Category: Sewing (Page 1 of 2)

It’s that time again, fall is ending, officially and probably in terms of the weather. It feels kind of like there were mostly just lots of encores of summer, but I guess officially it’s fall and all we have a few weeks of it left.

So time to prepare a new pile of books for the upcoming season! Some previous books return, some I’ve read before but not recently and a whole lot of favorites. The world is not a great place so it’s time to re-read some favorite series. Plus some for projects and/or skills to learn. Those are always good ones too.

So for reasons that are probably obvious the current emotions are exhaustion and rage and how-do-we-deal-with-this and a tinge of despair looking at the size of the various dooms looking over the horizon and it’s hard to plan or look forward to or prepare or work towards anything. But…giving up doesn’t work either? So I guess I’ll just look at the horizon outside of my window and not that big one over there with the giant monstrosities lurking at the edges and do my best. Because I have to get up each morning and things need to get done and getting those things done will help whether a giant monster wanders over here or goes somewhere else and I just have to watch it destroying things on the news.

Food Preservation and Gardening

Winter involves no food preservation! Or planting stuff to preserve! It is going to involve going over plans for next spring and hopefully actually really making it happen this year. The smallest will be 3 so it should be easier right? It’s not really a fun sort of planning since most of the what-to-plants are clear and it’s about getting the basics to work again, not about having fun experiments. But hey, this year we had tomatoes and peppers and it worked. Also our herb plants really took off so there have been lots of fresh herbs. Now it’s just getting the basics all going in the same direction again. And if we can do that, then there can be the fun parts of gardening. And we did make lots of space up front which will be flowers or vegetables or both, so there’s that too.

And I am hoping to start seeds (it might be a try and do it and if it fails get plants year). Here’s hoping it works! That’s more for March or later though.

Sewing

It’s on the list, for real! So that shows some things have improved. I made a Christmas present a few months ago and I made slipcovers for two of the cushions on the old sofa. I have two more to make and then a cover for the frame. Making a slipcover I can wash rather than reupholstering the whole thing seemed the way to go with 3 tiny people and 4 cats. When the tiny people are less sticky and messy then I can be fancier. The first two covers went well, so it’s onward to the rest!

And if that goes ok, maybe there can be sewing clothes for the kids in spring. I still have the fabric for those, and summer dresses for me. It’d be nice…so here’s hoping.

Knitting

I am turning leftover yarn into a blanket. In this case I’m knitting hexagons that I’ll sew together into a sort of knitted quilt. It’s fun and I like it but part of my is terrified I’m ‘wasting’ the yarn. Which, it’s leftover sweater yarn, and everyone has hats and scarves and things and more wool blankets are definitely on the wish list. I think it’ll feel better when I start sewing them together and it’s obviously a blanket.

Having a simple project is nice though and it is easy to move around since it’s just 6-8 inch hexagons.

There are also things to make, small things for the kids, house projects (shelves, basement space set up, etc) and others.

And there’s also trying to do fun and happy things, baking cookies, going and seeing lights, doing the things that make all the rest of this worth doing. Puzzles with the kids (and by myself!) reading, watching silly movies.

So maybe that’s the biggest goal? Keep it all together and set it up to be better and make sure to do the things that make the rest of it worth it.

There, that’s the plan.

So….

The last update was in 2019, and now it’s 2023. Still summer though! I guess summer makes sense for putting in a new post. There are (usually) fewer things to keep track of and worry about. And late summer also tends to be a transition time.

And wow, have there been a lot of changes between 2019 and now. Some were already in progress, some were surprises (I’m looking at you, the MANY world changing events of 2020…), but it is definitely, completely, absolutely, a whole new world. And not one I would have been able to predict. And the changes are likely to keep right on rolling! So in order to have my own sense of that, and what I’m doing and where I’m going and what I plan to do with and about all of this, writing updates on my blog seems like one good thing to add back to my life.

Of course the world of the Internet has changed too. So, how to format my blog, how much to let it connect (or not) to the outside world is an open question. But for now, it’s here, and I’m here, and having a place to talk that is mine is nice.

My projects are pretty similar by theme, though a lot of the details have changed!

For one I’m now back in the Upper Midwest instead of the Mid-Atlantic which is a big change, for another given my health constraints and the choices the world at large has made, I am basically at home all the time now, with all the pros and cons that entails, and only see my family in terms of in person stuff. At least I love my family a lot and my home is a place I love and it’s surrounded by trees, so that helps.

Gardening

It’s been a tough summer for gardening! First we had a cold wet spring and now we have a hot and super dry summer. Lots of soaker hoses have been deployed as a results. There are some happy spots though.

In the front ‘kitchen garden’ our slicing and cherry tomatoes are doing great! So that’s a big improvement! Next year I’m going to run a row of basil down the front of that bed. The lettuce and radishes kind of worked and kind of didn’t. Mostly because of the weather, and the wildfire smoke, and so on…. I am going to do some fall planting there though. Probably radishes and some cold weather greens.

And in front of the ‘kitchen garden’ (which is 3 3’x5′ raised beds) things are doing pretty good too. I planted a rugosa rose there last year and it’s growing! Also my tiny baby coneflowers have bloomed some, so hopefully they keep expanding! My herbs, the sage, lavender and our original chives plant (carried all the way from Maryland in the car!) are all looking good.

Some of the existing landscaping plants are having a tough time with the weather. I’m hoping to replace the ones that don’t like the weather with some native flowers and grasses: asters, coneflowers, rudbeckia, prairie blazing star for flowers and some native grasses. That’s a next year plan though…

The other goal is to make some space for the cold frames in front of the porch. I’m hoping to use the moveable cold frames there this fall/winter and then if it works well build permanent ones next spring/summer. I have to move some landscaping plants and probably add some compost to plant this fall (the soil is rock hard with the current weather). I want to see how long I can keep things like parsley and mustard greens and cold weather lettuce and carrots going in there.

The other garden on the opposite side of the porch is my garden. It has my rocking chair and a table and my bird feeder and a bird bath. It has most of our herbs (thyme, rosemary, sage, lavender, mint, tarragon, catnip, etc) and some coneflowers, grasses, coreopsis and a rose bush that was a present from P and the kids. It’s surrounded by my northern cherry bushes (romeo, juliet and jubilee) and some older lilac bushes.

Eventually I want it to be full of herbs, and flowers and native plants that birds like so it’s a sanctuary kind of place, for me and the birds.

I’m planning to make the space in front of it into a second garden for the more well behaved heat loving vegetables, specifically peppers and hopefully some salad ingredients (colorful lettuce, cucumber vines, etc). That will make an arc with longer narrower raised beds without sides (layers of sticks and leaves topped with compost). This will all be behind the deer fence!

And then around that will be a wide border of native flowers and grasses, this time a pollinator mix, which I think will look really cool.

The other bit in the front is a landscaping spot that buckthorn tried to consume and the deer have also tried to eat. It’s really shaded so the plan is to fence it and then plant deer resistant shade plants (ferns, spring plants, some grasses) and let them get established, plus some smaller trees like hazelnuts and witch hazel.

To the side is the two big apple trees, the baby apple and hazel nuts and the giant logs from my old tree (it came down when I was a teenager but it was huge and so it’s sort of like a log based art piece). I want to plant hazel nuts, wild strawberries and some fun plants there to make it a fun spot to be.

The back landscaping garden by the patio I’m hoping to add more flowers and berries (strawberries, blueberries, currants, cranberries, blackberries).

The orchard needs a few peach trees yet and some pollinator plants but it’s off to a good start now that the deer can’t ‘prune’ the trees.

The way back garden for the big vegetables is all in place but my plans got derailed by the smoke and the weather. It’s still producing good vegetables if not as many as I hoped though! I want this one to be surrounded by flowers (native and annuals) and have all the bulk vegetables (squash, asparagus, green beans, potatoes, canning tomatoes, etc.).

Sewing

Sewing has happened a little! H has her Christmas stocking. And I have fabric to make the kids fun shirts and me a dress and Christmas presents for H (a soft book and a blanket). Just have to find the time.

I did get the patterns for the shirts cut out at least and I’m using a favorite dress pattern so I’m inching towards actual sewing…

I really want to sew clothes again. Buying clothes is even worse than it used to be and I’d rather sew my own.

Knitting

Since knitting can happen while other things are going on and even when I’m tired (as long as the arthritis doesn’t get my fingers!) there’s been a decent amount of knitting!

I’ve got W’s sweater for this year all done and I’ve got a bunch done on small P’s too.

After I finish those I want to make hats and mittens for my parents, P and the kids for Christmas.

There’s also a pattern for a wool blanket with holiday color work patterns I really want to knit but I think I have more than enough to keep me busy. Someday!

I should also knit myself more sweaters, this is the Upper Midwest, sweaters are needed!

Food Preservation

So food preservation is a long term hobby and one that can be a challenge with three tiny people, but an increasingly useful and important one these days!

I’ve got pecans I ordered from a pecan farm in the freezer. Canning jars are pretty great for freezing dry stuff like nuts! And I found a place that sells buckwheat flour here too. It turns out fresh is pretty nice when it comes to buckwheat flour. Maybe I can grow my own someday…

We’ve also frozen our years supply of blueberries! All 70 qts of them (would have been 72 but have to save a few to eat fresh… 😀 ).

Plus we got our 10 chickens from the farm north of us, probably should have gotten 15, but this year the chickens were small and last year they were huge. Next year we’ll get more, and maybe they’ll be huge and then I’ll have all the chicken I could ever want. 🙂

Next up from the bulk farm order is beef and then the pig. Doing our meat buying this way has been nice (and beats the grocery prices overall!). Also it’s kind of terrifying how much meat (flavor, texture, all the rest) has changed since childhood, just wow. Going to be exciting figuring out how to fit a year’s supply in the freezer as the kids get bigger, but I like this method.

Oh and we froze peas, need to remember to count how many and write it down.

Corn is in progress (buy some fresh corn, cook some corn, cut off and freeze what we don’t eat with dinner).

Tomatoes will hopefully be canning. Lots and lots of canning. Probably from the farm (different farm, this one to the west of us) because between the cold spring and the super dry summer my paste tomatoes are alive and have produced but 50 lb of canning tomatoes it is not. At least the slicers and some of the cherry tomatoes in front are at least making nice fresh eating tomatoes! So that’s something!

We’re also going to buy a 50 lb sack of onions and one of potatoes. We’ve done that the last two years and it’s awesome. Doesn’t last us to the next year on potatoes but it came really close on onions! Garlic is producing super nicely so I’m really hopefully we’ll have plenty of our own garlic. Some is getting run through the dehydrator (it’s mostly hardneck so only lasts so long) and some is getting replanted (got to adapt our own types 🙂 ). But there’s still a lot. Plus all the occasional missed ones that will come up next year. I think my onion production this year also falls under “fresh eating”. Sigh.

I’m also hoping to bulk buy winter squash and stick it in the basement too. This will be a first try. Hopefully it works nice! (didn’t even plant my squash seeds this year it was so dry…)

Other than that, going to need to buy basil to freeze pesto. There’s some basil out there, but yeah, not much better than the tomato situation. The weather has not been great.

Oh, and apples, need to make applesauce, and then probably can it? The apple tree(s) have lots of apples, and there are a bunch orchards here. So probably some of each. We have 3 trees, 2 older ones and a baby tree. The older trees are a bit shaded so production varies… And the baby is a baby tree so no apples yet.

Writing/Reading

I really want to write again. This is more of a wish than a likely thing I can do right now given the number of other goals! I am reading again though and that is something that makes me happy. Being back where I have access to my favorite library helps! It’s a mix of science fiction, non-fiction and essays and things.

I’ve found a lot of great new books and learned some fun things so far.

My most recent books have been reading Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi and the Muderbot series by Martha Wells. Hard to go wrong with excellent science fiction. 🙂

House Plans

And another example of things that are still on the list, house projects! We’ve made a lot of progress since moving, and this post-moving organizing has been faster and better than last time, which is a relief, but I’m still going to be glad when it’s done. Like last time, having a baby adds to the challenge, but being determined helps!

We’ve got most of the rooms set up now and the basement is almost all sorted out which is nice. Our next projects are setting up the little lean to greenhouse and making a shelf in the living room for books and movies (because all rooms should have shelves of books and fun things!).

It’s neat living in the house I grew up in. It’s layers of home, home from when I was small, home now with my family, it’s a good feeling.

Holiday Plans

The first holiday to work on right now is Halloween costumes. H will be a witch, W will be a ninja and P will be a Frankenstein monster. H has a little black dress and I’m making her a purple felt hat. W has a black sweatshirt and sweatpants and a purple silk scarf and I’m making him a bandoleer for ninja swords we can make out of tinfoil. P has a green PJ shirt and pants and bigger shorts and jacket to wear over them. And I’m making him a green hat with black ‘hair’ for his Frankenstein outfit.

We are going to knock on our neighbor’s door for trick-or-treat, plus do our Great Pumpkin scavenger hunt and visit their grandparents. Which is hopefully the right balance for Halloween.

Thanksgiving we’re going to have a week of family time. We’re going to cook a bunch of food on Wednesday, some for us and some to share. Then we’ll have Thanksgiving with my parents and then we’ll have our own Leftover Party on Friday with movies and board games and lots of food too. (And of course Die Hard 2 after the kids are asleep… 🙂 )

And I have plans for Christmas, this year’s goals are a trip to a Christmas tree farm (I’m going to find us a new one this year!) and a night time drive to look at the lights. And decorating together and lots of stories to read. The kids will make cookies with their grandparents (sometimes not being able to be around sugar and flour courtesy of the autoimmune things is really hard). And maybe we can make me safe cookies too. I’m hoping for making stollen I can have too, fingers crossed.

I have things to sew for Christmas for Helen, I want to make her quilt and soft book.

I like fall and winter holidays. There are lots of good ones to plan for.

There, that’s a list of fun things to work on and look forward to.

And it’s August already…time goes quickly when you have lots to do!  I’ve started the next round of the garden.  I cleared out the cucumbers (the last plants were giving in to the beetles) and the New Zealand spinach (it was too much of a succulent for me, I wasn’t a fan) and started putting in the fall vegetables.  So far I’ve got carrots, scallions and beets planted.  I’m planning to add some turnips too and probably some fall radishes and lettuce.  I think the yellow beans are winding down, so I’m probably going to plant some more over there too.  The purple beans are almost ready though, so we’ll have those soon.

I’ve got more beans to freeze too and lots of peppers.  I might be canning tomatoes this weekend too!  I figure it’s about 7 tomatoes per quart (more or less) so we’ll see…  It’s tomatoes, so canning them is extra useful, but they’re definitely more work than pickles and hot peppers.  Hopefully this time my jars don’t break (I guess I’m going to be sticking with boiling the heck out of them before filling them after all).  I’m hoping we get enough tomatoes for me to can a bunch (ideally 10 to 15, but we’ll see).  At least I’m definitely getting plenty of cherry tomatoes to dehydrate!  I’ve done two batches already.  I suppose I should also remember that they just started producing and with any luck will be going right up to Halloween, which is 3 more months of production, so I shouldn’t be too impatient…

My other projects are going well, I’m almost done with the first sleeve on the tiny Patrick’s green Bowline sweater and I’m very happy with how it looks so far.  I think maybe I’ll be able to start his Campfire sweater this weekend.

I also want to finish sewing his Christmas stocking and also plan out some sewing for me and the tiny Patrick.  Maybe the grown up Patrick too… I have the fall issues for Ottobre and I’d like to pick some projects from those.

I’d like to do some knit shirts and pants for the tiny Patrick and do a cardigan and a knit dress for me from the most recent Ottobre issue.  I have fabric for shirts for the grown up Patrick too.  And I’d like to make the tiny Patrick a Halloween costume (better to  start planning now so I finish it in time!).  I think it’s time to get a coverstitch machine too.  They fill a similar role for knit fabrics that sergers do for wovens (more or less) and I think there’s a lot of knit fabrics in my future…

So I’m going to try and plan those projects out and then see if maybe I can start one.  So goals for this weekend:

• Freeze lots of peppers!
• Freeze lots of beans!
• Dehydrate (and then freeze!) lots of cherry tomatoes
• Can larger tomatoes as crushed tomatoes?
• Bake bread
• Knit baby sweaters!
• Finish Christmas stocking
• Make sewing plans

So it’s now very much summer, warm humid air, weeds and the garden growing like crazy, lots of projects to do, food preservation questions to consider…  Yep, definitely summer.  I have gotten a bunch of things done though!  First, I finished the soft book from the fabric panel, which ended up turning out very nicely.  It’s cute and using the fluffy batting made it really nice and cuddly.  The tiny Patrick approves.

I also finished my 4th of July dress and it turned out great.  The pockets fit in nicely and the fit is perfect (extra yay!).  And I have officially decided that the answer is to sew the facing down under the collar (you can’t see the line of stitching that way).  I was really careful to do everything right with the facing, even grading the seam allowances and using a pinking shears (which was tricky and annoying!) and it still wouldn’t lay flat.  I think it’s just the result of the shape of my back/shoulders.  So!  It got sewn down and that’s what I’ll do in the future.  It looks fine that way.

I also started the advent calendar.  That’s been a fun project, just enough detail to be interesting without being fiddly.  I would be working on that now, but there’s a fluffy white cat sleeping on it.  Also, it looks like the dense cotton batting was the right choice for that one.  It gives it more of a tapestry type weight that I think will help it hang nicely.  I haven’t decided if I’m going to use a dowel or rings to hang it….Probably the dowel since I think that will make it straighter, the only downside is then I’ll have to store said dowel, but if I roll the advent calendar around it, that shouldn’t be too bad.

I also did my lavender packets!   I picked some lavender flowers (a nice little mini bouquet) which was enough for 3 layers in the dehydrator without crowding them.  I set it to 95 degrees for about 2 hours and they came out nice and dry.  It also made the house smell pretty nice!  Then I cut up some of the smaller bits of fabric from my grandma and made 4 little ‘pillows’ each about the size of my hand.  I thought about adding stuffing too, but I decided flat packets would do a better job at letting the scent into the surrounding area and not take up as much space in the closet/drawer/etc.  I also only used the flowers and not the stems.  The stems also have scent but a lot less and the flowers were enough to give each packet plenty of lavender.  They’re also crazy strong.  They’re sitting on our kitchen table now and you can smell them from the next room over.  So maybe that will be enough to defeat the closet that’s permeated with 50+ years of shampoo and fabric softener…

I also finished knitting the tiny Patrick’s new fall/winter hat.  I did “Bumble” by Tin Can Knits.  It’s very cute but I think the stitch work is a little open for being a nice heavy duty winter hat.  Then again a toddler probably isn’t going to be outside outside much in really cold weather so maybe this is the best way to do it?  The best part is the pompom.  I remember making one at some point (I don’t know when, like childhood sometime) and it turning out sad and not fluffy so I got a proper pompom maker (they’re like $5) and put a ton of yarn (as much as I could fit!) into it and it turned out great!  It’s super soft and fluffy.  So I’m really happy about that.  Also I did extra repeats so it covers his ears properly!

I’m still working on re-knitting the top of my Apple Pie hat.  I think I did an extra repeat the first time but didn’t write it down, so when I made my replacement I just did the recommended length.  It spent all winter sliding off my head, which was massively annoying.  So!  I cut the yarn at the top and ripped back to wear the decreases started (since there’s only 1 spot in the pattern with purl stitches and the first decrease is purl-two-together this was easier than expected…).  So I dug out the tiny ball of extra yarn and am now knitting an extra repeat before doing the decreases.  Hopefully it will stay on this time around!

The garden has also been busy.  We’ve picked lots and lots of beans so far (and I have lots more to pick today!).  These are yellow beans (my favorite) and Romano beans (Patrick’s favorite).  I think I might also plant some purple beans so we have some regular green beans around too.  Pole beans was definitely the way to go with the Romano beans, they produce so much better than the bush bean version.

We’ve also got our first round of peppers.  I don’t think the bell peppers liked their proximity to the cucumbers or the weather but we’re still getting some.  The jalapenos are doing great.  I’m hoping to freeze a bunch of those and then start pickling them.

We’ve also gotten cucumbers!  Yay!  I’ve made two jars of fridge pickles and I’ll still have plenty for cucumber sandwiches this week!  Hopefully they’ll keep going and I’ll be able to can pickles too.

We’ve gotten the first couple tomatoes (the cherry ones) too and there are lots that are almost ready.  I’m planning to dehydrate the cherry ones (I got an egg slicer to hopefully make that more manageable).  I’m also hoping if the full sized ones come through for me this year I can can small batches of crushed tomatoes.  We’ll see…

We might even get a few blackberries to try this year if I manage to beat the birds to them…   (fruit + birds is a challenge I have yet to fully resolve, bird netting has some serious downsides after all)

I also want to make jam, but I’m going to need to get the fruit to do that I think.  Our strawberries are producing enough for snacks (even with squirrel theft) but not jam and we won’t get more than a couple from the rest of the fruit for a year or three.  So jam requires a Costco or farmer’s market visit.  So we’ll see…

Oh and I cleared out the bolting lettuce (and 4 wheelbarrows of weeds from around the yard…) and planted pumpkins and yellow squash.  Hopefully those work out, that would make me happy.

Still though, plenty to do.  Next goals:

• Finish Apple Pie hat
• Finish Advent calendar
• Start USA play mat
• Start blue dress (Hawthorn again?  Something new?)
• Start baby clothes (probably from Ottobre)
• Start grown up Patrick shirts
• Freeze/Can/Dry peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes, beans
• Plant purple beans?
• Clear out garden bed by the shed
• Finish attaching tomato cage tops
• Hang reflective anti-bird tape
• Continue cleaning/organizing the house (my room, the closet of doom, the basement, etc…)
• Stick to goal of one slow cooker meal a week