Grey Days
I hope everyone has a fantastic weekend. Don’t forget to leave a comment on Friday’s post if you haven’t already, for a chance to win some cloth bags.
Archive for January 2010
Outdoor Reading
Two days ago, the weather was gorgeous. Well, still a little chilly, but not so cold and windy that we couldn’t play outdoors. I bundled the babe up and took the kids out to play. They all had lots of fun, and I sat on the porch wrapped in a blanket reading a book with a mug of warm milk.
I don’t get outdoors enough in the winter. If it’s not too cold, the kids go outside and play, but me, I’m usually inside trying to get laundry, cooking etc. done while they are out. Boy, it felt really good to be out there. Sitting and reading, which doesn’t happen much during the day, with the sunshine beating down on my face.
I need to get out more. I know it seems kind of silly that some days I don’t even step outside of the house, but some days I don’t. We homeschool, so I don’t have to take the kids somewhere every day, and with the windchill dropping the temperature by 20 degrees most of the winter, it’s not that brilliant for being outside. That wind can be brutal, one of the downsides of winter in Wyoming.
As with the 20 minutes of crafting each day, I am going to try to spend 20 minutes outdoors. I’m not sure if it’ll happen every day, but I’m going to try. I think can do twenty minutes.
Other news around here, our big guy did a great job with getting his tooth pulled. I had such traumatic memories of the dentist when I was a kid, but I shouldn’t have even worried. I love our kid’s dentist, and they do too. They had it out in a matter of minutes and he came bounding out with his tooth in a little tooth shaped container.
Our kiddo has been wearing a night guard as part of a series of nightguards to hopefully avoid full on braces. Today we got the bad news that he will have to wear real braces for a while as the permanent tooth that was growing in behind the baby one will need some work to be pulled forward.
I also found out that my lovely braces will now be on till March 29th. Ugh! They were originally supposed to be off last September, and it has been dragging since then. So, for a little while here, me and my kiddo will both have braces on at the same time. He is really excited at the thought of having blue bands around his brackets. The kids are always disappointed when I refuse to get hot pink ones. I try to explain that that is more for kids, and not mommies.
Good news though, our van is fixed. What we thought was going to be a whole transmission problem was just one little part. The dealer was going to charge us $170 to switch it out. Hubby ordered the part for $35 and switched it himself. Yay! That was a huge relief.
Don’t forget to leave a comment on yesterday’s post for a chance to win some cloth bags. It’s nice to meet some new people.
Hope you guys have a great day. I’ll see you tomorrow.
Cloth Bag Giveaway
I really want to thank everyone who stops by my little space and especially those who leave such encouraging comments. I have been wanting to do a giveaway for a while now, but I wanted a little chance for things to calm down after Christmas. Today I want to send a little thank you to one of my readers, I wish I could send something to you all.
This month I have been really good about using my cloth bags as part of One Small Change. I thought what a perfect opportunity to combine a giveaway with something I am passionate about. So today, I am giving away two cloth bags. One is a regular shopping bag, and one is one of my new Cheesecloth Produce Bags, both made by moi.
All you have to do is leave a comment between now and 10:00pm MST on Sunday. I will announce a winner on Monday morning.
On a side note, my eldest has to get a tooth pulled today. It’s a stubborn baby tooth not wanting to give up it’s place to a more permanent one. It has been long enough and shows no signs of going, so today is the day. Wish us luck.
Cheesecloth Produce Bag
This month I made a renewed commitment to using cloth bags for shopping. The only problem is that in the grocery store, there are those awful little produce bags. I think I must be the only person who stands there trying to open them, they just never want to work like they should. Then there’s the whole thing with throwing a bunch more little plastic bags in the trash as soon as we get home.
Even when we use cloth bags to bag up all of the groceries, these produce bags have been a problem. Since I am not using any plastic bags anymore, I needed to come up with a solution, and quick. Now, I do not live near a fabric store, and my choices are very limited. I wasn’t coming across anything at the thrift store that would work, and it finally dawned on me that I could use cheesecloth. It’s sturdy, and yet somewhat sheer. Something about the lighting in this pictures makes it seem as though you can’t really see what’s in the bag, but you can in person.
I made these simple drawstring produce bags and I am thrilled with how they turned out. They were extremely easy to sew together, and they are going to be a huge help when it comes to lugging produce back from the store. If you can sew a straight line, you can make these bags, and here’s my tutorial to help you out. Hope you guys enjoy!
Cheesecloth Produce Bag Tutorial
This is a quick and easy tutorial for cheesecloth produce bags. If you can sew a straight line, you can make these. Sometimes the pictures might make it more confusing than just reading the words, as you can’t tell which is the front and back of the cheesecloth, but bear with me, it will work out in the end. It looks a little untidy with the brown thread, but I needed to make it so you can see the stitches, it looks a lot neater when using natural coloured thread.
I bought a package of cheesecloth and just cut it in two to make two produce bags. Each piece was approx. 17″ x 35″. You can easily make different sized produce bags if you want different sizes, the same method applies.
Edited to add:
There are varying qualities of cheesecloth. Make sure that you use a tighter weave cheesecloth so that you don’t have problems with snagging. This needs to be fairly sturdy to lug produce around.
Materials needed:
cheesecloth
natural coloured thread
natural coloured cotton yarn
Cut a piece of cheesecloth 17″ x 35″.
Fold over one of the long sides of cheesecloth by 1/4″. Iron it and fold it over again another 1/4″. Iron one more time.
Stitch along the folded side.
Now, fold the cheesecloth so that the short ends are at the top, wrong sides together. You want the outside of the side hem facing out. The side that you stitched is going to be on the right hand side when you are looking at it. You want to leave the top two inches of the folded side unstitched (this is where we will make the drawstring casing). Starting two inches down from the top, stitching slightly more than 1/4″ from the edge, stitch to the bottom. In the tutorial I used a zig zag stitch, but later found out that it is better to just use a straight stitch.
Now stitch the left hand side from the very top, to the very bottom.
Next, turn the bag inside out and press. Stitch down both sides 1/2″ from the edge , making sure to leave the top two inches (on the one side) unstitched.
Turn bag right side out again and press.
Next, fold the top of the bag in 1/4″ and press.
Stitch all the way around.
Fold the top down again and press. When you fold it down, you want the top to meet where the seam ends on the side. Stitch around once again to make the casing.
Measure a piece of cotton yarn twice the width of the bag, plus a couple of inches. Tie a loose knot and stick a safety pin through it.
Thread the pin through the casing until each end of the string is sticking out of the casing.
Tie the ends of string in a knot and pull the string around so that the knot is now back inside the casing.
There you go, one fantastic new cheesecloth produce bag. Enjoy!
Vintage Towels
In my effort to be more organized, I have been trying to figure out what some of our big problem areas are. One small problem area is bath towels. After bath time, there is always at least one bath towel laying on the floor. None of the kids want to claim it as their own, and we often can’t be sure which child left it there.
In the grand scheme of things, it’s not a massive problem, but it is something that we can fix very easily. I kept my eyes out at the thrift store for some pretty vintage towels for the girls. Now, every child has their own colour of towel, which means that we know exactly whose towel is on the floor.
We could have just bought different coloured towels at the store, but why do that when there are some fantastic vintage ones out there, and at a fraction of the price. I just love these and the girls really like the floral patterns. Besides, they are very good quality towels, they have to be, to be in such good shape after years of use.
So we’ll see how this organizes bath time a bit better. I guess if all else fails, we have prettier towels.
One More Zipped Pouch
Normally when I start working on a project, I know where it is going. I really didn’t know what I wanted to do when I started embroidering this fabric. It sat around for a while while I tried to figure out what it was going to be. Then I decided that hey, a girl can never have too many zippered pouches, right?
I use them for lots of things. They are perfect for throwing a chapstick and a couple of dollars in. I used to use one with the babe, for carrying a couple of pacifiers. They’re good to hold coupons, or use for a makeup bag. I even have a bigger one that contains an entire clean outfit for the babe in the diaper bag. They are so versatile, you can make them in any size and I find myself using them all of the time.
Our thrift store sells bags of 3-5 vintage and new zippers for a quarter, so between that and the scraps of fabric to make the bags, they cost pennies. They make fantastic gifts, especially if you make two or three in graduated sizes.
Do you use zippered pouches? What do you put in them?
Chai Concentrate
I love chai tea. I love it’s sweet spiciness. Usually I just buy decaf chai tea bags, but I don’t measure very carefully with the honey, so it’s usually trial and error as to weather I get it exactly how I like it or not. The other day when I was over at Angry Chicken, I saw that she made a chai concentrate. I knew I had to try it.
She used this recipe. I realize that it doesn’t technically have all the same spices as real chai tea, but it’s a pretty good substitute. It was really easy, all you do is mix some spices into some sweetened condensed milk. At first I tried to leave out the extra spoon of sugar, but I did find that it needed it, so went ahead and added it back in. Also, there was just a touch too much cardamom in my opinion, so next time I will probably only put 3/4 teaspoon in.
Now all I have to do is brew some black tea, and spoon in a couple of spoonfulls of the chai concentrate and voila, chai tea. When you need a good cup of something hot, what do you reach for?
Dish Draining Mat
Here is my latest 20 Minutes project. I needed a mat to put under my dish drainer, so I grabbed some muslin and some french terry cloth and made this simple mat.
Anybody with just about any sewing experience could whip one of these out in no time. When I was teaching myself to sew, I needed to know the very basics and I loved when I could find tutorials and pictures to explain the directions I was reading. I am a very visual learner, so in that vein, I have made a tutorial here. I am hoping that this will help a new sewer to learn a little bit more about how things go together.
You could use this method to make many things. Placemats, coasters, little baby doll blankets. The possibilities are endless. I hope it is a help to somebody.
Dish Draining Mat Tutorial
This is a tutorial to make a very simple mat for putting under a dish drainboard. You can apply the method for making this mat to making lots of different things including placemats, coasters, even baby doll blankets. This is very simple and I’m hoping that it will help someone that is just learning to sew.
This mat is made out of muslin and french terry cloth (it is thinner than regular terry cloth), though it would work with any towelling material. It is also an excellent project for using vintage hand towels.
First, measure the space under your draining board. I put a piece of paper under mine and added about an inch on all sides to make sure it caught all drips. Cut one piece out in your top fabric, and one in your towel fabric.
Pin both pieces of fabric together, right sides together.
Starting in the middle of the bottom, stitch all the way around making sure you leave a several inch gap in order to turn right side out. If your terry cloth is thick, you may need to leave a bigger gap.
Trim the corners off so that it is easier to turn. Turn right side out and press. Fold the fabric in where there is a gap and make sure to press it so that when you embroider it, you will be sure to stitch it shut.
Thread a length of embroidery floss ( I used three strands) and using a running stitch, stitch around the mat. Finish with a knot, trim the threads and there you go, a fantastic new draining mat.
