Practical Makes

Practical projects and crafts

Category: Uncategorized (Page 1 of 2)

Projects for 2025

December 8, 2024 /

So, if there’s a new year coming, there should be new projects to plan for!

Sewing

There’s definitely plenty to sew…first up, the sofa slipcover. I have two cushions done so two cushions to go and then the main part of the sofa. And then really, I should do the other sofa too… It’s not exactly fun sewing but it’s a big improvement! Mostly it’s very careful geometry and then cutting and sewing and measuring big bulky pieces of fabric. So, not fun, but worth it…

I also want to make chair cushions, specifically ones with wool padding. This I think would be fun. I want to learn how to make good wool cushions and small chair cushions seem like a good place to start.

I also want to get back into sewing clothes. I have fabric for a dress for me and fabric for clothes for the kids. That’s fancier sewing (so harder) but also more fun. Here’s hoping that the tiniest child will be old enough for that to be workable. I like sewing clothes and when I can do it regularly I can make them pretty efficiently and I can adjust patterns to fit way better than clothes from the store.

Also, making your own stuff (as long as you have time to stay good at it) is a great way to be more environmentally friendly. You have to go more slowly when you make your own clothes. The hardest part is just finding good quality fabric, otherwise they wear out faster than I like or fade too quickly.

I also want to sew small fun things for the kids for their birthdays and Christmas and things.

Embroidery

So this year I made bookmarks as Christmas presents with different pictures for everyone. Next year I want to embroider a cool Christmas picture because it looks awesome and fancy, I think I have to work my way up to that though…

I also want to make nice embroidered napkins using some of the extra green linen I have. I think it’d be fun to have fancy napkins for holidays and birthdays or just to be fancy sometimes. The goal would be to make 8, that way we have 7 for family get togethers plus an extra.

I’d also like to come up with some other fun embroidery for holiday gifts (I think the bookmarks were a pretty great idea!)

I’d also like to embroider clothes, like make a solid colored dress and embroider the color or cuffs. That sounds really fun.

Knitting

Well, there’s going to be sweaters for the kids. I’m currently deciding between making another set of cardigans or a set of Bumble sweaters. I’ve made those before they’re warm and stretchy and comfy, so good for kids.

I’d also like to knit flip mittens/gloves for the kids kids and me, and maybe as other gifts. That’s going to be a lot fancier knitting, so we’ll see!

That and I’d like to finish the blanket I’m knitting. I’d like to make a few more wool blankets over the next few years. The kids are big enough now they can hijack the ones we’ve got, so I think it’s time to add a few more.

Garden

Well, this will be a big project this year or more accurately big projects. There are three big things, getting the main vegetable garden into production for real this year, planting a whole lot of native flowers in the front (and back and elsewhere) and fixing things up so there are good paths connecting parts of the yard and cleaning up the area that was under the pine tree that came down this year.

So those aren’t really complicated projects, they’re just big ones.

The vegetable garden will be pretty straightforward. This year I’m going to plant:

Hot peppers
Jalapenos
Slicing tomatoes
Cherry tomatoes
Cucumbers
Peas (probably snap)
Onions
Bush beans
Lettuce and salad ingredients
Pumpkins (and mini pumpkins!)
Summer squash
Winter squash
Basil
Potatoes
Tomatillos
Bell peppers
Garlic
Dill
Parsley

I’m also going to try to start as many as possible from seed. I think the plan for that is to not start them too early. The last few years have had cold springs which just makes everything a mess trying to keep seedlings from over growing their containers.

I’m also going to try and start perennials from seed for the front. That’s going to be:

Echinaceas
Rudbeckias
Asters
Coreposis

Plus probably some annuals:

Cosmos
Zinnias
Marigolds

Ideally the whole front will be flowers and herbs and some vegetables in a few key places and the back will be a big vegetable garden.

And the former pine tree will be nice grass. I think if we take the edging out and put down at least some grass seed it should take care of itself, based on how quickly the grass got everywhere else…

Canning and Food Preservation

Food preservation plans are like last year but more. I’m hoping to try a batch in the pressure canner since I want to learn how to use that. And I want to add more pickles and tomato sauce. And actually can the jam as we get the fruit. Plus canning just straight fruit too. And add some pre-made stuff like salsa and ketchup. Just a few goals. 🙂 So that’s:

Tomatoes, whole
Tomato sauce
Pizza sauce
Salsa
Ketchup
Peaches
Blueberries
Applesauce
Pears
Plums
Strawberry jam
Raspberry jam
Grape jam
Apple butter
Plum jam
Blueberry jam
Pickled hot peppers
Dill pickles
Canned corn or peas or beans

And I want to keep doing roasted tomatoes, probably freezing at least some beans, corn and peas until I know if the canning works and freezing some fruit. I also want to do a better job dehydrating herbs and catnip this year.

And set up good cold storage for potatoes, onions, garlic and squash. We have ok cold storage, but we can make it better I think.

New Skills – Felting, Quilling, Soap and Candle Making

Then there’s new skills! I want to be able to learn to felt wool to make fun things for the kids for gifts and also make wool cushions. I want to learn quilling to make cards and things. I want to make lotion I can use and candles for fun and gifts. And if I can make those then I should be better at making more household items, cleaning mixes and other things….

Home Projects

And there’s still stuff to do here for the house, there’s the last two areas of carpet to replace, lots of bookshelves to make, basement work spaces to set up, the greenhouse to set up, doors to put on the kitchen and closet storage to improve.

So that’s at least a year’s worth of things to do.

Thinking about the new year

December 4, 2024 /

It’s December and to me that always feels like the time to think about how has this year been and what do I want to try to make happen next year. I really like to know where I’m aiming to go on New Year’s Eve, kind of like being at the start of a race or the top of a hill on a bike, ready to go.

So how was 2024? My main goals were to find good ways for us to interact with the wider world and go places were my main goals. And some of that happened and some of it didn’t. Life likes to have surprise challenges after all. We didn’t go as many fun places as I’d hoped (tiny children + immunocompromised state + health things to manage = a whole pile of hard to overcome each time) but we did go places. And we’ve done all the big family things I’d hoped. Not always in the ideal way but we made them happen.

And the kids had a lot of playing outside and reading books and just good kid stuff. And we didn’t drop family traditions, which definitely matters. So yay!

Next year’s goal, more swimming and working on our yard and more hiking.

One silver lining to things this year was that we ended up picking up projects and things I wouldn’t have thought we’d be able to do. There are 200 lb of tomatoes plus some pickles and things all successfully canned and hanging out in the basement. Which is awesome!

Next year’s goal is to take that and make it more, can the jam as we get the fruit, and can fruit and veggies directly. And double the tomato sauce, because really good tomato sauce on hand is the best. Also, canning isn’t at risk if we have a power outage, which is a big deal.

One thing I tried to do this year was add more of the world at large to what I think about and what I see and do. And….yeah….I only managed some of that, and honestly I don’t think it works exactly for me. The world is headed in other directions for awhile and there just isn’t enough contexts where someone like me can participate for that to be workable. It’s not like I want to give up on the world it’s just that I need to be ok, and I need my family to be ok and honestly I need to be functional.

The efforts of the Everything-is-Fine! crowd and the Everything-is-Doom! crowd and the efforts of big companies pushing both of the above just doesn’t work for me. So I’m going to look for online communities I can be a part of which works for the health stuff and the immunocompromised stuff. Hopefully some low key ones where there can be participation but at a level I can manage. This was a thing I did more as a teenager and in college, but parenting and working and health things don’t leave a lot of time. Also being an introvert applies to the Internet too. Got to be something out there though!

Some of the seeing the world was good though. Just have to find a way that works for me. I got to go to a couple of bookstores and an antique/thrift store. I want more of that (when workable) and more going outdoors, both here and hiking. Some of that is hard with kids, but hopefully we/I can add more of that next year. Part of the hard part is people are stressful (I mean, they’ve always been stressful on some level, but the fact that they could wreck my health or life at any moment really takes that stress up to 11…) but I’m sure I can find places to go and ways to do it that work.

And I think for my projects, yarn, books and things like that my new challenge will be finding ways to get the things I want from places that exist here. I think that will help with focusing on my community here and make sure if I’m getting things it’s things I really want and need which is important for environmental and sanity reasons. If I can source a very high percentage of my food from here I should be able to do something similar for fun stuff. 🙂 This is probably made easier by the fact that “fun things” are books, yarn, fabric, garden seeds and plants, puzzles, board games and the occasional video game. So seeds, plants and wool textiles are definitely available here and made here! There’s a local bookstore and game store and puzzles are certainly around a bunch of places so that covers a lot of ground. Fabric is harder, especially since I want fabric for clothing, that’s probably going to involve going online. There are fabric stores here but they’re really mostly for quilting. And I like quilting, but clothing is my favorite.

The other thing I want is to focus on here as in what’s around me and what I’m doing here. Which at the moment means my home and the space directly around me. I have lots of projects and a big yard to turn into gardens and happy spaces to be. And I have food to make and books to read and skills to learn to make and do more things. And movies to watch and games to play and kids and cats to hug. And really, the world at large is constantly trying to push it’s way to the center of my attention and really I don’t want that. The Internet or the world or companies or ads or whatever always seems to want more attention and more focus and worry and thought (and presumably more money as a result of that) but it eats up so much there’s nothing left for what I want especially after work, parenting, health stuff, paperwork, chores and the rest. So I want to turn off the distractions and just be me for a bit. Hopefully get to read books I like and make things and focus on here.

I’m not going to hide from the world and the terrible things that are out there. I have a couple of reliable news sources that update 1x per day to read and there’s public radio to listen to and magazines to read which are great sources of information (yay science! and textiles! and history! and gardens!) But it doesn’t need to take over everything I think about because I have people to take care of and things I need and want to do. And there’s a lot more happiness and fulfillment from that!

Holidays

December 1, 2024 /

I’ve decided this post should have the sunny picture with the blue skies. The other was snow with dawn just coming out of the gloom. Sunny blue skies seemed like the best choice to focus on though.

There are 3 weeks between now and the holiday break. The holiday break is 2 weeks off this year, yay!, but there’s a lot of ‘looming concerns’ in the wider world. So….yeah.

But home is nice. Home has cats cuddling in sunbeams (sudden, actual cold weather will do that!) and tiny children with cozy wool blankets and piles of books. And there are gardens to plan (really, actually for real this time!!!) and small projects to do and it is fine here.

I think that’s the most important thing to focus on and make true. It doesn’t have to be perfect or flashy or anything, it just needs to be fine and content and happy. Those are what I want to work on.

Small children mean big projects and ideas are not super feasible (except canning 200+ lb of tomatoes, or replacing the floor or other things that were huge to do and then disappear in to a new, but better!, status quo). But small and medium projects can happen a bit at a time and those are good.

Maybe we can replace some remaining bits of floor, build bookshelves and canning jar shelves and I can recover another two sofa cushions.

And there can be fun kids things, get a tree from the tree farm, decorate cookies, drive down and see the lights downtown at night make gingerbread houses out of graham crackers, watch the nutcracker and other good things.

And for all of us, read lots of books, make tasty things, make small projects, pet cats.

There, those are good holiday goals. 🙂

Oh, and all the holiday gift making is done and it’s only December 1. I win this year.

Fall is here

November 3, 2024 /

Well, after about two months of getting to see what bread feels like being baked in an oven Fall has actually arrived like someone flipped a switch. It’s dark, it’s currently rainy (for the first time in 2 months!!), many of the leaves have fallen (except for the darn buckthorn…) and all the cranes and geese are booking it north as fast as they can go, like someone who overslept on a day with an important meeting or test.

It’s like the world outside is out of alignment and isn’t sure what to do about it. Like a piece that isn’t seated right or someone with a or a gear that’s shifted. It being November 3 here in the world of human things and not knowing what sort of world I will be experiencing this time next week really, really, really doesn’t help.

But I’m here and we are here and the kids are here and this is the world we have to chose how to live in.

So, November, food preservation is done, we’re getting the yard cleaned up for winter a bit at a time. There were Pumpkin Hikes and pumpkin carving and adventures with the kids. The boys did their Christmas shopping (yes, it’s early, but with the world being what it is, that’s how we need to do it). Our tiniest girl got to toddle around the yard after her brothers and help find candy and treasures during the Great Pumpkin Hunt this year. She has worn her costume every day since. 🙂

I have books to read and projects to do. We’re into making Christmas presents now. I’ve down colorwork knitted cowls for my parents and our tiny girl. And I’ve made embroidered bookmarks for the boys and my parents. That’s been fun. I knit a lot so it’s fun doing a new craft. And I can re-combine or invent the patterns and then embroider them while I’m taking breaks or watching something or listening to something. And fabric bookmarks will be durable so I think they’ll be great!

The other new one I’m hoping to do is needle felting wool and making tiny fuzzy cats for the kids’ Christmas stockings. I have about two months yet. So we’ll see if I pull it off!

Next is food gifts. I’m going to make flavored honey, and hopefully honey roasted nuts. I’d like to try flavored vinegar, but we’ll see… And maybe I’ll give making vanilla extract a try. I’ll probably make chocolates too, and I’ve gotten a lot better at candies! I made honey popcorn balls that were great. I’m hoping to make caramels and peanut brittle and some other things with honey…fingers crossed!

Other than Christmas crafts the other fun project is to make paper holiday decorations this year. The theory being, they’re fun to make and if I make new ones each year I can have fun doing it the way I want and they can’t get dusty and upset the arthritis. And paper can be recycled so it’s not a big environmental cost. I’m also planning to try dehydrating orange slices and making things like that.

Other than that the next couple of months are small adventures with the kids as the holidays get closer (driving to look at lights, going for a hike in the woods, watching holiday movies, going to the tree farm, etc). And keeping up with regular chores, and taking a break after the summer and doing small projects inside (and some outside) to make doing day to day stuff easier.

I guess that’s basically the plan all the way through winter.

And then spring will be time to tackle the yard and outside and get a proper garden set up and get the garden ready so we can have a good garden next year.

Hopefully all good plans.

Preparing for fall

September 27, 2024 /

Well it’s fall now, it’s still hot, but it’s officially fall. So that’s something. And the leaves are falling and the sunlight is now angled as the tilt of the Earth tilt’s those of us up north away, so it looks like fall at least!

Fall means it’s time to work on projects that will be Christmas gifts. I’ve got the sewing project done for the smallest child (yay!) and I’m working on the holiday knitting projects now. Some for the kids (smallest child’s is done already!) and some for my parents as gifts. So probably 5 in all? But being colorwork cowls they are nice and relaxing to knit so they go fast. If I finish those the plan is flip mittens for the boys. Those will be complicated which is why I’m starting with cowls!

I’ve also got food gifts planned. I have to make sure I get the timing right on those though, since they’re new. The vanilla honey is the only one I’ve tested so far…

Plus the big projects, sofa upholstery, the last of the upstairs carpet replacement, cleaning up the garden, fixing the former landscaping around the tree stump…

Plus the inside projects from my husband, shelving, underbed drawers, etc.

With three kids, one of them tiny, if one of us is doing a project, the other of us is parenting, which is a challenge… Especially since we also want to have time and energy for fun things with the kids…

But hey, there are lots of happy things, and that is good.

September, Otherwise known as July

September 22, 2024 /

So the weather is hot, middle of summer hot, which is not the best. Usually this time of year is in the low 70s, which is comfortable for doing outside projects. Instead we have mid 80s and wildfire smoke aloft. And sometimes less aloft which is a problem… Parts of the sky turn white and orange and everything is hazy up high and near the ground. Even the moon was orange last night like something out of a Halloween story.

So I’m not contributing much to the outdoor projects at the moment. Wildfire smoke and RA aren’t a great combination.

I have a good start on my book stacks though! I re-read The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst, plus The Zero Waste Life, The Year of Cozy and The Clean Mama’s Guide to a Peaceful Home. Some of these, as is probably obvious are project books.

From The Year of Cozy I finally tried both the marshmallow recipe and the flavored honey recipe. Making marshmallows with honey is a success! Doing a full recipe is way too many, so I’ll be doing half recipes, but it worked, which is awesome. And while it was some effort, it wasn’t a problematic amount of effort, so that will be a ‘special occasion’ treat, but hey, I can make them!, and that’s huge. The flavored honey is a test run to see if I can make it as gifts. I’m letting it sit and absorb the flavor for a week or two before testing it. Hopefully it works!

Re-reading The Zero Waste Life was also interesting. It’s been a little while since I first read it, a year?, six months?, and it’s interesting to see what I’ve managed to improve on. Sometimes it feels like I’m not getting anywhere but comparing the suggestions to where I am now with my projects and systems I’m not doing too bad! Still a ways to go though. Some of the big ones are just stepping up the canning. If we get 200 lb of produce and it’s a year supply it’s realistically going in the freezer or in a canning jar in order to last that year. And if it’s in the freezer that probably means ziploc quart bags. And that means plastic that’s going to be disposed of. Yes, they can be washed a few times, but it doesn’t work well and they tear and even with the best efforts they end up in the trash. Plus it’s plastic, and wow does science seem to suggest plastic is the leaded gasoline of our generation in addition to the goal of not creating trash that hangs around for centuries.

Freezing in glass containers is on the table, but that means having enough containers. Doing say, a few quarts of chickpeas I cooked in quart jars to have ready for salads, is definitely reasonable. Doing 90 lb of blueberries in one weekend, less so. Not to mention it needs to be something that won’t turn into a rock or it will be very hard to get it back out of said container. But you can can them, and I found a post from someone from an Extension office saying a simple syrup with honey is valid for canning. So the plan is to do a trial batch next year. We’re going to need more shelves though. We have a nice set of shelves for canned goods, but not enough for a-year’s-supply-of-most-produce-for-a-family-of-5 number of shelves.

And The Spellshop is amazing. It’s happy and interesting and the circumstances mirror enough of my 2020/2021 experience it helps with a sort of background healing of some of that emotional trauma. Bad Things happened, we had a front row seat to them, and then we packed up everything we could and had a hard, terrifying trip and then we were back in my childhood home. It’s our home now, and I’ve always loved it and I love being here but what brought us here involves Emotionally Complex Memories… especially since the rest of the universe is of the opinion that None of That Happened (either 2020 or the first bit of 2021). And being without a functional body or immune system things didn’t Go Back to Normal for us in 2021/2022 so yeah… emotionally complex memories/thoughts.

The wildfire smoke is (hopefully!) headed another way next week and today, the official first day of fall, a big front should switch us from nearly 90 degrees back to barely 70 degrees but it should be. Walking outside has felt like standing in a bizarre oven this month, it feels wrong and horrible and terrifying. Hopefully we get a break for a bit.

I’m ready for fall, canning happened when the farms’ tomatoes finally, finally, finally came ripe. We now have shelves of whole tomatoes, tomato sauce, pickles, and pickled hot peppers. I think that’s my limit. Next year we’ll add applesauce and learn to pressure can vegetables and can fruit in light honey syrup. And can the jam instead of freezing the fruit (though maybe I’ll drag the frozen fruit out this winter and ‘catch up’).

Sweaters are also done! These are TinCanKnits Trek pattern but converted to be cardigans. The tiniest one will have buttons, when she’s a little older and less likely to taste test them. I have them waiting, they’re silver heart buttons. This was my first time steeking and it went great! I’m doing this every time now! I thought the kids would like cardigans they can thrown on when it’s cold out or they’re playing in the basement. Hopefully they like them!

Next up is the Christmas knitting! I’m hopefully going to make three cowls (Tincanknits Compass pattern) and two pairs of convertible gloves/mittens for the boys. My other Christmas gift crafts will (hopefully!) be embroidered bookmarks (hopefully 6 of these? boys, husband, parents, best friend…). And also my food-as-gifts experiments. Vanilla bean infused honey was amazing so that’s going to be one (parents) and spicy honey (husband) and rosemary honey (parents). Flavored vinegar is also a planned one, though I haven’t tried it yet. Spiced and sweet nuts and candy are also ideas (for husband and maybe parents, we’ll see what works for people?).

Oh and I also finished the softbook for the tiniest one for Christmas. At least the sewing is done. I’m going to embroider her name and ‘from mom’ on the back too.

I’m ready for fall and winter and holidays and consistent plans and schedules. It was a good and bad, hard and productive, and hard to predict summer. We did a lot of great things (a drive in movie for the boys and their dad! I got to go to an antique/thrift store and more than one book store!) and got lots of stuff done (the moldy trees are gone, house changes make things easier/cozier/less-RA-setting-off, we canned-all-the-things) and I got back things I haven’t managed for a few years (sewing, canning, growing-the-darn-tomatoes, a garden that’s mine). So all in all, good, but exhausting. Hopefully fall is good, restorative, and happy.

Summer Books and Flowers

July 18, 2024 /

It’s summer! I meant to write this at the start of summer, which didn’t happen, but it is at least still summer now so I think it still counts. The above books are my summer books (plus some extras I’ve added since I took the picture…).

The bottom ones are planning fun knitting; ideas for the kids and for small summer projects and planning for Christmas gifts. I’ve also got the Edible Landscaping book for helping to decide how I want to change the gardens near the house.

I think I’ve got a good start now! We’ve gotten most of the overgrown old plants (especially the ones wrecked in the April snowstorm) out and now it’s open with more of my coneflowers and space for herbs and vegetables and native flowers near the house. The next big one will be when they come to take out the trees by the house that are dying (climate change is a thing). This process started in January but there have been so many storms we’ve been bumped down the schedule for awhile, but tomorrow should be the day!

Then we’ll have open space near the house and more options for kitchen gardens up close. And I’ll be able to see the back garden from the house, which will make it easier to keep an eye on it…

I’m also hoping to read more sci-fi and fantasy books and poems. I’ve made progress adding fiction back into my reading. Weirdly, fiction is harder than non-fiction when overwhelming parenting stuff. It’s somehow easier to read it in bits and pieces. But life has improved enough that I’ve gotten through several new sci-fi books lately (John Scalzi, Gail Carriger, Rebecca Thorne, Travis Baldree). They’ve all been really fun and I hope to keep it up.

Plus poems and old favorite fantasy books and a climate change book…

And then I found some more, embroidery and quilling which is something I want to learn, more poems and a classic conservation book. And a nice re-read of a favorite history book.

And if I finish all of those, the local used book store had some more. 🙂

Summer is a nice time for reading. Though given all the rain from the thunderstorms plenty of bug spray is required…

Time Flies

August 12, 2019 /

And it’s already the middle of August… July went somewhere? Well, July went by so fast it feels like it was only a couple days long, probably because there was a lot going on (as is often the case). But it was largely good and fun things. A lot of it was even things we haven’t done in a long time or things I’ve really wanted to do for a long time.

We went to the regional park and everyone got a ride on the carousel, we went to the Takoma Farmer’s Market for the first time in years, we even went to places that are ‘farther’ away be current definitions (which at the moment means the Ikea and the Lowes 30 minutes north of here…). None of them sound very big, but given how long it’s been since anything like that has been possible, those are a pretty big deal.

And there were fun things, the little guys got to see geese and a heron at the lake near one of the best parks, we went to the toy store west of here just for having a fun drive. We all got up early and walked to the ‘new’ (it’s been there for at least a year, but it’s new to us!) coffee shop. There have been a lot of good summer things.

There have also been projects, we had two weekends with over 40 lb of tomatoes each weekend that got turned into sauce and probably over 100 lb overall. We’ve gotten lots of squash, beans, hot peppers and bell peppers this year and fun tomatoes. We got lots of nice garlic, onions and potatoes too and even a measurable number of cucumbers from the garden. Oh, and the blackberries and raspberries have finally gotten going and they taste really good.

I’ve got a whole bunch of fun Christmas sewing done (everyone has homemade Christmas stockings this year!). Maybe I can do a few more things soon, like Halloween costumes and a few more Christmas decorations or gifts. I have pumpkin and astronaut costumes to make!

Knitting also has a lot of things that got done, the little guys have new hats, the smaller Patrick has a new sweater and soon there will be one for Will. After that, maybe Christmas gifts? I’ll have to come up with something fun.

And the majority of my Christmas shopping is done too. I like to do it early since then I can get them from a wide variety of places. I think the holidays will be fun this year!

And there have been a bunch of random house projects, we put up a new kitchen cabinet and shelves, moved things around in the living room, did more work on the landscaping, the grown up Patrick built the little guys a set of shelves/box for their stuffed animals, we finally got the exterior faucets fixed…just a whole bunch of random things. Hopefully before the weather gets properly cold this fall we can get some of the random electrical stuff done (maybe even an exterior outlet, I want to try holiday decorations…) and winterize some things and maybe paint the front door (I’m voting for a nice bright yellow).

I will also have a whole bunch of tulips and daffodil bulbs to plant for next spring and more fall veggies to plant too. And the updating on the playground at the park should be done soon (it’s going to be way bigger and really nice!) and the library/rec center combo building will reopen soon too. So there should be plenty to keep us busy for awhile…

Summer Sun

June 19, 2019 /
Flowers from the garden!

It’s almost officially summer! So it’s time to start thinking about projects and plans. I want to do some sewing, knitting, gardening and food preservation.

Sewing
I want to do some more Christmas sewing. I have 2 stockings to go (mine and the cats) and I have a fabric panel with birds and a wreath I might want to make into a wall hanging. I also want to see what I can do for Halloween this year… I have done some sewing recently. I did stockings for Will and the older Patrick. And I replaced our bedroom curtains (4 new ones) and added two to the dining room (now there are two on the back window and a new matching curtain for the back door).

I’d like to sew a dress, but…I think that’s asking too much at the moment, and I do have a nice collection of dresses. So I think that will wait until later or next summer.

I’d also like to do a summer wall hanging for the living room and new pillowcases for the living room.

Knitting
This one’s easy, I’m currently knitting a sweater for the tiny Patrick. It’s green and brown (Plymouth Yarns Fern and Fox) and it has a chevron pattern around the yoke that looks like tree branches to me. Next up will be a sweater for Will. I’m thinking probably one with color work.

I’d also like to knit myself a hat since the last one never fit right. And maybe make Matthew a new one for Christmas. And at current speeds, that should cover knitting through the end of the year…

Garden
I need to plant a couple more cucumbers, and do something to replace the arugula which is bolting. Beans are a good option, or I could wait and do some sort of fall plants like beats or broccoli. I do have space for fall plants where the potatoes are though and where the determinant tomatoes are too… So probably it will be beans.

Harvesting should pick up soon too since it’s almost time for tomatoes, peppers and beans!

There probably won’t be too much more planting until late July/early August when the fall things will go in. And then in late fall, probably after Halloween I’ll do the spring bulbs. I’m going to plant a bunch this year, and hopefully I’ll actually be planting them myself!

Food Preservation
The next round of stuff from the garden will mean it’s time for food preservation. The early stuff either doesn’t preserve well (radishes and lettuce) or gets eaten fresh (strawberries and blueberries).

  • Canning – I’m doing crushed tomatoes with the determinant paste tomatoes (I’m growing Mariana paste tomatoes). I’m also planning to do pickled jalapenos and dill pickles.
  • Dehydrating – I’m going to do cherry tomatoes, maybe some slicing tomatoes and probably summer squash and eggplant. I like dehydrating them before freezing since they freeze better and thaw faster. And I might dehydrate some herbs and chamomile too, we’ll see. And next year there should be lavender!
  • Freezing – If there are extra blackberries and raspberries I’m going to freeze them. I’m also planning to freeze beans and peppers (hopefully both hot peppers and bell peppers this year!).
  • General – I will also hopefully have potatoes, garlic, onions and shallots to store too.

House
There are always plenty of house projects. We did the big stuff at the start of the year with replacing the bathroom vanity and the roof. And this month we got the outdoor faucets fixed.

I’d really like to get some small electrical stuff done before this winter (utility size outlet for the freezers in the basement, outside outlets for yard work and Christmas lights, outlets by my desk in the sewing room and by the TV in the den). So that’s on the project list. And I’d like to get a screen door for the back door. The one that was there when we moved in was damaged so we took that off, but it would be nice to have one to protect the main door and also be able to leave the main door open when the weather’s nice and have a breeze.

I also really want to paint the kitchen. There’s not a lot of surface area in there, but it’s concrete gray (the previous owners really liked gray). And I’d like a light teal to match the dark teal tiles and set off the white cabinets. I also think it would feel more cheerful.

The other thing I want to do before winter is replace the couch and chair in the living room. Ideally, I think a new loveseat and the glider from the small Patrick’s bedroom would be nice. It would free up space and we could put a cabinet thing (like a china cabinet with cabinets on the bottom and shelves with glass doors on top) along the wall between the living room and dining rooms. Then we’d have nice storage space too. Of course that means actually dealing with the decorative half wall thing that’s there… but it would be nice when it was done I think.

General Life
I want to take the little guys to the pool (we got our pool membership this year!) and to the library. I’d also like to take walks with the little guys and the older Patrick now that that is feasible again.

Maybe I’ll even get my bike tuned up and see if I can ride it…

I’d also like to take the little guys to the zoo or a museum. Will still prefers a morning nap but sometimes he’s willing to wait until the afternoon so that might be an option now. Of course summer weather is here now too, so figuring out when would be a good time is a little tricky.

Driving up to the pick-your-own place, even if we’re not picking fruit, and just going to the farm stand and enjoying a drive could be fun too.

And it’s almost 4th of July, Patrick might be big enough to enjoy the fireworks this year, but Will is probably still too small, so we’ll have to see what might work for that.

So there should be a lot of fun things to do this summer.

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