joining her this Friday.  Can't wait! It's so much fun to see all the new quilts and buy pretty materials from the vendors. A weekend with my mom is icing on the cake.

I've almost got an apron done for my cousin in Texas - Hi JoBeth! - all I'm lacking is the final bit of rick-rack.  This was my first time working with rick-rack and I totally messed it up.  Not enough to redo it, just enough that I had to go back and re-read everything and look at all the pictures to figure out what I really need to do with this stuff.  C'est la vie. But, I have to say, I hate it when patterns tell you to buy 2 packages of something, and that's NOT enough.  Have packages of rick-rack gotten smaller in the past few years? What's the deal with that?

I got in some more diaper fabric from my buying co-op, so as soon as I get all the existing diapers inventoried I'll be starting on new baby diapers.  :-D  If you do a lot of sewing, and you haven't looked into fabric buying co-ops you absolutely should. They are wonderful.  Warning: they are also enablers, if you have trouble saying no to good buys, DON'T JOIN.  lol

I hope your September was full of sewing, and your October is too!

Projects getting done

Well, in spite of the busy garden season, I am finding time to finish up some projects. Sewing projects first, since I've been garden heavy on this blog lately.

I've finished my first knitted scarf! It's really basic, with an easy to wash yarn and a pretty variegated green color that should match well with my camo parka. That's right, camo matching tips, right here on My Path to Freedom. hahaha Seriously though, I wasn't sure I'd like knitting. It seemed complicated and I thought for sure the 2 year old would unravel everything at least once, but to my surprise, it was a nice project for those evenings when I didn't want to read, and it was really nice to travel with. I think I must have knitted half of it on planes traveling for work. Yes, you can get on a plane with knitting needles in the US. I have done it multiple times since the increases in security after 9/11.

I've already started project #2, it's a headband/ear cover in a plain black wool, with nice ribbing. The ribbing was tricky at first, but I feel like I'm really starting to get a handle on multiple stitches and patterns. The ribbing makes the headband stretchy, but in a firm sort of way, so I think it will stay on nicely.

I finished a wall hanging for my mother's birthday! A bit belated, but I think she likes it. I'm usually not big on fancy sewing for hanging on a wall. But, she's my mother and she deserves it.

I made a big bag for Rowen to put his Little People playset in. It's one of those sets that has a dozen little people, with little cars and a farm house with little animals... cute, but annoyingly easy to spread around the house like little bits of chaos. So, a big soft bag, with drawstrings was in order. I used Minky, strong seam techniques and some tie line from Dave for a free drawstring. Love it.

With the ever patient help of my husband, we got the curtains up in the basement food storage room. This means I can get the potatoes out of the kitchen and down there and hopefully have fewer of them sprout this spring. We also got gifted my Dad's hand-me-down shop vac, so the basement can get a much needed cleaning. Cleaning is important for more than just superficial looks, it means fewer attractions for vermin and fewer things for mold/mildew to hangout on.


Curing has finished for the garlic and onions, and I'm doing a bit of cleaning and sorting and trying to get them in their proper places. I have over 60 onions and about 25 garlic heads. I still need to find more of both, in order to store sufficient quantities to see us through till next spring. The cleaning isn't an involved process, I'm just trimming up the dried roots and trimming off the dried tops. (I don't braid them, if you are braiding, you'll want to do that while they are still green and pliable.) The garlic usually has an outer layer of the paper-skins that's dirty, and I'll gently thumb that off, mostly for appearance, partially to keep dirt out of the garlic storage bags.


We got 5 pints of salsa canned this weekend. Sssshhh, don't tell Rowen that we don't need the food mill to make salsa. He does love to help.

Out With the Old

I have been sewing a lot lately, Rowen needed some new diapers, and wetbags to replace some that were wearing out. (None of the handmade diapers are wearing out, we inherited a set of used prefolds from my best friend. They were well used when we got them, and we've put quite a few more miles on them since.)
This is round three for the diaper supplies, and I've changed some things from the original set. Most of the modifications have been with the design of the wetbags. I've made them bigger, my very first bag was something like 12x14" and these last two bags have been 13x19". I've also changed the zippers that I use. Instead of the really common (and pretty colored) polyester zippers, I am using the molded zippers. The teeth are bigger and tougher, which is good for the heavy duty use these bags get. We had problems with the polyester zippers wearing out before the rest of the wet bag. The molded zippers don't come in as many colors, but it's worth it for the increased durability. I've gone from two velcro hanging loops to just one. We never used both velcro loops, we always hung the bags with just one, so why waste the velcro. I've also stopped putting in the scrap of terry cloth that some people use to put essential oil on. Again, we never found a need to do that, so I just don't waste my time putting it in.
In terms of construction, I've changed how I put the layers together. I have two layers in my wetbags, one of the PUL material, and one of a cute outer print, usually cotton. (Some wetbags use a cute polyester material that has the PUL laminate on the backsisde already, I'm not that fancy.) I used to sew the two layers together at all the seams, thinking that would make them sturdier. Sturdier indeed, but it was also a direct pathway for seepage through to the cotton outside, which is not desirable. So, now I sew the two separately, joining them only at the top where they both meet the zipper. This limits the seepage through, it also allows the inner lining to totally flip out if needed for cleaning/drying.Don't be fooled by the weird perspective here, the wetbags are rectangular, this one just looks smaller at the bottom in this picture.
Future modifications, should there be a round 4: Dave has requested that the zipper open around one of the top corners. Sometimes, having a wider opening to get the dirties out would improve the laundry experience. With the old zippers I could match the size pretty closely, so this wasn't an option, with the new zippers, I am more limited in my sizes and so the zippers I chose are bigger than the top of the bag warrants. With all that extra zipper hanging out in the top corner, Dave thought it might be possible. (It is, I'll just need to figure out how to best arrange the seams.)

Other changes, include a lessening of the inner layer on the prefolds. Instead of 3 or 4 layers of terry cloth for the soaker layer, now I just use 2. I also felt more comfortable switching up the outer fabric, and I did a knit for a couple of the diapers, (teal and green) and a velour with a printed design on it for the others (blue Ooga Booga.) It's a little cuter than the plain, off white, velour. (Everyone knows cuter is better.) I still use the plain velour on the layer that's closest to Rowen's bottom, just to make sun bleaching easy.
Another recently complete project - a nice carry bag for traveling with a bit of sewing. I was going on a long work trip and I wanted a way to take my kniting and a small bit of handsewing. This fabric was one of those impulse buys, and I didn't have a plan for it, so I took the whole cut, (probably a half a yard) and folded it until I had a nice shape. A few quick seams, then a quick bit of yarn for a drawstring, and Voila! I love quick projects.

Still here, not (quite) frozen

Greetings. January has flown by, and I've been neglecting my poor blog. It's bitterly cold here, with ice and snow keeping all of us in the house more often than not. So, not much going on, thus not many posts. Contributing to the problem is the camera running low on batteries. I had to go buy some more to get pictures taken for this post.

The house bound time has contributed to a couple of projects getting done . I got curtains made for the kitchen, and they look really cute. I kept them really really simple, as the window quilts I'm making for the living room are going slower than I'd like. (Slower than Dave would like too, "You know we'll be in a new house before you finish that.") :-D So simple was the motto, and I wanted to get something done to boost morale. Cheery blue and white curtains, using large blocks of fabric, they sewed up really quick and were a big hit. It was a one day project from the cutting to the final iron and hang. Love it.

Some pantry de-clutter has also happened lately. A busy holiday season, full of baking, had reduced our pantry to a cluttered mess and no one could find anything. So, I spent a few hours sorting out, combining remnants, tossing the expired and generally bring some order to the chaos. I find a large supply of canning jars makes a task like this a lot easier. Easy to label, easy to stack, plus they're air tight.

Freezing our buns off challenge has been going well. We are consistently keeping the thermostat set at 67 or 65 during the day and 63 at night. No one has any frost bite, and we've all been pretty healthy so far. (Dave and I are fighting colds right now, but that's the first illness any of us have had this winter.)

I'll have an update on the Winter Storage project soon.

Handmade pretties

I'm in the middle of making a bunch of small handmade presents for my loved ones. This is contributing to a lack of posts recently so I thought I'd take a moment and share some of what I'm making and of course, some of what I'm thinking.



More and more I find myself turning away from the massive consumerism that marks this time of the year in the US. Whether it's a dinner that includes close to 3000 calories, or a pine tree buried in paper wrapped presents, the over consumption leaves me cold and decidedly not cheery. As is my habit, I have changed the way I celebrate, to more closely align with my personal beliefs and values. This change is influenced by the Pagan/Wiccan traditions that I'm fond of, the traditions that my husband brings from his mostly pagan upbringing and what I learn as I research and rethink old habits.

Celebrating the Solstice helps to keep the focus away from the typical Christmas-how-much-stuff-did-I-get. Doing things by hand creates other helpful limits. Our decorating also helps remind us of our focus. We lean towards natural decorations like pine wreathes and garlands, and then decorate them by hand. We do put up some lights, as the Winter Solstice celebrates the return of light after the longest night. But, we don't cover the house with them in a vain attempt to outshine that light. Stockings and paper snowflakes and a live poinsettia round out the decorations. I think it has a nice holiday vibe, without being offensive or out of place in our uber-Christian neighborhood.


I've learned a lot the past few years as I switched to handmade for the holidays. First off, making presents by hand requires a LOT more foresight than most store bought presents. What I give is not decided in the heat of battle during a Black-Friday or Cyber-Monday sale. I keep a list under 'P' (for presents) in my planner and throughout the year when I see something cute or something I know a person could use, I write it down on the list. As a bonus side effect it makes it easier to stand strong against the incessant marketing employed by savvy corporations. As the harvest winds down for the year I immediately switch my energy over to holiday prep and start making the presents and finalizing my gifting plans. This works well enough for now, as I mostly give small things at this stage in my life. If I ever get to the point where I want to give a quilt or a complicated piece of clothing I'll either need to start holiday preps in the middle of summer or train up Rowen to help. :-D

This year is a bit lighter for gift giving, simply because we are not traveling to any of the large gatherings. So I'm making little things for the Grandma's and little things for my immediate family and a bunch of cards and that's it.

I have heard people excuse their shopping splurges because they have too many gifts to give to make them all. Look at your gift list for a moment, how many of those people have you actually talked to since last December? Will a 10$ piece of plastic snatched from a bargain bin really add value to the relationship? Will you actually see that person this holiday season? If the answer to any of those is no, why bother to buy them something? Get more emotional bang for your time/money, and whittle your list down to immediate family and those who you feel close to. If you figure another 1 or 2 to include a couple of people who you feel could use an extra bit of love during the holidays you might find your list more manageable and that time to make something for all on the list is not unattainable.

I have a lot of fabric and thread, so that's what I lean towards for gifts. I get a lot of inspiration from quilt shows and sewing blogs on the internet. The internet abounds with free patterns, and I'm blessed with a talent for guessing space/dimensions and ending up with things that are pretty close even when I don't use a pattern. (or straight edge) My mother is envious. :-D


Some of the things I'm making this year include a couple of needle books, based off of some really cute ones I saw this summer, going to a couple of lucky grandmas. A couple of cute pin cushions for other crafty grandmas. Some home-made firestarters, made with wax and wood chips and (since I have more fabric than wood) fabric scraps. Rowen has a cute outfit about half done, and some mittens that I finished last night. Then a couple more specific things that I'll refrain from mentioning here, on the off chance that those people read this and it spoils the surprise. :-D

Little things to show my love, little things made by hand.

And of course, I can't stand to wrap such things in eco-not-friendly wrapping paper. I swore off of that stuff for good last year and started making fabric gift bags. I made a set out of holiday fabric from the firesale rack in January. I'm thinking I'll make a few more this year. I might make a couple to match the gift that's inside, just to be fancy. They'll last for years and years. No trashcan full of once-used paper will leave our house on the 26th.

You too can make a difference this holiday season. Think about your traditions, is there one that stands out as particularly wasteful or joyless? Choose that one to focus on this year and make baby steps towards something better. Whatever the reason for your celebration.

Getting Stuff Done

I always have a lot of irons in the fire. Projects that get started, but then have to be put on hold for one reason or another. I'll work on different ones as time and conditions allow and the order in which they get finished is pretty random. I've been told that this trait is most common among women, while men prefer to start a project and do nothing else until that one is done. This is certainly true in my house. :-D

This weekend was really busy, even after a big thing had to be canceled. (My boys always come first, and when things have to give for them, that's just the way it has to be.) Lots going on and I had a couple of successes that I wanted to share. :-D

My potato harvest is huge! I dug up the last of the red potatoes this weekend. I haven't even tried to count them, if I do anything I'll weigh them, because there's too many to count. I had 2 10 foot long rows of potatoes. The first row had about 5' of Yukon Golds, and those got harvested a couple of months ago, with a good amount that sadly didn't store well. The reds took longer to finish, but really made good use of their time. With the last of the potatoes out, I'm that much closer to having my garden wrapped up for winter. Now, I just need to watch the weather because any day now we'll have a frost that will kill the tomato vines and the last of the basil. I'll need to snatch the green tomatoes and basil bits worth saving. (With a bit of luck I can ripen those green tomatoes on my counter and extend the fresh tomato season into November.) Only at that point will I rip out the vines (and their supports) and put that last bit of the gardens to bed.

Rowen and I went to O. City (the small town just north of us) and helped the community gardens there with their winter clean up. They clear the whole garden every year, filling the rather large compost bins to the top and then hauling away anything else. They pull out all the stakes and fences and put everything neatly in the shed for winter. Rowen and I helped out by rolling up endless lengths of chicken wire. Rowen was a big help. :-D We didn't stay long as Rowen got tired quickly, but I was able to chat with some folks and get a handle on how the garden started up and a bit about how they operate it. These are important things for me to know if I'm going to have any chance at all to start a garden in my new town. (Things work a bit differently out here than they did in Des Moines.) Plus, it was nice to just be outside for awhile, as the weather was wonderful. We did score some gleanings for our troubles. A whole bunch of lettuce, some thyme, a ton of carrots and some jalapenos.

The carrots went down to the basement to join the other food storage. I hadn't included carrots in my winter food storage experiment for a couple of reasons. 1) I'm not certain I have a high enough humidity place to store them properly, 2) my crop was a failure and 3) We don't eat a large amount of carrots. I'll keep loose tabs on these carrots and maybe I'll include them in my plans for next year, depending on how this winter goes.

The jalapenos went into the batch of salsa I made up on Sunday. Mmmm... salsa. Totally worth the effort of keeping the tomato vines alive this long. I thought I had finished canning a couple of weeks ago, but this weekend the pile of tomatoes was once again bordering on ridiculous. So, maybe this is my last batch of canning, we'll see. :-D

As I was elbow deep in salsa for dinner time Sunday, I got a little creative with our dinner.
Pumpkin Pancakes was what I whipped out of my magic hat.
(I had leftover pumpkin sitting in the fridge from the cookie making, and a wheat pancake recipe)

Spiced Pumpkin Pancakes:
2 cups whole wheat flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 Tbsp Cinnamon
1/2 tsp allspice
1 tsp nutmeg
2 cups milk
2 eggs well beaten
3 Tbsp pumpkin (cooked puree)

Mix dry ingredients, add wet and mix thoroughly. Cook on a greased griddle.
It's whole wheat, plus some pumpkin to count as veggies. That means it's a healthy dinner right? :-D


Last but not least, I got all the blocks finished for the dining room window quilt. The picture above is a sampling of 4 of the different blocks, I made close to a dozen different blocks to keep things interesting. I calculated that 128 blocks were needed to frame the two fabric panels and fill the whole window. I'm hoping that this weekend I can clear a space big enough (and out of toddler reach) to lay out everything and sew all the pieces together. My sewing time for the next few days is dedicated to finishing Rowen's Samhain costume. So, even though I'm itching to see what my quilt looks like together, it'll have to wait until Saturday.

Winter plans

The last farmers market for our small town was Weds.
I picked up one last pumpkin, a small pie-pumpkin as they are called locally. (To distinguish them from the large tough pumpkins sold for carving and decorating.) I got it cooked down Thursday evening and made it into pumpkin choc. chip cookies.
I also got some more sweet potatoes. That puts us close to what I wanted for the Winter Food Storage Challenge. Which, although technically starting in a couple of weeks, really it's already started because we're eating the food and storing the food and as of now, I'm done buying. (I think)
Hopefully this weekend I can get a final count on everything, and inventory my canned goods to see where we stand on all of it. Then with those numbers I need to create an easy to use spreadsheet to post in the kitchen to make meal planning easier.

Progress is being made on the window quilts. I have 95 out of the 125 blocks needed to cover the dining room windows. Soooo close. I can't decide if I want to try and finish those this weekend or start Rowen's Samhain costume. Or both? :-D I'm hoping I convince myself to make a simpler quilt for the living room window. Just in the name of time savings, but we'll see how this dining room one ends up before I make any decisions.

His costume isn't going to be too crazy, as it's just for a small trick-or-treat thing my office is having. So I really don't need to be spending crazy amounts of time on something that's going to get worn for an hour. Although, I do want it to be cute since my co-workers will see it. :-D And, I am thinking that if I do it right I can immediately recycle it into a window quilt for his bedroom. I wasn't originally going to make one for his room, but there's something amiss with his window, and we can't figure out if it's fixable or whether it's going to just leak all winter. Anyway, no I'm not saying what his costume is, you'll just have to check back and see! :-D

The cold frame is in use. It has a small cabbage in it and some lettuce. I need to add a layer to the brick sides this weekend so it's tall enough for the window to go on it and not smash the greens.

I have about half the garden put to bed for winter. I'm still getting the last stragglers off the tomato vines and from the potato row. Hopefully next week I'll finish with the potato harvest, pop some garlic into the vacated space and get another 1/4 of the garden put to bed.

Busy busy, lots to do. I don't even have time to take pictures of everything. Hopefully I'll get some pictures taken soon so y'all can see some of the craziness. I think my potato harvest is going to have to be seen to be believed. :-D

Quilting Weekend With Mom

I spent a wonderful weekend with my mother in Des Moines this past weekend.
The American Quilters Society - Quilt Show was taking place from Weds-Saturday. We got a hotel room, and both brought our sewing machines and had a weekend full of quilts and sewing.
I saw so much, and learned a lot I think. I don't want to forget any of it, so I'm going to recap some of my favorite bits here.

There were so many beautiful quilts on display. Hundreds, in multiple categories, hung on display, some with ribbons declaring their prowess. I was allowed to take pictures, but I was told the pictures could not be posted online. Which is too bad, because some were quite breathtaking. Mother and I walked through many aisles examining and enjoying the fabric artists' work. Sometimes we could figure out how certain quilts were executed, sometimes they were so complicated neither of us could figure out how they were done.

The second half of the quilt show is the vendors. Everything needed to produce blue ribbon quilts was available for sale in the vendor aisles. :-D If they were selling something new to the fabric art community they usually had demos set up for them to show or for people to try. The thing to remember about quilts is there's 3 layers to a beautiful quilt. The first part, is the piecing of the fabric. (This is the part I'm most comfortable with right now) Cutting and sewing fabric to get a front and a back for the quilt. Good quilters can use fabric colors and piece shapes to suggest pictures or make intricate patterns. The next layer is the quilting. Using thread and sewing the front, back and middle batting together, a good quilter can add depth and a bit of 3-D to the quilt design. Depending on the pattern of the stitching, the eye can be drawn to certain areas of the quilt, in some instances the quilting stitches can be the entire pattern.
The final layer that makes a blue ribbon quilt is the embellishment. As one gal put it, "If it's not embellished, it's not finished." Over the years, quilters who enjoy other fiber arts have found ways to incorporate those into quilting. Now embellishing quilts with beads, crystals, fibers, wool rovings and sparkles are just as common as the more traditional appliques. This is the layer I'm least familiar with. My sewing has tended towards sturdy and utilitarian, leaving the fabrics to speak for themselves. I've never appliqued or embellished anything. So, as I wandered through the vendor village I mostly ignored the thread shops, I bought less than a yard of fabric, but I did buy a few new embellishing items. I bought a small pattern for a wall hanging with a butterfly/flower applique picture on it. I got some Angelina fibers to try out, in shades of blue of course, and a small pack of yarn fibers to round out my initial exploration into embellishment. I'll probably try out the Angelina fibers on the small butterfly wall hanging just to get two new things into one project. The fibers are melted with an iron to form a flat sheet of shiny fiber that can then be cut and sewn onto fabric. They can be ironed with leaves/flowers/etc to give them interesting shapes, clumping or spreading the fibers before ironing can create different opacity. Sounds crazy right? Here are some videos that explain it all much better than I can.

All in all a productive weekend. Besides everything that I learned, I also got some projects done. Rowen's wall hanging that I started when he was born; :-D finally got it finished, with buttons for embellishment. I also made him a cute pillow for his new big boy bed. (Dave switched the crib to it's toddler bed configurations while I was in Des Moines.) Awww.. :-)
Last but not least, I got a good start to the window quilt I'm making for the dining room. I got it designed and 20 of the little blocks sewn together. (I think I need 120 to make the whole thing.)

Mom got a cute cushion made for a bench she gave Rowen a few months ago. She found really cute fabric that looks like the book "The Hungry Caterpillar." That's one of his favorites, and he really likes the new cushion.

My sewing list for this fall is already too much to get done. :-D So I'll be doing quite a bit of sewing as we wind our way towards Samhain.
Hope everyone is enjoying the last of the nice weather.