Ohhhhhhh, I have sooooo been a busy bee!

Well!!!  Here I am again, your faithful, if sporadic, crafty friend!  I have lost my camera, today, so no pics from me.... but I have been making things... I have been very inspired by the Sew Mama Sew Blog, they are so good about coming up with lovely ideas for making handmade things for gifts for people you really, really love, and who really, really love you!  So far I've printed gift tags and stationary, little Christmas Houses, and sewn a meal planner to put on the fridge and a calling card case for some calling cards I printed out..... so sweet.

Sooooo, I've drafted a pattern for a skirt for my Prairie Princess, and I've made her a wool coat for Christmas.  I'm making a doll and clothes for the Barefoot Contessa from this Dover Book on Dollmaking at left.  It has patterns for the doll herself, underthings, petticoats, a cape, a suit, lots of dresses, skirts, nightgown, etc... really everything a lady could need, including a wedding gown!  There are several books from Dover I like for dollmaking.  There's one for making Godey Dolls that I find particularly fetching, it's more detailed than the dolls I have made, but I've got some experience now, so perhaps I'll take it on later! 

I'm making really good progress making socks.  I only have one more to start, one for Mini Me, but everyone else has a pair waiting for Christmas morning, Halelujah!  I've done most of the Christmas shopping for the children, but as for the rest of the family.... not so much.  This Sunday is the first of Advent and then is St. Nicholas Day, so it's more feasting for us, soon!  The plan is to make foods that have something good hidden within... cranberry jelly filled buns, omelets, a stuffed pork roast, etc... to remind us of St. Nicholas doing good works in secret.  Also, brandied mini tartlets and peanut brittle for dessert from my Everyday Food subscription.  I get tired of our standard fare and love to receive new inspiration often!

Speaking of food, I made and delivered Pioneer Woman's cinnamon rolls to the neighbors.  Some were surprised... like one neighbor I terrified (it seems she didn't hear the loud "Hello!" I called as her son ushered me in)!  One was belligerent (What do you want!?) till she finally figured out that I brought her a gift with no strings attached!  Another couple of neighbors invited us in for short visits, which was nice!  I think it was a hit!  I have some pretty ribbon candy already wrapped and set aside for Christmas gifts for all of them.  They're getting some Christmas cheer whether they like it or not!!! 

Don't tell my daughters, but I plan to make us all matching skirts to wear for Christmas the rest of the winter in a non typical pink... I got some really nice suiting for $3 a yard.  I think they'll be sweet. What else???  Well, after I find my camera I'll post pics and tell you all about the rest of my housewifely endeavors!  Happy St. Nicholas Day!!!

I'm a Teacher

I have sung the praises of my planning book, and it continues to make life easier for all of us.  I've been really digging this super organized Melissa chick.  So new and unexpected and effective!  I was out on my own the other day and someone asked me, "Are you a teacher?"  I was a little unsure how to answer.  I asked why and she said I just look like a teacher.  I am a teacher, since I home school.  I do lesson plans, grade papers, calculate scores, and encourage.  I also have discipline problems in my school, disruptive students, and my janitor leaves much to be desired, to say the least!

And I put off grading papers on Saturday to sew!  I made some skirts for my girls out of embroidered pinwale corduroy which are just too cute, if I do say so myself!  A longer one for Mini Me:

And this (For Baby Jane), of the remnant, to which I added violet gingham to make it long enough and ruffly!

This one only took me about an hour from start to finish, but I have to put in elastic still.  They were both just rectangles and ruffles, super easy to cut and just throw together.  No rice paper to pin, no markings to make, no zippers to wrestle with, and super cute!

Fall is the season for making clothes...

When it starts to get cooler, I come out of a summer hibernation... OK, I'm not really hibernating, but summer always makes me feel as though I'm going to die of exhaustion very, very soon. I think this is a thing... otherwise, why would there be a song called, "There Ain't No Cure for the Summertime Blues," or something.  Aaaanyway, moving rooms around to make a study for my older students to keep their schoolwork and sewing toddler free, I have been evaluating my fabric stash... which grows even faster than my yarn stash, because I'm always knitting, but sewing often takes a back seat, hence, giant, humongous fabric stash.  Actually I inherited some fabric from my husband's grandmother, who owned a fabric store at one time, was a home economics teacher, and was also a force of nature.  She made my wedding dress of beautiful shantung and Venetian lace and, I totally could have worn it inside out and it was perfectly fitted to me.  So, I've been sewing today, and last week, and I've been taking pictures, so here we go!

I think it's rather fetching!  My favorite blue, and a plaid skirt... I didn't match up the plaid at the side seams all that well, but I forgot to buy extra fabric so that I could do that, and I was cutting it awfully close to make my minimum skirt length.  Do you have an ideal skirt length?  Mine is at the narrowest part of my leg under my knee...  Anyway, I spent some extra time making this skirt nice inside, too.  I bound every exposed seam in bias tape and used a hem tape to maximize the length, though the pattern called for a narrow hem, this works beautifully, I think.

Yum! Bacteria!

So, guess what!  I made the jalapenos and they're very yummy, approved by my pickled jalapeno loving husband.  Also, my friend Joy gave me some kefir to use so I'll start making that for soaking grains a la Nourishing Traditions.  It incubates at room temperature, so no more accidentally killing my yogurt in the oven while I prep for dinner!

Also, I'm going to try to do the sew along at Gertie's Sewing Blog for the Lady Jane Grey coat, which is on it's way to me as we speak... I have a cotton jaquard in grey and yellow that should be smashing with my grey skirt... but as to lining, a silk charmeuse in ??? turquoise? green? grey?  I'd prefer a surprising lining, of course, but haven't decided yet what color... maybe in orange???  Erg...

I also bought fabric for curtains in the living room, finally!  It's very pretty, but I seem to be unable to find time to sew!!!  Now that school planning is done I may have a few days next week to get them put together.  I bought curtain rods already and I can't wait to see it all done and in my living room!

Speaking of fabric, I have a new favorite online fabric store: Hawthorne Threads
They have beautiful, modern fabrics which you can search by color!  So cool... and there are discounts for volume orders, as well.  Go check them out!

Christmas Skirt

I did some major sewing before the holidays and just haven't had time to photograph all of the garments. Here is another skirt I made for me from fine wale corduroy... I made another one, too exactly the same except for the fabric, perhaps I'll have Hubs take a picture the next time I wear it! I wish I could photograph myself, somehow!

In sewing fitted garments, I've taken to cutting and basting the lining before I cut the main fabric to sort of make a muslin to see if the garment fits... I've noticed that most of the things I made according to my measurements are much too big... or perhaps I like things with less ease than they designed them for.... who knows, but anyway, this helps me get the fit I like without wasting fabric or taking too much time. For those of you who sew... if I tend to fit a smaller size in one pattern manufacturer, will I wear that size for all manufacturers? I don't think you can see it in the pic, but there is a little touch of turquoise in the leaves that makes me happy when I look at my skirt! Look, that's the Little Engineer's phonics book, too.

Isn't it funny how when we make clothes for ourselves, the details really make so much difference! I love to put in a pretty, contrasting lining to just give me a little lift of color that brightens my day! On the grey wool skirt I made, I put in a sky blue lining and it makes me soooo happy!

New Year, New Skirt

I've caved... I used to think I hated grey on me... that it didn't match my colors... but I've found that I've changed my mind. I love grey now. I love it as a contrast to my colors, and it really does set a good red orange off perfectly... anyway... I found a beautiful warm medium weight wool at JoAnne's and bought it with a coupon to make Butterick 5249, et voila!

It was, by far, the most complicated skirt pattern I've ever attempted. I'm a little nervous about making fitted, zip-up skirts because of my apple body shape issues, but this turned out fine, I think! See how nice it looks with my orange purse! Hmmm... not exactly a fashion model, but...

A Child's Apron

Did you all know that Little Women love frilly aprons? Mine definitely do. My girls love to throw on a pretty apron with as many ruffles as possible and "play house" while cleaning the real kitchen or making their real beds. I guess it's like a uniform, but fun to wear! This little gem was a gift to a dear friend of Mini Me's. She's a sweet little blue eyed, pink cheeked cherub who likes to help in the kitchen, too, so I thought this was appropriate!

Isn't this just the sweetest little helper outfit you ever saw! Well, now my girls want them, too, and I've just closed shop in the sewing room in preparation for the move, but maybe for next Christmas? A little detail shot:

Here's a lovely post from Your Sacred Calling on little helpers.

Hi! Look What I Made!

I made: a box for my Latin vocabulary flash cards out of two sheets of 12x12 scrapbooking paper.

A blouse from Weekend Sewing:

Summer Afternoon Blouse

Size L

Modified neckline and sleeve length.

JoAnne's brand cotton lawn

Also, ipod cozy, from leftover orange sock yarn (Zitron Trekking and Knit Picks Palette) and vintage blue button.

Summertime and the Livin' is Crazy

Wow! I'm going crazy here... there is so much to do in our life right now and waaay too little time to blog about it. We have gone camping, to Williamsburg, and to the Hill Country and Odessa in Texas. My in laws have some wonderful river front vacation rental property and a bed and breakfast (Bend O' the River) where we always love to go. Plus the grandparents are always highly desirable to visit for the children... of course! And my honorary parents have a backyard pool! Plus I got to visit with my best friend Addy, who introduced me to the Twilight books and movie and... wait for it... Edward. Ohhhhh, Edward!

I've been neglecting the garden, in favor of house cleaning, much to the garden's detriment, it looks awful. It's about time to plant some fall greens and carrots and beets, and we're about to get a whole lot of tomatos for popping in the mouth, slicing, and turning into sauce. I wonder how the potatos will turn out? I've gotten three heads of broccoli, all with little green worms which were easy to pick off, but yucky. They were all good eating, and welcome to the table, since all of us are broccoli fans. The onions seem to have trouble staying put in the raised beds, they keep pushing their way up to the surface.




I've been contemplating a name change for the blog... I realized that the name I chose for our cottage is really the lesson I'm continually learning in my life. Contentment. I believe I'll change the name of the blog to reflect it. Also, we're planning another move, which is typical behavior for me. I'm pretty much assured we'll move as soon as I've got the house about half settled. It's our modus operandus.





On the needles: the blue sock... again. I finished it, tried it on and was surprised at it's snugness, then realized that it was made in the smaller size, so it had to be ripped out, in it's entirety and reknitted. I re cast-on, began again and I've turned the heel and finished the gussets, so it's in the home stretch now. Again. Also, a stranded colorwork vest, which probably it all wrong for my body type, but I don't care. It's a knit picks kit, on size 2 circular needles, in teal and gold. I've already knitted an inch of ribbing, but I had to rip it out as I forgot those very important words when joining in the round "being careful not to twist." So I decided to go ahead and do a gauge swatch... just to play with the colors... I'll cast on again when I cast off the sock.





Piper had her "procedure" yesterday, and is recovering by napping in the girls' bedroom right now. She's been an admirable mother, and we were able to get good homes for all the kittens, and kept our two favorite Black Susan and Hamelin, who are busy learning to hunt, ruining my sheer curtains in the guest room, and practicing their pounce and wrestle technique.





The children are making leaps and bounds, the baby is practicing his manners, trying to say please in the following variations: large cheesy smile, "meeeeeeeeeee", "peeeeeeeeeeee", or "teeeeeeeeee". Very sweet. Little J has graduated to a bike with training wheels and is triumphantly peddling around in circles in front of the house. She is a wonderful talker now, telling us stories in her preschool lisp: "Mommy, he tan wide his bite wifout the taining wheels!" JW has learned to ride without training wheels at the ripe old age of 5, he's been endeavoring to steer at that terrifying speed that comes with that new liberty and has been wearing his helmet voluntarily. He and M (who is mostly learning to do her hair this summer) are excited about taking swimming lessons starting on the 20th and the Prairie Princess and Dauphin have been taking theirs already and making marvelous progress. Also, they've been trying to read up the whole library and are frustrated by any censorship on our part. The possibility of evil doesn't really seem real to them in the library. My oldest (12 yrs) ascends from the pool after lessons with this incredibly large grin, which is so wonderful to see as he was the most terrified toddler in the world of water. He even was afraid of his bath. Now he thinks he might want to join a swim team! Who'd have thunk it! It almost, almost makes me want a swimming pool... perhaps it will be a positive instead of a negative in our house hunt that begins in January, along with the packing. Ugh.... packing!





Soon to start: some sewing lessons for the Prairie Princess and a neighbor (who recently moved onto the farm). Our first project will be a small skirt, just rectangles and a bit of elastic for the waistband, easy peasy, with a topstiched hem. I'll perhaps start to get some of my own summer sewing done, maybe, then some winter jumpers for the girls, then I'll pack away the stash in anticipation of the move.





Also soon to start: changing the workroom to a workroom/bedroom for the Dauphin... he made a very good argument for having his own room, and at 12, needs to have a little privacy, especially in a large family that occupies a small house. Also he digs the orange walls! Yay! So I need to move my yarn stash OUT of the dresser in that room and INTO something else... perhaps a plastic storage bin? Something I can access up until we load the truck in March, because, as we all know, I and my yarn cannot be parted for long, much like my hub or my kids or my Bible...





Can we all say OBSESSION?

Finally, a pic of the night sky and a crescent moon, and it's pretty.

More Sewing

Fair warning: There may be a lot of sewing projects to come, as I'm a little fabric crazy lately, and I want new summer clothes. I've had some $3 a yard taffeta for a long time that I'd planned to make spring dresses out of for years. I decided to go ahead and cut a skirt for myself. I'd made the pattern before out of a toile cotton print, which I like a lot, but the pattern definitely lends itself to a heavier, dressier fabric. Plus the extra fabric at the back and A shape is flattering on an apple like me. I shortened it by quite a lot, though I had planned to use the fabric to make the floor length version originally. In an ideal world, I'd have a place to wear a floor length, silky, ruffly skirt... but this is not an ideal world, boo! Anyway, the leftover fabric can make some sweet skirts or dresses for my girls, perhaps.

Just as I was typing that last word (isn't it funny how these things happen!), I heard a delivery truck drive up and plop a box onto my front stoop! So, of course I had to unpack the box from Fabric.com and show you what I bought... it was a big sale, I got most of it at least half off! The top two weren't in the box, they're leftover curtain fabric from the living room, and a printed organza(?) I'm making into a kimono blouse, but you get the idea!

Hmmmm... the colors seem to have a sort of theme on this blog, don't they! Should I start labeling posts "orange"? Go ahead and drool, I haven't washed them yet!

Some Sewing

Well, I've been enthralled by this wonderful book that I purchased recently: Weekend Sewing. If you're interested in her blog, take a look at Weekend by Heather Ross. She recently had a really cool contest where people made sort of "Show and Tell" boards for their ideas for a summer wardrobe using the patterns from her book.

Here is the Oh, So, Cute wrap skirt I made (like the one on the cover of the book)... Of course, it's too small for me... so I may have to sell it or something, or use it for an apron, or something... This photo is a two-fer, because in the background you see my latest home improvement project, the Workroom! It used to be the guest room, but I decided a school/project room is in order since we only have one living area and it already does triple duty, without it being a schoolroom.

Here is a detail of the hand sewn rolled edge hem. I'm very proud of that!

Our latest school handiwork project is a memory quilt of all our firsts here on the farm. I remembered this great article on applique in an old Martha Stewart Baby magazine and got it out for inspiration. We're going to make blocks for all sorts of things, but the first is a block with little hens in the colors of our flock. The second is a block inspired by my square foot vegetable garden. I picked up a few fat quarters at a local fabric store in appropriate colors and got started:

Here's our first chicken:

I can't wait to see it finished!

Spring is Springing

Have you noticed? It's a big thing for me, you know... We have a follower to the blog! Yay! If you want to follow and be alerted whenever I post anew or whatever, just scroll all the way to the bottom and click "Follow This Blog". School is just humming along right now... of course, I have totally dropped Latin. But otherwise, we're running on all cylinders right now. We should be done with the 3 R's sometime in May, and then, boy howdy, we're gonna farm like we've never farmed before! I'm soooo excited for the garden this year. Not just the food, either, I'm excited for the daffodils and tulips I planted, and the herbs, and lilies, and roses, and lavender I bought for the children. We were planning on some feeder calves, but haven't yet obtained any, and we're putting out feelers for a family cow, but that's not falling into place, either, so we're just focusing on what we CAN do... We can garden. We can tend our little flock of chickens. We can make things at home...

Speaking of that: I've been sewing. I bought some patterns for simple, classic clothes (Common Sense Patterns) for the Prairie Princess. She is such a Luddite. I've finished (except for buttons and holes) a very pretty ruffled collar, long sleeved blouse for her in white cotton with printed golden orangey and metallic silver polka dots. She tried it on after the sleeves were attached to talk about buttons with me:

"Oh, Mommy! I just love it! Especially since it's handmade!" the Prairie Princess gushes, and when I say gush, I mean it.

She's very gratifying to make things for. Really. She talks like she's Anne of Green Gables most of the time. I mean she speaks with all the emotion and emphasis and vocabulary. But she's not really a talkative person. She can't be when she's got two little sisters with "tongues hung in the middle."

Speaking of orange, again... I bought the fabric for my living room curtains. I know, I said I'd let you all give your input, but I couldn't wait. Orange, again. Shocking.

Golden Gifts

Well, it's gotten cold here again after having a beautiful Indian Summer. Last night the water froze in the chicken coop, and, though you'd think we could have seen this coming and planned for it, we didn't and haven't. The house has managed to stay relatively warm, though I can see dollars flying out the windows every time the radiators start to warm up. I have taken pictures of a couple more projects that I thought you'd like to see. Or not, not that I care, I blog to brag, after all. I do it completely for my own gratification, and not as some service to society or belief that what I have to say is important. Which, by the way, raises the question of whether it's "redeeming the time" sufficiently to blog at all. I'll not address that question right now, though.

On to the show:

Linen Sweater in Reynolds Soft Linen, gift from Honorary Mom, on the occasion of my birthday, as well as these socks, pretty self striping yarn and Jaywalker sock pattern:

Toddler dress and blouse, improvised from leftover fabrics, so essentially free, except for the time required to sew. I'm planning a skirt to go with the blouse, as well. Or perhaps some blousy knickers, instead, that would be cute, in navy wool.

As for home life, the four year old boy fell on his face and bit through his lip today, it looks kind of scary, but, as I'm also nursing Dad, we're gonna keep it clean and keep an eye on the lip and leave it be. The house is kind of a disaster, SHOCKER! OK, it's so much of a disaster that I'm actually feeling like I WANT to clean it... so that's pretty bad. It's Veteran's Day, and though I wasn't planning a school holiday, with two invalids, I've declared a school holiday and we'll clean and play and read and snuggle and get better. I'm feeling thankful to all the men who laid their lives on the line in service to Liberty and our Constitution. Thank you Hubby, and Grandad, and PawPaw, and David, and Stuart and our myriad of cousins who have served or are serving this country now. What a debt of gratitude we owe you.

Busy, Busy Me

My projects at the moment:


I've been knitting socks in the Embossed Leaves pattern from Favorite Socks, in this beautiful mauvy berry smoothie Panda Silk. I don't know how durable they will be, but as they are meant to be rather dressy, perhaps that doesn't matter so much. It's really pretty shimmery, sproingy yarn... merino, bamboo, and silk, but slippery, I'd suggest bamboo or wood or something instead of slippery needles. I'm knitting a sweater for one of my girls in a mulberry hue, with a round Fair Isle Yoke, a la Elizabeth Zimmerman's Percentage System using various DK weight superwash wools. I'm also knitting wool vest/undershirts for my girls to keep them warm in our chilly, old house inspired by a pattern called a Child's Shetland Vest in Weldon's Practical Needlework Volume One. Stripes for the smaller girls out of a merino fingering weight wool, some alpaca, and some sock leftovers. For my oldest daughter I've chosen a pale grey fingering wool, with sky blue accents (Knit Picks Palette). These seem to be knitting up really fast on size 5 needles.


As for sewing, I'm making costumes for the Nutcracker my girls will be in. I initially volunteered to sew some and somehow became in charge of five or six dresses. Yeowch. Fortunately, the goal is durability, and not beautiful details, so I can put them together rather quickly. I'm using this pattern from Sense and Sensibility Patterns by Jennie Chancey. I love these because they are printed on nice thick paper and include all the sizes one could wish for and she even provides supplements for busty gals and online tutorials for altering the patterns. I would like to get more basic patterns in this sort of format, too, in the future. I love the Nutcracker. I just never get tired of the music or the magic or the yummy treats it is inspired by.....


In the kitchen, I used the book Fix, Freeze, Feast to make a very large batch of red sauce this morning, and used 12 cups of it to make the Classic Chili recipe, I cooked one quarter of the recipe for lunch today and froze the other three portions in gallon freezer bags for future meals. My husband really liked it, though I decided to add some cumin to the recipe for next time. I really have liked this book so far (unlike recipes from other Freezer Cooking books I've used) and find it a real time saver at the end of very tiring and productive days to have the main dish all put together, marinated, and ready to cook. Plus, it's inspiring me to make up my own recipes in larger amounts for freezing for later. Like my cornbread recipe, put into single recipe bags, like Melissa's Corn Bread Mix, or something... I wonder if I could locate sealable paper bags instead of plastic??? I'm so over plastic.

Grey November

Well, it's been very autumnal here. Beautiful changing leaves, crisp air, overcast skies, with a few balmy days thrown in there that are perfect for working to clean up the yard and put it to bed for winter. This time of year, I always have the urge to make woolie warm things for my babies. I usually have way too many projects going and only the small ones get finished. In January last year, I started a grey Aran sweater intended for my oldest son. It's an Elizabeth Zimmerman pattern that lends itself to modification, but requires lots of math, counting, gauge swatches, and luck. Once I got through a few inches I realized that it was too narrow for a boy, so, instead of frogging the project and starting over, I decided to make it for my oldest daughter. I had done a lot of work on it and my daughter wasn't very excited about the idea because of the color. Against all these knitting obstacles, one can't help but lose some ground in morale. So I just put it away. Since then, I've been campaigning for more grey in my daughter's wardrobe. She has lovely grey eyes and grey brings out the pink in her little cheeks beautifully. Well, it worked! She now thinks grey is just perfect for her. Sooo, I finished the sweater. It involved steeking which was a new and scary thing for me, but it turned out fine. I was going to use teal buttons, which would have been smashing, but the pearl ones would go with more, or so says the Princess, and she is turning into quite the little stylista.

She pretty much adores this skirt. It's swirly and twirly and made of soft, warm, fuzzy flannel. No pattern for this skirt, I just cut and sewed and added a couple of ruffles and elastic waistband. She has a couple pairs of warm bloomers to wear underneath. One is a pair I made of dollar a yard flannel I bought at Walmart. The other are made from a grey wool sweater that shrunk in the wash. I cut and sewed and turned the sleeves into a pair of knitted bloomers that are soft and warm. I bought more fabric, too, for garments for the princess. A grey damask, a white cotton with silver and yellow print, and an oyster with blue and grey geometric floral for blouses.

Apron Trend?

Um, I may have discovered a new "thing" I enjoy. I've always enjoyed aprons. I really like vintage fabrics... and occasionally I actually ask for aprons when people ask what I'd like for a gift. Women used to wear aprons all the time. They cooked, did laundry, cleaned, and took care of children all day long. These are all very messy, dirty jobs. Women often don't really do these things all day anymore, so aprons are considered necessary, but not fun. I do this stuff all day, every day. My wardrobe will attest to it, too. I have dozens of t-shirts that have little grease spots, or food stains, or minuscule tears from their rough use. I need more aprons. I have decided! Today, in my time wasting portion of the day, when I surf the Internet for pretty things and stuff I like to do and which chickens I want to order, I found this cute little post on Oodles and oodles. I need to make one of those! I do have a clothespin apron, but I usually have little helpers and could use another to share. I can use the leftover bias tape from my Evangeline apron and my yards and yards of muslin and figure one out that's Melissa sized. Because, you know, I don't have enough to do!

Speaking of chickens. I'm ordering some, as soon as we get a PO Box in Upperville. I've decided to order Ameracaunas (well technically, I suppose, they'd be Easter Egg Chickens) and Cuckoo Marans, I think. But you know, I know very little about chickens. I've done a little research and found out that Americaunas have blue green tinted eggs... FUN! Cuckoo Marens have chocolate colored eggs, (rurality)as well as being really pretty birds, and being rare, gentle, and supposedly being a good dual purpose breed of chickens, meaning good for meat and eggs. I also heard that the hens can be broody, which means they will sit on their eggs and hatch a clutch, which has been either bred out of chickens or just not learned as so many eggs are hatched in incubators now.

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!

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!