Posted in Crafting, Moderation and Economy, Sewing, Uncategorized on Aug 4th, 2010
A few more twirly skirts for the girls (yes, I’m addicted to sewing these!)
This one, which is a bit shorter (hits just below the knee on Little Hen) is a mix of thrift store fabric and 1/2 yd of clearance fabric, and thrifted ribbon (at the bottom). Total cost = $2.10!
This is my favorite – [...]
Posted in Crafting, Moderation and Economy, Sewing on Aug 3rd, 2010
The girls have finally gotten their long-asked-for twirly skirts! I used 7 Layer Studio’s tutorial and Going Sew Crazy’s as well, and sort of mushed them together, used whatever measurements of scrap fabric I had on hand. Thankfully, twirly skirts are pretty forgivable and they turned out great!
Little Hen’s skirt used some thrift store fabric, [...]
Posted in Crafting, Homemaking, Learning, Moderation and Economy, Sewing on Jul 31st, 2010
The children went to a Storybook Costume Ball with their cousins last night. We had a two-day scramble to throw together some costumes, but we pulled it off just in time! Here’s a little bit on what we made:
Little Hen wanted to be Amphitrite, the Queen of the Ocean, wife of Poseiden, in Greek [...]
Posted in Moderation and Economy, Sewing on Jul 30th, 2010
Tum Tum is a big boy – off the chart for height and weight, and finding pants to fit him is tough (doubly tough to find pants that fit him with a bulky cloth diaper on.)
The girls and I have spent the last two days frantically sewing costumes for the kids for a costume party [...]
Posted in From my kitchen, Moderation and Economy, Playing/ Free Exploration on Jul 28th, 2010
Just a quick post to share the recipe for my favorite childhood snack.
We were given 40 lbs of honey (albeit, crystallized, so I’ve had to de-crystallize it in batches), so I’ve been trying to come up with ways to use it in my cooking. We’ve made several batches of jam, substituting honey for a portion [...]
Posted in From my kitchen, Locally grown, Moderation and Economy on Jul 19th, 2010
A bit late, but here are some pics from our drive out to Sandy Farms last week to pick sour cherries. (A big thanks to Chris at Lost Arts Kitchen for letting me know about the good cherry picking there!)
This was the first time I’ve cooked with sour cherries, and we made sour cherry + [...]
Posted in Locally grown, Moderation and Economy, Working the earth/harvesting its bounty on Jul 12th, 2010
We’re harvesting 8 types of hard and softneck garlic this week (and shallots, and pulling up spent pea vines). Despite some of the garlic struggling with rust due to the rainy weather, nearly all of the bulbs are big and well formed and beautiful.
Garlic is so easy to grow, and heirloom garlic come in such [...]
Posted in From my kitchen, Homemaking, Locally grown, Moderation and Economy on Jun 23rd, 2010
A while back, Sunset Magazine called for summer recipe submissions with 5 ingredients or less. I sent in a recipe, and they published it in the July 2010 issue!
It’s a super easy fruit salad recipe based on a dish I make all the time in the summer. (It’s a great dish to take to a [...]
Posted in Moderation and Economy, Our home on May 24th, 2010
My husband’s cousin will be visiting all summer (from New York City!), and for part of her visit, she’s going to be staying with us. We were worried about her not having a place to sleep here, and have been on the lookout for a used sofa. A queen-sized futon has been serving as our [...]
Posted in Changing Seasons, Homemaking, Locally grown, Moderation and Economy, Our home, Working the earth/harvesting its bounty on May 23rd, 2010
And here’s the rest of the garden update:
There wasn’t time to get any side-yard shots before the rain started up again, but we now have 64 healthy strawberry plants growing there (many have set fruit already!) and the Christmas limas are germinating there as well.
Out in the backyard – the peas (see above) are as [...]