A Good Start

Well, we've started on the farmhouse decorating. We went this past week and bought paint and a few dust masks and got started! Here we've started taking off that terrible wood grain wallpaper. There was some black mold under one corner under the upstairs bathroom. I'll have to see about the best way to deal with that. Any ideas?





And here we've begun painting the kitchen leaf bud green. When it was wet it was a little more yellowey than I had hoped, but I think it will mellow as it dries. I hope.

Homemade Tea Bags

OK, I'm a cloth girl... I use cloth diapers whenever practical... I use cloth tea towels instead of paper ones for pretty much everything... I try to use cloth to replace all of the paper products that we use and throw away...

Tea is something I enjoy a lot... I have a big box full of boxes of tea bags. My kids love to see me get out the big tea pot. Then they know that they get to have tea, too. My two year old even loves tea (well, warm milk with a bit of tea and honey). So, we use a lot of paper tea bags. I've always thought that tea bags are wasteful. All that paper, staples, industrialization, for one cup of tea.

Here is an alternative: a muslin tea bag that you reuse with loose tea. Brilliant! Also, way too obvious for me to come up with myself. That doesn't stop me from making some of my own, though! I'm going to make one big enough for a jug of sun tea, too. All wrapped up in a matching drawstring bag with a tin of loose tea, they'd make a really sweet hostess gift for a tea lover. You could even mix up your own tea from your herb garden and put it in a mason jar!

I've been wondering what to do with little leftover bits of fabric that aren't in a small enough print to please me in a quilt. Not that I have made a quilt out of all those scraps I've been saving for SOMEthing. Now, how to dry them without making little brown spots on the sink and counters? Clothes pinned over a house plant?

My tea bags

Here's how I made mine:

I gathered my materials: pattern, fabric leftover from Evangeline apron, some fusible interfacing, thread, awl, and rotary cutter, some white cotton yarn, and some cotton crochet thread. I cut six tea bags according to the pattern, and one that was 4 by 7 for sun tea, plus a bigger bag to hold it all in. I also cut a little label to applique. I fused the label and contrasting fabric to a bit of interfacing, and then cut to fit. I wrote on it with a Sharpie fine tip marker, I hope that'll wash OK!

I used a satin stitch on my machine to attach it to the front of the bag and used the same construction techniques as detailed in the pattern.

I think this fabric is so very pretty. It took me no time at all to finish this, waaaaay less than an hour, I finished it in between feeding the baby, sorting stored items in anticipation of the move, the measuring trip to the farm. Now I just need to get some loose tea!

Measuring

We went to the farmhouse today to measure rooms and windows and most especially the laundry room. I really would like to find a way to put my big front load washers in there. The landlord is awesome. He was trying to help us figure out how to cut a bigger hole in the cabinet space for the machines in case they don't quite fit... even with all that figuring I forgot to measure the door opening!!!! Maybe we'll go back tomorrow. Aaaaaanyway, we planned for the raised beds for the garden, and talked about the chicken house. I want something pretty and portable and safe for the chickens. Hubby wouldn't mind it being those things, but he wants it cheap! I finally got a picture of the front of the house.





The rental we're in now has gobs of spring bulbs, which makes for a beautiful and fragrant spring yard. My husband and I were getting into bed one night and he mentions that he'd like me to "Plant lots of those purple and yellow flowers that smell really good so that we can smell them when the windows are open at the farmhouse." He's such a sap! I'm totally on board with that! Come fall I'll get me a spade and a few big bags of bulbs and go to it!

Bias Tape Tutorial

I found this really great tutorial on how to make bias tape the easy way... and the cheap way, as it uses way less fabric to make way more bias tape. I think bias tape is wonderful, you can use it as ribbon to decorate a garment. You can use it to bind edges of fabric to keep them from unraveling. You can use it to make easy sleeveless tops with flair. And you can add really sweet accents to lots of sewn things by varying your fabrics... like the neck ties on my apron. The Purl Bee has some really fun bias tape projects: napkins, and zippered pouches.

Farmhouse Apron

I've been inspired by the farm to make a couple of aprons... I love this apron pattern, as one should at least look as good as possible while canning quarts of tomatos, right?!

I've canned before, namely lots of apple butter, which I and the kids enjoy. I wish I had more vintage canning jars in good shape, because they are soooo pretty. Still new ones always look nice, too, once filled with good things grown in my garden!

Farmhouse Interior

The Living Room... I'll paint the front door my favorite blue so that I'll see it every time I walk in the door. Isn't that door wonderful!

The Kitchen... Full of light, huge cabinets, and lots of space for cooking... I'm thinking leaf bud green. I could put some shelves for cookbooks and stuff over the radiator. Actually I can think of lots of pretty, useful things to do with that space.

The Dining Room... That is faux wood wallpaper. Eeeeew. Can't you just see bead board waincoating and pale blue or tan walls... our big family table, which I want to paint a medium teal or Duck Egg Blue. Those ceilings are amazing!!!