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.

Alaska Won't Save Us

When this blog was still a baby blog, I mentioned a few of my beliefs.

"I don't think oil shale out West is going to save us and I don't think drilling in Alaska is going to save us. "

Last week I stumbled across this little tidbit in the Wall Street Journal..

U.S. Cuts Estimates of Untapped Alaska Reserves

The U.S. Geological Survey said Tuesday that Alaska holds less oil and natural gas onshore at the National Petroleum Reserve and in nearby state waters than previously thought.

The agency now estimates that the area, on and near land in Alaska's North Slope owned by the U.S. government, holds 896 million barrels of conventional, undiscovered oil, about 10% of the amount the agency predicted was there in 2002.

The USGS also updated its estimate for natural gas in the area to 53 trillion cubic feet, about 13% less than the agency predicted eight years ago.

"These new findings underscore the challenge of predicting whether oil or gas will be found in frontier areas," USGS Director Marcia McNutt said in a statement.

New geological data from three-dimensional seismic surveys and more than 30 exploration wells that have been drilled in the area show more gas in the area than oil, the USGS said. Many of the new wells show "an abrupt transition from oil to gas just 15 to 20 miles west" of the northeastern boundary of the petroleum reserve, the agency said.

The Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management has held five lease sales in the NPRA from 1999 through 2008. The agency currently administers more than 300 Federal oil and gas leases, according to the agency's Web site.

So, even if we could get every last drop of that oil out of Alaska, it would amount to 42 days worth of oil at our current consumption rate of 21 million barrels per day. That's it. Drill Baby Drill...?
Two and a half years after I made my predictions about Alaska, we have the BP spill illustrating how hard it is to get some of the oil that remains. We have multiple agencies reporting oil peaks in the next 5 years and even the US military forecasting massive shortfalls by 2015 and trying to make plans. That last link is the report that came out just a couple of months ago, and is well worth the time taken to skim the first few pages.

To ready America’s armed forces for tomorrow’s challenges, DOD should ensure that it can operate all of its systems on nonpetroleum fuels by 2040.

Costs of Petroleum Dependence
• Heavy dependence on large fuel supplies can
increase operational vulnerabilities and make
fuel supply infrastructure a more valuable
target.
• Every dollar increase in the price of petroleum
costs DOD up to 130 million additional dollars.
• Rising global demand, for instance in China, is
increasing the strategic importance of petroleum
in ways that could be detrimental to U.S. interests.
• Countries such as Iran and Venezuela could
have the largest remaining reserves in a few
decades if current production rates hold – and
will gain leverage as a result.
• High levels of petroleum consumption are
contributing to the changing climate, which
can bring destabilizing effects and trigger new
security challenges.

Now, they are hedging their bets on the crunch happening 30+ years from now. Some reports show that they'll have that much time, but other reports show a crunch happening much sooner than that. Even if they are working off a 30 year time line, having our military starting the move away from petroleum will be a great market motivator for the developing technologies that will help all of us transition. There are few other organizations with the sheer amount of capitol that the DoD wields.

What does all this mean? In my opinion, it means if your future plans don't include plans to deal with peak oil, they should. If not future plans for yourself, future plans for your kids and grandkids. Does your current diet have you heavily dependent on oil to transport it? What about your leisure activities and hobbies? Does your job depend on cheap oil? Is your house comfortable without a lot of AC/Heat? These types of things don't need to be oil free tomorrow, but you should start considering strategies.

Samhain thoughts

A Graceful Death--------------------
Picking the last of the green tomatoes. Rowen in my arms, helping me hold the sack. We snuggle together to stay warm. Frost is definitely coming. Moonlight and streetlamp cast an eerie and dim glow into the garden. The tomatoes can be seen more by the gleam of smooth skin than by their color. Recent wind storms have turned the once well known garden path into a tricky vine covered maze, made even more impassable by the dark and cold. Occasionally a crunch underfoot lets me know when I've missed a fruit and tread on it. These tomatoes will never know a hot sun warming them into ripeness. If I leave them out the frost will turn them into black and brown mush. Perhaps I can offer them a more dignified death after a slow ripening on my counter. Seems the least I can do for these last babies of the beloved vines. Our bag is full. We brush by the vines on our way out, quietly saying goodbye, these vines contributed to our health; raised from seed with loving care, the vines have repayed the love with the gift of tomatoes. It's always a little sad to see them end. I tell them their death is not in vain. I have their seed being carefully preserved so their line will continue. Maybe it helps, I know it helps me. My way of giving back to the plants that nourish me. A graceful death. A Samhain tradition.
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As those around me celebrate Halloween I try to quietly celebrate Samhain. I know some of you wonder why. What's the point? What am I hoping to achieve by calling it something different?
By calling it something different I hope to shift my family's focus. Like most of the holidays celebrated in America, I don't like the associated rituals that come with Halloween.
Spooky and scary afterlife images are trotted out, but with no mention of how those things apply to the loved ones that may have been lost this year. Death is treated like a joke, with nothing to offer those genuinely curious about that final act. That final act that's so disconnected from the way most American's live their lives, some don't even know what had to die to make their lunch today.
Sending children out begging for plastic wrapped sugar made by large corporations, while wearing costumes mass produced by other large corporations, can you guess who I think really gets the treat of Halloween? All that seems an empty waste of time and money, as there are no American children in need of candy. In fact the opposite could be argued without much trouble. Soaring obesity rates and early onset Diabetes would argue that more of us should be looking at this holiday ritual with a careful eye.

Samhain has traditions that focus more on actual death, as it occurs in the natural world, and specifically how it connects to the cycle of the year. Samhain offers rituals that celebrate the death of the crops that nourished all summer, rituals to remember loved ones who passed, decorations that are made from herbs and other natural local materials. These rituals encourage a healthy view of death, as something natural and and respectful. These rituals encourage a deeper understanding of the cycles of the seasons and how they affect the local flora and fauna. These rituals are very approachable. A bonfire serves double duty, to clean up the garden refuse and to illuminate the darkness that holds sway this time of year. The carving of faces into fall produce, (originally turnips, now pumpkins) to symbolize those that have departed this life, but linger in our thoughts. Ancestor worship as it's called by some anthropologists, is so common in other parts of the world. I sometimes wonder why it's so devoid in our society. Is it because we live longer? Is it because of our obsession with youth and beauty or the other way around, does our lack of connection with the departed lead to our obsession with youth and beauty? I don't know. I do think that if we're ever to live more honest lives, more local lives, we need to reconnect with death. We need to reclaim death as something natural and not to be feared, connected to how we get our food and how we live our lives; something as far removed from free candy as it's possible to be.

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We need to reclaim death. Have you thought about your own? Crunchy is hosting a blogroll with the topic of Greening the Dead. Do you want to spend your hard earned money on chemicals to preserve your remains? How about a hermetically sealed box made of metal and plastic? That's what the average 12-15K that most Americans spend on funerals will get you. Then your body full of it's poisons, safely in it's super-fund box, gets crammed into a landfill full of other poison filled corpses. It's not cheap and it's not friendly to the environment.
There are other options of course, but most require a bit of pre-planning on your part as well as the willingness to convey your wishes to those you'll leave behind. Cremation is an option, coupled with a fabric shroud or unfinished wood box, it's not too damaging environmentally speaking. It's also an order of magnitude cheaper.
Green Burial is available in some locations. The body is buried in a manner to encourage decomposition instead of hinder. Costs are closer to those of a traditional burial but the money goes towards conservation of the land instead of fancy funeral trappings.
And then there's the old standby shovel + hole = burial. You might not think it, but 44 out of 50 states preserve families’ rights to bury their own dead, including Iowa.
Or the Tibetan Sky Burial. (Google only if you are serious, as it's not for the faint of heart.)


We're told we can't handle death. We're told we can't handle the death of our food or the death of our loved ones. We're told to let the friendly neighborhood corporation handle messy stuff like that, for the low low price of... :-\
Resist. Trust in yourself and the millions of years of instincts bred into you to successfully navigate death. And yes, I understand that the rules regarding butchering and burial have evolved to protect us. Done incorrectly these practices can result in illness to those around you. The flip side of the coin however shows that, done correctly, these practices can enrich a life. By being more honest about life and death and engaging in those things that the corporations try to claim as their own. After all, a life well lived deserves an end that matches.
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As the darkness now draws near
See the cycle of the year.
As the light now goes within
Let the hallows dance begin.

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

Garden Buddies Oct

Hello again garden buddies.
The joy of fall gardening is upon us, harvesting winter squashes, pumpkins and potatoes.
We had record high temps this last weekend and my tomato plants were obliging enough to ripen a whole box of tomatoes for me. Dave and I cooked up one last batch of tomato sauce, we were a little lazy though and just tossed the jars in the fridge instead of canning them. They'll last a couple of weeks, which is good enough. We had a frost scare a couple of weekends ago, and I took the time to cover my tomato babies before going to bed for 2 nights. Now, I'm glad I did. This is one of those judgment calls that gardeners have to make. Yes, you can cover your tomatoes and save them from light frosts for a couple of days, but if you find yourself out for a week or 2 doing nothing but covering and uncovering tomatoes, it might be time to let them die gracefully. Grab the nice looking green tomatoes if you have decided to let them give up the ghost. Those greens will ripen on your counter in most cases and be almost as tasty as the vine ripened ones. (almost)

Fall gardening is often a lot of prep work for spring. It's a great time to pull out or hoe under the old, dead and spent. Cover everything in a nice thick layer of compost to protect the soil from harsh winter conditions. I have 4 or 5 cabbages heading up in the random corners where I squeezed them in this summer. They spent most of the summer really cramped with their neighbors, but now that we've got a bit of frost, their neighbors are declining and the cabbages are just hitting full stride. The Kale is still going strong. I'm hoping the parsnips are sweetening a bit in their little row. (The one I dug a month ago was a little tough.)

Garlic planting time is here as well. Plant them one clove at a time, pointy side up and cover with a think layer of mulch/compost to keep them from heaving up in the spring freeze/thaw cycle. At least 4 inches, and you can't go wrong with 6. I've got about half of mine planted, and hopefully I'll get the other half planted next weekend.

If you're overwintering biennials for seed production, make sure you give them a nice warm bed of straw too. I have some turnips I'm attempting this with. They have 4inches of straw on them.

I'm also checking out my cold frame and making the little last minute adjustments to it so it can perform it's function this winter. I have a couple of little cabbages in there, and some lettuce. It won't be anything extravagant, but it'll keep me entertained. :-D I'll probably need to start putting the cover on it at night this next week.

The last farmers market day is Weds. I need to wrap up my preparations for the Winter Storage Experiment. :-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.