Just finished up with my first homemade gift of the season (The Gift Season, that is. We have 14 birthdays and several baby showers in July and August, so I've committed to making as many of the gifts as I can.)
So here is my very first ever patchwork baby quilt!
I think it came out well for a first try! I definitely learned a few lessons in the process. I sewed a set of blocks in backwards, so there were too many dark blue and brown on the right side and too many baby blue and patterned on the left. My sweet hubby assured me that no one would ever notice, so I opted to leave it that way. I thought I was being so careful to keep in all in order. :(
I had planned to use the easy way out with binding and just wrap the backing around to the front. The backing I used was way to stretchy and thick to do that though. I ended up sewing the front and back right sides together and flipping it out. It would have been so much cuter with a binding on it though.
You can see the soft blue backing in this photo. I added these little taggie ribbons as a last minute thought.
I appliqued this little felt pup...
...embroidered "bark"...
...and put on a few little felt bones as well.
I'm really pleased, even though it's not professional quality, it's still a nice little accomplishment for me and I hope it will make a great gift! I think the next one I try will be a little lap quilt for my living room. After birthday season is over, of course.
I'm feeling a little guilty and could use some moral direction today.
I believe firmly in composting. It's not that we waste a lot of food but, with six people in our house, we do have a lot of food scraps - banana, apple and orange peels, stems and such from fresh vegetables, and other odds and ends. We empty our compost bucket outside once every few days.
Our outside bin is an open air type, which we chose specifically for our location. (That's a photo of it from last summer when it was first built.) Living in the mountains, we have a lot of wild life. When we first moved in, a bear broke into our "bear-proof" garbage corral. Heck, we even have a squirrel who ate through the lid of our plastic trash can. So most of the plastic composting bins available just wouldn't cut it for our needs. The animals would destroy them.
We decided if we can't beat them, we'd let them help. Super Uncle created a three-sided open bin, built on the side of a hill, to throw scraps into. The animals would have free access. If they went mulling through it, then at least they were helping us by turning it.
Thus far we haven't had any issues. The deer stay away from it (possibly because we throw hair in there from our bathroom compost). The fox pokes around once in awhile. We had a regular bear visitor last summer, but again, I never saw him eating from the compost -- he much preferred to destroy our trash cans.
So.......all that said, this week a bear attacked a llama in our neighborhood. (Yes, it does feel very funny to type that sentence, but hey, we live in the mountains, stuff like that really happens.) Now we're getting "gentle reminders" from our HOA. Stuff like,
"This could have easily happened to you, your pets or children there are a few people who are throwing table scraps out for the wild life, leaving smelly trash out and now we have 2 separate bears to deal with a black one and this brown one none of them have human fear. Living here on our mountain is a privilege because we get to witness the wild life but when we deliberately attract them to us we are planning a sure death for these wonderful animals who share their mountain with us humans. As responsible people we should know that by not doing the above we don't put the bears, mountain lions at risk."
What's a green bean to do? I don't want to throw our scraps in the garbage and send them to the landfill to create more methane gas. On the other hand I don't want to endanger neighborhood pets and children (which probably more important) or threaten the animals themselves. Okay, and I got this really cool bamboo compost bucket for my birthday so I could finally retire the old plastic ice cream container I've used for the last two years. Anyway... I was thinking that vermicomposting might be an option. We don't have a basement or a garage though. The only spot I can think of is the laundry room. Does vermicomposting smell? I'll have to research that since I'd hate for my laundry to smell like compost.
The other idea I'm keen on right now is pigs. From what I can understand though, it seems like pigs are an April to September thing in this area as you don't want to have them outside in the winter. So that wouldn't solve my table scrap issue the rest of the year, but I'm still thinking of them for other reasons (very locally grown, organic meat). I think I have a lot of convincing to do before that happens though.
So any other ideas? Advice? What would you do about the composting?
I suppose I should put "quilt" in quotes because I use the term very loosely. It's actually just a little baby quilt that will be tied, not quilted. But it's a start. And I'm having fun. Here's a little sneak peak... Some of the most cherished gifts we received for Fletcher when he was born were the handmade blankets and quilts from family members. I love the thought, sentiment, time and energy that goes into them. A true labor of love.
With three little people in our house we need lots of stools. Stools for the potty and the bathroom sink and for brushing teeth and for helping in the kitchen. And I often wake up to find something like this...
...known as "the stools for sneaking the good food from the top cupboard".
I found this stool at a garage sale long ago for $2. It's been in Fletcher's playroom for some time now, but I've grown tired of the bright colors and it's gotten scratched up and "decorated" with stickers, so I decided to redo it.
I used some paint and scrap booking paper that I already had on hand and voila!
I saw these earrings on the front page of Etsy the other day and immediately put them on my "I'd love to get these for my birthday" list. Then I saw that the ever-crafty Jill had made some herself. Duh. Off the list they went, and I ordered the supplies instead. These are made with vintage Japanese cabochons.
Finished products...
These look very orange in the photo, but they are really a pretty coral-ish pink.
I wore the coral pair on my birthday. This is my fake sister Renee (and my ham husband). Whenever we go out together people think we're sisters, so we just pretend that we are.
Does anyone else need some? I had to buy the cabochons in sets of 6, so I can make 2 more pair of each color.
I'm having a love affair with Mod Podge this week.
I was inspired by a photo I saw on a blog which, of course, I can't find now that I'm looking for it. But it was a pretty photo of someones wall, going up their stairs, and it had their letter all over it. You know, the letter for their last name. Lots of them, all different materials and colors. I'll see if I can find it again because it really was quite lovely.
Anyway...this is mine. (Sorry, seem to be having a lighting problem...you get the picture though.)
I'm also working on a before and after of the kids' stool. It's not quite done yet though. But I love it already.
I had a nice realization today about how our lives have changed since becoming not only more eco-aware but also more aware of the impact of our actions on others.
At Christmas my mom gave Marc a vintage school map of Africa. Understanding of our environmental plight (aka our hippy tree-hugger-ish-ness), she wrapped it in some pretty fabric instead of wrapping paper.
When Valentine's Day came around, I used that fabric to make some gifts for Fletcher's teachers at school. I also used it to make some little credit card / business card holders. My mom loved the one I made for her and decided to sell them in her store.
Last weekend we stopped by the store to say hello and she handed me some cash for the wallets that had sold.
Today we went to a get together for all of the Ethiopian adoptive families in Denver, where I handed that money to the host of the play date for all of the wonderful food and company she had provided for us.
Our host, Danielle, is the founder of Ethiopian Orphan Relief and is always doing wonderful things to raise funds. No doubt the money will be put towards something philanthropic. And, you know, even if it goes towards toilet paper and laundry soap at the grocery store next week, it's still pretty amazing to see how far a piece of cloth went: it wrapped a gift, it became a gift, it became an item sold to others, came back in the form of cash to help support a day of fellowship for our children.
These are the times when I'm reminded that "green" isn't just recycling and conserving water. Green is understanding how everything is connected, how our actions and choices affect others, and about enjoying simple things in life.
You'd never know it by the amount of rain we've been getting, or the absence of any sunshine whatsoever, but it's summer time here in Colorado and that means sweet treats! My kids love (*LOVE*) berries of all shapes and flavors. They don't usually last long in our house but, in the event we find a good deal on them, we buy extra and throw them in the freezer and use them for some sort of fun concoction.
Pictured above we have berry "ice cream". We put strawberries and raspberries in the blender with some yogurt that was a day or two past its prime and a bit of crushed ice.
We've made berry popsicles by just running several types of berries through the food processor, then freezing them. They loved the watermelon popsicles too (and I'm thinking of adding a little vodka next time - um, for me of course, not them).
Fletcher loves milk shakes which we make by pureeing any fruit we have along with some milk.
I'm going to try my hand at some sort of preserve or jam that can top pancakes, waffles and maybe even some home made cheesecake. Anyone have a delicious recipe to share?
The new movie Food, Inc. comes out this month and I'm eager to see it. I'm pretty sure I've heard most of it before...
In Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation's food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that has been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government's regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. Our nation's food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment.
...but you never know what you'll learn. (And, okay, I secretly hope that every movie like this will persuade my husband to finally make the switch to healthier, organic, local foods....a girl can dream.)
Along the same line of our food supply being controlled by a handful of corporations is the documentary The World According to Monsanto. We caught this by chance on either IFC or Sundance recently and it gave me a new outlook and understanding of genetically modified food.
Monsanto is a chemical company from way back -- 1901 to be exact. They're best known today for being the folks who make the weed killer Round Up, but they're also linked to Agent Orange, among other things.
Their crimes against food, people and the environment are atrocious, yet they've been successful and profitable over the past 100+ years because of their government connections and "revolving door" of employees that come from Monsanto and go to work for the FDA (or EPA or other government agency) and vice versa.
So (and let me preface this by saying that I know it will make me sound kind of dumb, but we all learn as we go, right?) I know that genetically engineered (GE) food = bad, but I always assumed it was because we lose diversity and flavors and other important properties that way. I learned from my adventures in canning last year that we've modified our tomatoes to be less acidic, so now we have to add the acid back in the form of citric acid, or lemon juice or vinegar when we preserve them.
The majority of this documentary is about how Monsanto has genetically engineered -- and patented! -- a huge number of seeds. I mentioned before that they are the company that makes Round Up. They've also GE'd a "Round Up resistant soybean". The seed is engineered so that farmers can spray their entire crops with Round Up, to prevent weeds, yet it won't affect the soybeans because they are engineered to resist it. They have also engineered a cotton that produces its own pesticide.
I can't deny that is a pretty amazing scientific feat but, before you go thinking that this is wonderful, you should know that 90% of the GE seeds planted in the world today are patented by Monsanto. In essence, they own food (and cotton and various other things). They don't allow farmers to save seed and they have their own team of "gene police" that go around to farms, testing samples to make sure that farmers growing their seeds have paid for it.
The problem in this is that crops can be "cross contaminated" (for lack of a better word on my part). So pollen in the air from a Monsanto GE crop can float over to a farmer's field who is growing organic seed and contaminate it. Along comes Monsanto demanding a cut of the action because it's supposedly their seed.
Now you're probably thinking "Okay, theoretically that could happen, but how likely it is really? How big of a problem is it in reality?" In the documentary, scientists went to Mexico to test remote fields of corn that should be pure and have zero chance of contamination by GE seed...only it was contaminated. So people who have no desire for GE food, those who employ centuries-old farming practices, like saving their own seed from year to year, are now being forced to bend to the likes of Monsanto simply because their crops have been contaminated by their seed.
I could go on and on, but I'll spare you because the documentary says it all so much better. Its quite an amazing story. I encourage you to watch it.
Wow. Have you ever taken 3 kids yard sale-ing with you? I don't recommend it. Well, at least not with my three kids. Yesterday I listened to a perpetual chorus of "Momma momma momma momma momma momma momma!" accompanied by dolls and games and toys being shoved into my face and hands. I guess one can't expect small children to appreciate the fun of picking through others' refuse.
I was hoping to score some fabric, vintage linens and maybe some crazy-daisy Corelle dishes to go with the ones I found at Goodwill a few months ago. Unfortunately, I came home empty handed but the kids scored big time! I ended up with a ton of great clothes for them. Macy got some cute jeans and a girly pink t-shirt. Fletcher got a nice fleece winter jacket, three pairs of pants, and madras shorts. Felix didn't fare as well, but did end up with a pair of shorts. All that for $6.00. And they were all nice brands like Gymboree, Children's Place and the Gap.
Today we visited some friends for a barbecue where Macy was given a big bag of adorable, barely-worn clothes and a very nice jacket with tags still on it!
Fletch also has a friend a year older than him who always gives him the clothes that he's outgrown.
I feel like I've hit the lottery each time we're given a bag of clothing or make a great yard sale find. Kids seem to outgrow clothing before they wear it out anyway, so I'm very grateful that we've been spared such a big expense.
