Friday, May 31, 2013

...New Do...

...well...it was that time again...

...roughly every two years...I get a haircut...and not just any haircut...I get it all cut off and give it away...

...I send my whacked off ponytail to Children with Hairloss...

...of course...some previous year's donations have been documented here...

2007
2009
2011
...again...I curled it one last time before lopping it off...
...just another pic to show the length...not curled...
...and then...ta...daaa...
...the back of the sleek new bob...
...and a goofy one from the front...because there's just something so goofy about taking a picture of yourself in the bathroom mirror...

~Have a lovely day!

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

...Heliotropic...W.I.P. Wednesday...

...I'm sure y'all have forgotten about the Heliotropic...apparently I started it last August...
...but, I finally picked the Heliotropic back up...after months and months...

...I guess all that stockinette stitch just wasn't all that interesting...but I wanted to finish it for summertime wearing...and before my pattern completely disentegrates...just a few more rows to go...

~Have a lovely day!

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

...Easy Vegan Corn Pudding...

...hoping you all had a wonderful Holiday weekend...

...ours was busy...but lots of fun!

...we went to a cookout with some friends and our invitation said to bring a vegetable dish...that's just about the most perfect thing to ask a vegan to bring isn't it?...

...so I asked the boys what they wanted and got two different answers...
...Scout wanted his favorite green bean casserole...I make it a lot...

Green Bean Casserole

1 package of frozen French Style Green Beans
1 3 oz. can of French Fried Onions

1 c. Silk Soy Milk Plain
1 cube vegetable bouillon
1 small can mushroom stems and pieces - do not drain
dash of cayenne pepper
dash of black pepper
1/4 c. flour
1/2 c. water

Heat the Soy Milk and dissolve the bouillon in it. Then drain the mushroom liquid into the pot. Season with the peppers. Mix the flour and water and slowly add to the pot stirring constantly with a wire whisk, keep stirring and cook until the mixture thickens. It should have the consistency of a thick white sauce. Remove from heat and add the mushroom stems and pieces.

Pour this over the Green Beans and bake at 350 until bubbly. Top with the entire can of onions and bake until just browned.
...then I was kinda surprised that the Man asked for Corn Pudding...as it's something I rarely make...
...so I just whipped that up too...
...looks like I should have used a bigger bowl...
...baked until golden...
...the edge is my favorite part...

Easy Vegan Corn Pudding

2 cans creamed corn
1/2 cup self-rising corn meal - I used white...but yellow would probably be nicer...
2/3 cup self-rising flour
3/4 cup vegan milk - I used almond milk
1/2 cup melted Earth Balance

...just stir everything together and pour into a greased pan and bake at 350° for about 45 minutes until golden and brown and bubbly...it'll firm up a bit as it cools...

~Wishing you a lovely start to your week!

Saturday, May 25, 2013

...trimming the bushes...

...our bushes were looking a little bit 'straggly'...
...so the Man did some research...(I may have mentioned that he's the one that always does the research when we need to buy a new appliance/tool/thingamabob)...and bought a trimmer for our overgrown hedges...
...but I was the one who had the fun of using it...and I'm quite the amateur...but it's fun and very satisfying...and by the time the shade was gone from the front of the house I was all finished...

~Have a lovely weekend!...

Friday, May 24, 2013

...a new mug rug...

...I needed a new little mug rug...for when my little lamb is in the wash or at another table...

...and a quick internet search found this cute wiggly crochet pattern...

...I'd never done any 'Wacky Crochet' before and was intrigued by the patterns available for this stitch...it's fun...and easy...
...you make the base using regular flat crochet...
...and then you just crochet around the 'posts' of the base stitches to make this three dimensional trivet...
...my only surviving Lovefest mug (from Old Salem...when Amy lived in Winston Salem and we used to go there all the time)...and it even has it's handle glued back on...mine is so old now that they've even changed the style a bit...but if you go here you can see one exactly like mine still in use at a 150 year old church...
...I love my sweet-poufy-wacky-wiggly mug rug...

~Have a lovely day!

Thursday, May 23, 2013

...my favorite chair...

...my favorite chair...has been moved to the bedroom...
...and it is once again in need of a little repair...the arms are so worn now that you can see the stuffing...

...eventually...of course the chair will have to be re-upholstered..
...but until then...I'll just cover up the problem and still have a usable chair...
...I used my little U-shaped upholstery needle to stitch some doilies...made by the Man's Grandma...over the worn places...
...it just took a few stitches to tack them in place...and if they need to be removed for cleaning it's just a few snips of the scissors...
...so now my comfy chair is ready for use again...I love to sit and read here...it's also quite handy for putting on my shoes...

~Have a lovely day!

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

...an easy and diffent way to tie a quilt...

...after I got the quilt pieced together and backed...it was time to 'tie' the quilt...click here for a photo of one of our tied quilts from North Dakota...simply tied with a knot in the center of each square...sometimes they were tied on the corners though...

...but I knew that I wanted something a little bit different for this quilt...and I thought about doing a lazy daisy at each corner...I actually did a couple but decided that you couldn't really even tell that it was a flower so gave up on that and went with this little star stitch instead...

...it was super easy to do too...
...it's tied on the underside...and sort of looks the same as the top...just with the ends hanging loose...
...to make a tie...you start with a stitch across two corners...
...then make a loose stitch to the left...
...and another loose stitch to the right...
...then bring the needle up under the left stitch...
...across the top and back down under the right stitch...
...pull tight...
...and knot on the underside...
...four corners tied with little stars...Scout called them asterisks...
...all that was left to finish the quilt was to whipstitch the opening where it was turned closed...
...and there it is...
...a new quilt on a new bed in the newly refurbished master bedroom...

...shams yet to come...

~Have a lovely day!

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

...a king sized memory quilt...

...that little square of cloth from my wedding gown got me thinking about doing a memory quilt of sorts for the new bed...

...so I rummaged around in my bin of cloth...and found lots of memories...
...a baby blue crib sheet...a couple of pairs of legs cut off from Scout's trousers...navy blue toddler ones...khaki from about age 4 or 5...and some zip off ones from N.D.
...interesting...

...the cleric the Man wore for his ordination...the brown cushion cover from the bench by the doorway in N.D. (for taking off your snow boots)...but it was Jack's favorite place to sit as he could see out the window from there...some pieces of khaki from a slipcover I made to cover the green wing back chairs...the cream coloured dress I wore for our renewal of vows ceremony...and another cream/off-white piece from my Princess Leia costume...and a shiny black from Scout's Darth Vader...

...lots of memories to be sure...

...and there were a couple of yards of a robin's egg blue colour...sort of like the kitchen...and a darker grey...that I don't even remember what they were for...maybe just leftovers from N.D. quilting...
...so then I hopped on the computer and just using Paint...drew up a plan...gotta have a plan right?...
...printed it out...
...cut and laid out the pieces...90 of them...

...most of the cream coloured squares are from the curtains that were in the bedroom when we moved...see here...so happy to have repurposed those as well as the sheers...there's lots of material in curtains so I had plenty...
...then I sewed all of the squares together...just sewing the blocks into a strip and then sewing the strips together - easy...peasy...(Quilting layout instructions here)...
...then I made a sandwich with the quilt top...the finished quilt top on the bottom - right side up...the quilt backing in the middle right side down...this puts the right sides together...so that when you turn it right side out the top and the bottom will be on the top and the bottom...and the quilt batting is on top - so that it's in the middle of the sandwich when it's right side out...
...then just stich close to the edge all the way around leaving an opening (I left about 18 inches) for turning...
...turned it all right side out...I used an off-white king sized sheet for the backing...
...and tried it out on the bed...

...I LOVE-LOVE-LOVE it!...

...now I've got to go tie all the corners - 90 of them YIKES!...

~Have a lovely day!

Monday, May 20, 2013

...How to make a little envelope back pillow...

...we had been using the new bed (of course) since Christmas...we bought sheets but not a comforter because I was planning on making one (also of course)...so we just had a hodgepodge of mismatched quilts...not the right size at all...just sort of overlapped on the bed...and they kept falling off because they didn't cover the entire bed...

...so I started gathering my scraps of cloth to make a big king sized quilt for the new bed...and as I did so I kept finding things that I had saved and always intended to use for a quilt...more about that later...
...but...one of the items in the bin was this piece of embroidery...from our first year of marriage...it's our two initials intertwined and held together by a sort of medieval looking sword...don't really know what I was thinking when I designed that...but it was for the cover to our wedding album...and was stitched onto a piece of fabric left over from my wedding gown...that my Mom made...photo here...
...so I cut the piece in two...and kept the back square for the quilt to be...and decided to use the embroidered square as a little accent pillow for the new bed...thinking I probably should have done this years ago...instead of just keeping it in a box...
...first I needed a pillow of the right size...so I just used some more of the leftover sheers to make a small pillow...
...nothing too difficult...I just sewed a square...
...and stuffed it...
...the envelope is created by folding over two pieces and overlapping them...
...so I cut two rectangles the same on three sides as the embroidered square and on the overlapping side about 1/3 again as much...
...then you just fold those over...
...and iron...
...the two folded edges will become the center opening of the pillow...
...lay them one on top of the other...
...then pin the embroidered piece to the two back pieces right sides together...and stitch all the way around...
...you'll be able to turn the pillow right side out through the center envelope opening...
...back view...
...front view...
...then just slip your pillow into the opening...
...and you're done...I was surprised how well the little pillow matched the sofas in the family room...oh well...that's not where it's going...

~Have a lovely day!