Sewing Challenge - Day 2

I have to admit, I sort of cheated on day 2. I had some free time....I know! What is that!?...last night and I worked a bit on my project.

I pinned my pattern to my fabric last night. I had a hard time reading where to put the pattern and I even had to refresh my memory on what a selvage is. The pattern showed the selvage on the top and right of the fabric, until I realized they had folded the fabric and could not label the bottom of the fabric that was folded up...whew! Then I had a hard time fitting the pattern on the way the picture showed, but I made it work.

Charlie likes to get into my sewing box(es) while I am working. Last night she decided to "measure [her] leg." It was quite comical to watch her and listen to her count.

Next, I cut out my pattern. I paid close attention to what I call the little tabby things (pictured to the right). About two years ago I invested in some really nice scissors (they were on sale) and I am so happy I did. My cuts are crisp and clean. If anyone even tries to use my sewing scissors, they get in big trouble ;)

While I was cutting, Charlie decided to help me pin the unused fabric (I always buy more than I need). She is very good at it I think. Look how she really tries hard. She is always by my side when I sew.

Anyhow, today I just marked my fabric that I cut based on the pattern. I had button holes, buttons, triangles, dots, lines etc to mark. I used a new tool that I bought and it is really light, so pictures would not have done much good. I also wrote the number of each piece with a fabric pencil.

I have used a fabric marker and pencil to mark everything before...it just takes patience and flipping the pattern up and down a bunch of times.

I do not think I will be getting much done tomorrow on this project since it is my errands day, but we will see.

Sewing Challenge - Day 1

I have challenged myself this week to complete an entire sewing project in 7 days.

Today, I spent about an hour cutting out my pattern, ironing it, tracing it, and cutting it out again. I also washed and dried my fabric. The reason I trace my pattern is because I like to use my patterns more than once and for many sizes. There are other ways of reusing patterns, this is just what works for me.
Let me explain.

 
I cut out the pattern that I bought from the sewing store. These patterns are really wrinkled, so I ironed it to make sure I do not missing anything when I trace my pattern. I made sure that my iron was on a low setting. I also ironed the tracing paper I chose to use. I think what I use is actually interfacing, but it was on sale, see through and a decent weight.

 





I then put my pattern pieces on the tracing paper, upside down. I pined them very well to make sure they did not move while I traced them. I also made sure that my pins were not close to any lines I need to trace.

Then I turned the tracing paper over and started tracing. I had plenty of light to help me see through the paper. I also looked under at the pattern to help me identify important things I needed to mark like where button holes go. I did not trace everything. Only what I needed for the size I was doing.

After I traced all of my pieces, I unpinned the original pattern and cut out the new pattern. This is how it looked when I was done.


A big thanks to my daughter Kairah for taking the pictures today. :D

Canning Chicken Soup

I have found a new love....CANNING! As if I need more things to put on my plate...I figure I can tell myself that it saves my family money and allows us to eat healthier. Yeah, that is how I justify this new obsession.

I tried my luck at canning chicken soup since my children have been asking for it forever. It is hard for us to find any soup that is without MSG and Gluten, so we have to avoided it. Not anymore!




The first night (since I have to break my projects up into pieces to be able to manage them) I made chicken stock out of a chicken, celery, onion and some seasoning....how ever you like to make stock is fine.

Tonight I made the soup. You can use whatever recipe you like, but I used the one out of the Ball Blue Book. I had to use some extra stock I had in the freezer to supplement what I made last night. I used the chicken that I had left from making the stock also. I added some celery and carrots. I did not have to add seasoning because I seasoned my stock.

After cooking the soup for 30 minutes I prepared the jars and got to canning. I filled each jar a little under half full with the goodies (meat, carrots, and celery) and then filled it up the rest of the way with the stock to 1 inch from the top of the jar. I am pressure canning the jars as I type for 1 hour and 15 minutes. I am so excited to have chicken soup at the ready that is healthy for my family.

What a difference a seam makes...

I have been teaching myself to sew off and on for about 8 years. The last 2 years I have really learned a lot. I love making my toddler the crisscross back dresses with bloomers. While surfin' pinterest.com I saw this pin about a french seam. I was curious. It looked super simple and I thought I should try it. I wanted to share this tip in case anyone else would like to try this type of seam.

Here is a pair of bloomers that I made about a year ago. This is a regular seam like the directions called for. It is frayed and looks messy.

Here is the pair I just finished tonight. There are no exposed edges to fray and it just looks beautiful to me.

I also started using a piece of cardboard to measure my hems when I was ironing them. I got the idea from this pin on pinterest. It was so much easier and the hems are all uniform and awesome looking.

Marked measurements on the cardboard with pencil

First Installment of Gardening Information "posters"

I am working on making informational posters about taking care of my yard and garden so I do not have to keep going to the web. I plan on putting these in frames and hanging them in my garage near my lawn and garden equipment. Here is the first one I have finished. It took me almost three weeks to find all of this information.

I want to make these downloadable, so if anyone can help me with that, please comment. Thanks

Summer Week 4 - Under the Sea

Another busy week for us. I planned lots, but did not get to everything and I am slowly accepting that this happens sometimes.

Monday started off pretty smooth. We did our morning routine as usual (sans Charlie's hair being brushed...it was not worth the fight that day). We read Ocean Season by Rob Hirschi and did a craft inspired by the book. This is one of my most favorite art projects to do with the kids because you can do it many times with different themes and it is great to see how creative my girls can be. We did finger print art. I whipped out my old stamp pads and my special markers and let them go to town. Charlie had fun just putting her fingers in the colors and telling me what they were. Kairah and Kaijah were very creative with their pictures. It was a blast.

Charlie, Kairah and Kaijah making their pictures, The finished results.

I really need to start taking before pictures...this is after

The rest of the day we just relaxed and watch a movie. After dinner we worked on the yard a bit. Boy was that interesting. Our yard is covered in sand right now because we had a large mess of trees and vines removed after we bought our house. Well those trees and vines will just not quit popping up, so slowly we have been cutting them away and adding things to our yard like a vegetable garden and butterfly garden. So, on Monday we worked on raking up some debris from around our beautiful oak tree, the stump next to it and the table. The stump and table area are just about cleared out, but while raking the debris from around the oak tree we disturbed a bull ant nest. Ahhhhh - I freaked. So I quickly ran inside and researched how to safely destroy get rid of them. ( I know, I know...I am supposed to love nature, but these buggies were killing my oak tree and are mean little things). We put down some corn meal and watched them take the bait. My husband came outside wondering what we were doing just looking at the tree. After I explained it to him, he just shook his head and grabbed his gloves to help us dispose of the piles we created. (Update - the bull ants seem to be gone, I guess I will find out when I rake again). After all that, we were done for the evening.

Tuesday was also pretty smooth. In the morning while watering our plant on the patio, we discovered one of our baby birds did not survive, but when we checked the nest the rest had safely flew away (another to do being added to the list - clean off umbrella it is pretty dirty after housing those baby birds). I also discovered how annoying older elementary school and middle school children can be on this fine day. Do not get me wrong, I love my children, but boy can they cause a ruckus. For about 2 hours I had to keep telling them "stop making noise" because that is all they were doing. Geesh. I soon found out after my facebook rant, that I am not the only one with this problem and we all had a good laugh about it.

Our book for the day was Fish Had a Wish by Michael Garland. After reading the book, which Charlie really loved, we made fish out of CDs. I did not buy anything special for this, although most posts I found about this craft used glitter, spangles, and the like. I just grabbed old scrapbooking stuff I had the closet, along with some paper, glue and scissors. I think our fish came out great!

Fish L->R U->D Charlie, Kaijah Kailah, Kairah, Mine

After quiet movie time I did a craft with that was meant for the older girls, but Charlie joined at the table to watch (I even gave her an old stained shirt to keep her busy). We "updated" shoes. Kailah and Kairah found a bunch of pins on pinterest about decorating shoes, so we tried a few ideas. It was really fun, so much so, they did not want to stop when it was dinner time. That is my idea of a winning craft idea.

Shoes - ribbon wrap flip flops, puffy paint & glitter chucks, puffy paint skates, puffy paint flip flops, puffy paint heely's

In the evening I enjoyed reading this article: Dominos and Donuts, the Truth About Change . Check it out!

Wednesday was the 4th of July. I hit the commissary (grocery store) and whipped right through. I only had Kairah with me and the store was practically empty. We spent the afternoon and evening at a friends for a BBQ and swimming. It was a great time.

Charlie rocked a new do

Thursday was a hectic mess. Kailah had an appointment in the morning and Kairah needed an appointment because one of her wires broke (braces). So I got that scheduled and of course it was right smack in the middle of Kailah's appointment. Luckily the two places are down the street from each other, so I made it work.

1 year with braces

Kairah's appointment took way longer than expected, but they ended up cancelling the check up we already had scheduled which was a plus. She is half way done and is very excited to be done with the creepy headgear.

While we were in Fort Walton Beach I thought I would hit up the local Goodwill. I was completely surprised at how expensive the Goodwill has become. I did not buy anything, but Kailah and Kairah bought a pair of shoes and a shirt each. Since Kohl's was on the same street and I had a coupon, we popped in there. Let me tell you, I love this store!!! We scored some great deals. After shopping, we were all tired and went home. All four of the girls napped and I fought with the BBQ grill.

Friday was an even bigger mess. Lew and I were woke up by a loud thunderstorm at around 4:30am. Next, Kaijah came and got in the bed with us, then Kairah and Champ. Kailah was up, but did not come to my door. After about an hour of wrestling around and shushing folks, I gave up and got up. Charlie did not wake up until her sisters got loud at around 6am when Kairah and Kailah started fighting about a board game (did I ever mention that no one in my house is a morning person, but me). I got tired of listening to it and ignored them and went to sleep on the couch. Lew left for work late (thank goodness they called him for late reporting, because I was so worried about him being out in the storm) and kept an eye on the kids. I woke up to a quiet house at around 9am....all the girls went back to sleep. I called my hair salon to see if my stylist had any cancellations....SCORE! she did (as usual people do not like to go out in the rain). Had a wonderful time getting my haircut and catching up with my stylist. I was so refreshed after my appointment I did a little sewing with Kailah and Kairah.

Once again, we looked at some pins on pinterest and the girls decided they wanted to "modify" T-shirts. They made market bags. We used the blog as an inspiration, but kinda did our own thing. I used another blog to inspire my "updated" shirt. I am not quite finished with mine, but I sure do love sewing.

Kairah and her crazy hair :D did a great job on her bags, I am going to add better straps to my camp shirt

After lunch, we walked to the nearest red box to pick up a movie for the girls to watch.  Apparently no one in the house cared about their appearance on this fine day. Charlie was so chipper in her mismatched outfit with crazy un-brushed hair which was left over from Thursday cool hair do. Kairah and Kaijah were also crazy haired weirdos. It cracks me up when they are like this. I guess it could be worse. I could have girls that have to take an hour to get ready just to check the mail.

During the movie I got ready for my monthly Girls Night Out. I had a blast with some friends at TGIFriday and the movies. We went to see Magic Mike. It was so funny.

Well, that was my crazy week. 

30 Minute blog about Gardening

This is my 30 minute blog about 30 minutes of gardening today. I decided that since I have an extensive to do list today that I would commit only 30 minutes to each task. Lets see how this works ;)

I put on my gardening shoes (yes I have shoes just for gardening) and went to work.

I had been staring at these little seedling all week. These seedlings were not expected. You see, I reused some seed starting mix, partly because I am cheap frugal and partly because I saw nothing wrong with it. So I tried to re-seed my macadamia nut seeds I brought back from Hawaii. Now, the macadamia nut seeds still have not sprouted, but these little guys did. I have no idea what they are at this moment, either guava or papaya (also from Hawaii - I know I am weird...who brings seeds and plants back from a trip as souvenirs), but I thought I should give them a chance.

Mysterious Seedlings, A starting chance, Guava in the back - new seedling in the front

I also had a huge bucket of potting soil that I no longer needed from previous plants, so lets reuse that I thought. I read somewhere that as long as it is still retaining moisture the potting soil can be reused. I added some Epsom salt and organic fertilizer to each pot and started planting my seedlings. I am so excited to see what they turn into. They are a little leggy right now, so I watered them from the bottom, but I think they will turn out fine.

Plumeria (from Hawaii) is doing well, I still have Ti Ti to plant

 In addition to these little seedlings I noticed by orange mint was outgrowing its little pot and I just so happen to have an extra large pot sitting around (thanks to my mad rant while trying to light the bbq in the wind, I will post a note at the bottom about that). Oh, and then I noticed one of my thyme plants was looking sad and I re-potted him as well.

I watered everything on the patio and filled up my make-shift birdbaths. All of this while my awesome drip/spray irrigation system was working on the veggie garden.

Marigolds, this little bean plant is still trying to survive...how cute

As promised here is the note about the BBQ debacle. We have never had such a breezy summer since I lived in NW Florida for the last 5 years. This year we are trying to cook on the grill more to keep the house cooler, but this stinkin' wind is giving us a run for our money. So the other day I tried to start the grill and of course it would not start. I was tired and grouchy from the long day I had. So, to the left of the grill was a large pot full of pine cones (Charlie collects the "popcorn" for us when she plays outside) . We usually use one or two for kindling,but this day I dumped the rest of them on top of the coals and lit them. Boy did that fire get going...lol...bonus! - I had another large pot ready for a plant.