melted plastic

New obsession - melting plastic bags. Tutorial from Etsy Labs

Our House...

...is still a work in progress. This little ugly white one is the one I bought about 6 years ago. It is ugly, but it was a good price for being so ugly. And underneath all the aluminum siding, styrofoam ceilings, cheap wood paneling, linoleum, dirty carpet and stick on gold mirrors, was a farm house built in 1883, with lots of charm.

Here is the house about a year ago when we finally got the rest of that nasty aluminum siding off the top. Underneath is the original siding and even a cute little detail at the top.Here is a snowy photo (thank goodness the snow is gone as of now) but it was the only current house photo I have.

Quilt Love

I worked on this little baby for much of my spring break. I initially thought it's destiny was to be a queen sized quilt. But that turned out not the be the case!

It will be just a smaller quilt for the couch. After 81 of these squares (324 of the smaller ones) I didn't have it in me to continue. But I loved making it, and I really like how it turned out. Although I still need to buy the batting and the back, and quilt...and bind. But it's pretty to look at for now.

I still need to figure out how to take better photos though. I took the above two outside today, but I suppose it's too gloomy for a good photo.

The wonderful design came from Greeting Arts

Double Wedding Ring

I went to a flea market this weekend and found this antique (I think) wedding ring quilt top. It cost me $40 (to my husbands horror), but he just doesn't understand. It's about a queen size and it all perfectly hand pieced. I mean 8 or 9 stitches an inch and perfectly 1/4 inch seams that match beautifully. Now I am trying to figure out a few things. Like when it was made, from what I can gather the Double Wedding Ring design was first published in the late 20's, so sometime after that I suppose it was made. It looks like what others describe as depression era fabric. But maybe it's from the 30s and maybe it was made in 2007. What the heck do I know. I am also trying to figure out if I can handle hand quilting it. It would be my first time and I don't want to butcher it. I did wash it in the bath tub which is why it looks a little wrinkly. It was very stinky and dusty. I can't believe the dirt that came off in the tub, it hadn't looked that dirty. But now it smells nice. But still has some little stains. I think I'll quilt it first and then wash it a little better.

These were my other two finds for the day:
A tablecloth - $8.50

A crock - $20 (my husband bartered this deal). It's very large, hard to tell in the photo.

Crayon tote

I made a new crayon tote, this time lining up the colors of the crayons with the color of the fabric. It turned out to be 5 inches by 12 inches. Each background piece was 2 inches by 5 1/2 inches including a 1/4 seam allowance. Each front pocket piece is 2 inches by 3 inches also including a seam allowance.
I am also trying to take better photos. My husband recommended taking the photo outside, which is what I did.

flickr tool

Discovered this today:quilty, 2. green scarf, 3. crayon roll, 4. Tree Ornament, 5. Hexagon closeup, 6. blankie, 7. granny done, 8. DSC02040__2_, 9. lamb softie, 10. seersucker dress, 11. felted beads, 12. pillow

Neato

Seedling Update

The plantings are coming along well. I've expanded my set up to two grow lights. Here is a little photo tour:

These guys are pumpkins and are huge already. You can also see the sunflowers right behind them. Awww:

Corn. Very exciting:

And a close up of the Suttons's Harbinger Pea:

Little Quilty

I started this little quilt last night. Our school is having an auction and I decided last night at 6pm that it would be fun to make something to auction off...but I think I am going to keep it. Maybe I'll make another one.
Here is the quilt top before:

Here is the quilt after I finished, after the free motion quilting. This was my first time machine quilting.

I added my little tag:

And just testing it out:

Vegetable Medley

The onions have sprouted. Can you see them?The seeds have all been planted. I disregarded the directions for how soon to sow the seeds. I need greenery and I need it now. Before I receievd my new seeds I was impatient and searched through old packets of seeds and started: Sugar Sweetie tomatoes, along with Pumpkins and Walla Walla Onions purchased at the organic grocery store last year (or longer?)
Then my exciting package from Seed Savers Exchange came and everything was started last night. The seed type is all new to me, all heirloom. But the corn, gourds, watermelons, and bell peppers are a totally new thing for me. Ususally I only plant tomatoes and cucumbers and even then the dogs get a hold of everything. I made the mistake of teaching the smart one to pull pea pods off the vine. Last year I sectioned off a part of the back yard for the garden. It was great, except I located it under a huge maple tree and right next to a 6 foot fence. So lack of sun was an issue. This year I will relocate to another part of the yard, a sunnier spot.My future harvest:
Bushy Cucumber
Sutton's Harbinger Pea
Miniature Yellow Bell Pepper
Grandma Einck's Dill
Blondkopfchen Tomato
Mexico Midget Tomato
Lettuce Mixture (Amish Deer Tongue, Australian Yellowleaf, Bronze Arrowhead, Forellenschuss, Lollo Rossa, Pablo, Red Velvet and Reine des Glaces)

A few plants I am starting from seed:
Titan Sunflower
Lamb's Ear

And a few things to plant on my parent's 40 acres of land.
Golden Bantam Corn
Birdhouse Gourd
Golden Midget Watermelon

Did I mention my back yard is about 20 feet by 20 feet and I have 3 large dogs?

Yippie

The only good part of my day was that my pumpkin seeds have sprouted. That was before a challenging day at work and before my dog ate (stole) a tablespoon of wasabi and we ended up at animal emergency. (he's fine, just a little stinky)

Coconut Coir

I bought a brick of compressed coconut coir in the reptile section of the pet store (a non dog and cat "selling" pet store that is. Cost = $4.00

Next I soaked the brick in warm water until it EXPANDED in huge proportions. Look how fluffy it is.
I am waiting on my vegetable seeds from Seed Savers but for now had a few seeds left over from last year. Waiting on these pumpkin and tomato seeds to sprout.

Seed Starting

Due to my February funk, I have been reading my old issues of Organic Gardening lately. I am getting ready to start some vegetable seeds indoors for our March 1st frost free planting date. I have been searching for peat-free seed starting material. "60% of the world's wetlands are peat and about 7% of this has been exploited for agriculture and forestry, with significant environmental repercussion".
I have been going around to gardening centers asking if they have peat-free seed starting material. They look at me like I am crazy and then I leave frustrated. Until I read this post:
and discovered a good place to get one alternative to peat, coconut coir, is at a pet store in the reptile section. I am also taking Mr. Brown Thumb's suggestion and saving paper towel tubes/ toilet paper tubes for little pots.

Pantry

So in trying to think about what crafty things I could post about I thought my house would be a good place look. I bought the house several years ago and it was very very...well, gross. It was built in 1883 and had a lot of crumbling walls, layers of carpet, mirrored walls and styrofoam ceilings. But had great bones and character.
One of my improvement projects was building these pantry shelves. This used to be a random room with no purpose. We divided it in half and this portion is now the pantry:Note the back wall - It used to be the back of the original house! There was an addition put on at some point (a long time ago).Strong shelves!

Food stuffs

I've had quite a few cooking attempts lately with some successes and some not so much.
For a superbowl party I made these chocolate pretzels with a recipe I found on Smitten Kitchen. I only had half the amount of butter I needed, so I used sour cream. Why? I don't know. I think they would have been very good, but due to my last minute substitution, they were pretty dry, but looked pretty at least.The husband and I made matzo ball soup as well, which was super delicious. Also a recipe from Smitten Kitchen. He wanted me to make the matzo balls "bigger!" we didn't realize they would poof up so much in the water. But they were still very tasty.
Last night for Valentines Day we made Spinachi Ravioli with Sappori de Lotta. A recipe from a cooking class I took in Tuscany.For the Ravioli
Ingredients:
1/2 cup flour
1 egg
pinch salt
t olive oil

serves 2 people - multiply amount as needed

Directions:
• mound flour on a table and make a hole in the center
• add whole egg(s) a pinch of salt and the olive oil
• scramble eggs in the middle and slowly incorporate flour
• half way through incorporating, start kneading
• once kneaded well, cover dough with cotton towel and set aside for 10 minutes
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Ravioli assembly using a pasta machine:
• Starting with #1 - roll small amount of dough through the machine.
• Roll 4 more times increasing the setting each time (#1 - #5)
• Before rolling with #6 dust both sides of the dough with light flour
• lay dough out and add large Tablespoons of your ravioli filling**, spacing 2 inches
• fold dough over, pressing down between raviolis with your hand
• cut ravioli apart with a knife
• boil ravioli for 7 minutes

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**Spinachi Ravioli filling

Ingredients:
2 lbs fresh spinach
1 lb ricotta cheese
2 eggs
4 T parmesan cheese
pinch nutmeg
pinch salt

Directions:
• cook spinach in a pan with a small amount of water until tender
• Squeeze water out of spinach and chop
• in a bowl add: chopped spinach, ricotta, parmesan, eggs, nutmeg and salt. Mix well

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"Sappori de Lotta" Taste of the Garden Sauce

Ingredients:
3 plum (or "Piccadilly") tomatoes per person
1 clove garlic per person, chopped
olive oil to cover the bottom of the pan
"handful" basil
1 cup parmesan

Directions:
• In a cold pan put olive oil and chopped garlic
• heat until it starts to bubble and remove from heat
• quarter whole tomatoes and add to the pan with salt and pepper and a handful of basil
• heat again until tomato is somewhat soft

• serve on pasta
• add parmesan to top

No photos of the final product, we ate them too fast.
Delicioso!

Wood Burning Stove

This past weekend we installed a wood burning stove in our home. It was just in time for a lot of cold and snow. Actually it was just in time for a bizarre heat wave and then a blizzard.
We began by trying to compromise on the tile layout ideas Here we are installing the chimney on the roof (after shoveling it). I am distracted by my urge to sneak over to the neighbors to paint their garage doors. It took two days to install and was much more complicated than I thought it would be. Luckily we have very handy family members Annie helps to make some kindling

yea! It is not only pretty but it heats up the back of our house which is always very cold.
The stove is a Quadrafire Yosemite which has a nice old fashioned look that goes well in our 1880's house.