Life and choices.

I came back up to SW Virginia so that I could get my ACLS (Advanced Cardiac Life Support) recertification, and sure enough as always happens when I spent time around my fellow medics, I started getting that burning feeling in my gut that I want to, I need to, go to medical school.

So I am sitting here once again researching what it would take to go back to school this late in life.

But then I think about all of the things that I do, all of my hobbies, ideas, travelling, all of that. If I went back to school I would have to give all of that up. For about TEN YEARS.

Nope, sorry. Not going to happen.

I  managed to get myself totally overwhelmed this month and not only neglected  my blog, but my entire household started suffering for it. Several projects are getting put away for a while – like my mom always says, “You CAN do everything, just not all at once!”

So here’s what’s been going on since my last post…

Mushrooms.

 

The oysters have hatched! We got a  nice flush of oyster mushrooms that I unfortunately didn’t weigh. There have been some further harvests since then which is nice, especially since I had absolutely no idea what I was doing when I started that project and have pretty much neglected them the whole time.

I have a much better idea now of how to do this, and will make some major changes to the  next attempt at the project. Right now, though, its going on the back burner. The buckets of mycelium as well as my cardboard propagation project is all going to get mixed into the garden beds, and with luck we’ll get some oysters growing among the garden plants.

Easy fix for scratched floors.

I made a new discovery! Well, not really. I’d read it on some blog, somewhere, didn’t believe it, then tried it out of desperation and it worked!

While  moving furniture around in my “studio,” I scratched the heck out of our beautiful, old hardwood floors. Instead of crying, I grabbed some walnuts, crushed them in my hand, rubbed the crushed walnuts over the scratches and voila! The scratches appeared to, well, disappear!

Aside from the dogs wanting to spend the rest of the evening licking the floor (I guess they also think walnut oil is yummy), it felt like a miracle cure. Whoohoo!

Chicken update.

Several of my hens are currently laying beautiful eggs. Max was the first, and here she is sitting on her “nest box” that I made out of a Rubbermaid type of container (it was originally their brooder box).

There is nothing like picking an egg out of the nest box that is still warm from the chicken’s butt. Yes, that sounds very strange, but it is truly a magical experience.

Kraut experiment.

Ooooh…I think this is going to be good.

I mixed cabbage, thinly sliced onion, sliced carrot, and beets with a basic brine and have it sitting on my counter, fermenting. One week later it is smelling amazing!

Oh, and in the background you can see a cotton bag I whipped up to make some sprouts. It was an experiment, but you can bet I will never grow sprouts any other way ever again. It was incredibly easy. 

Shopping bag class.

I am super excited to be offering an intro to sewing class called “Don’t Fear the Machine!” in which we’ll be enjoying tea and cookies (gluten free, of course!) and making this wonderful shopping bag.

We won’t be covering any technicalities in the class, just experiencing the act of creating with fabric on a variety of machines, from my modern computerized Husqvarna to a 100 year old Singer hand-crank. Date and time will be announced soon I hope!

So that’s about it for now. There have been tons of other activites, but I will save them for another time.

Welcome Spring!

Snowed in. Tomato pickles. Farmcar. Oyster mushrooms. Sewing.

We're home, in the middle of Snowpocalypse 2011. The city is pretty much shut down, and the city’s 10 salt/snow trucks aren't able to keep up. The roads are treacherous and I am so glad to be in our warm, comfortable home with our animals. We are some of the lucky ones.

So while we've been snowed in, I've had the opportunity to catch up on some of the projects that have been "needin' done".

Tomato pickles.

The first week of December I had set up a batch of green, unripe cherry tomatoes to ferment. It was purely an experiment after successfully fermenting sauerkraut (YUM!).

Here’s the before, with green tomatoes, several whole cloves of garlic, lots of dill seed, five whole cayenne peppers, and a brine of 4 cups water with 3 tablespoons kosher salt. I covered it with a brine-filled ziplock bag to hold the vegetables under the brine and let it sit.

After two weeks, it looked like this:

The tomatoes started turning to a duller green, but the peppers were still beautiful. It smelled strongly of garlic and dill. I tasted one tomato and thought a pepper had exploded in my mouth. It was HOT!

I was a little afraid at this point – they smelled great but were much too hot.

This past weekend, I checked them again and they were absolutely amazing. The heat had mellowed, and they now have a slightly garlic-dill tang with a bit of heat. The are luscious.

Processing fermented foods kills the wonderful microbes that are so healthy for you, as well as mushifies everything. It will keep for many months refrigerated, unprocessed, so I packed them into glass jars that’s where they went. 

Farmcar.

Farmcar finally died. I can’t complain – she had almost 220k miles on her and had treated me exceptionally well.

It was still sad when the tow truck hauled her away for donation.

We are now a one-car household…with a little two-door Honda Civic. Another great car, but will definitely be putting a crimp on my projects. I can’t fit two full size bookcases in her like I could in Farmcar. We’ll find a way to make-do.

Goodbye, Farmcar.

Oyster mushrooms.

On December 18th, I mixed some oyster mushroom sawdust spawn (from Fungi Perfecti) into used coffee grounds. I have four buckets of the stuff down in the basement as well as two small containers in the kitchen. Aside from a slight bloom of mycelium on the surface, they weren’ t appearing do much…

…until yesterday.

See all that white-ish stuff? That’s oyster mushroom mycelium. That is Good Stuff.

This has been yet another of my experiments, and so far it looks like its going to work. I’m hoping to see some actual fruiting take place soon – no idea how soon, anywhere from days to another two weeks. Keep your fingers crossed!

Shower curtain.

It doesn’t take much to make a big improvement, especially in a small room.

I’d found a duvet cover at a Goodwill that I frequent and absolutely fell in love with the print. From it, I made a shower curtain for both the master and hall bathrooms. The hall bath is in sore need of repair – its going to be a massive project. But in the meantime, a pretty shower curtain made a huge difference.

Before:

 

After:

There have been some other things going on, a new crocheted hat and scarf for example, but I’ll save you from those.

Are you working on any projects? How are you spending your winter?

Love to you all!

Scrap pincushions, and scrap bags, too!

I’m such a dork. 

So today I just couldn’t stop; I made one more pincushion and a few more scrap zipper bags.  The bags are perfect for makeup, pencils, and general purse organization – I love carrying them and they always make me smile. 

The offer has been expanded – if you want a pincushion or a bag, just let me know and it’s yours!  

By the way, if anyone wants a tutorial on the zipper bags, just say the word.  They are completely reversible and so incredibly easy.  Just a really great almost-instant-gratification project!

Love to you all,

Petunia

Scrap Pincushions – scrap obsession

I can’t explain it except to say that I’m desperate to use up all our little scraps of beautiful fabric that we’ve been hanging on to for years.  And I do mean years – maybe 20 or more in some cases.  I’ve also been struggling with focusing - I can’t seem to focus too long on any one project. 

So I found the perfect little super easy project: pincushions!  The actual tutorial for the ones I made is <here>.  They’re so fast and easy – when I’m done for the day and it’s time to relax, I turn on some junky show in the television and whip up a little cushion.  So far three have been made, and guess what – they’re free to whoever wants one! 

Just send me your name and address and I’ll throw one in the mail for you! 

All my love,

Petunia

Sewn Shopping Bag – Finished!

I had the luxury today of a cancelled class  and instead of studying as I should have, I sewed. 

And it felt so good! 

In fact, I’m thrilled – I finally had time to finish the sewn shopping bag that I’d started a few weeks ago.

Here’s a picture; the blue plaid is the one that I bought from Target on clearance.  The obnoxious one is my copy:

Regarding the fabric choices... 

…Mom and I dared each other to use up our stash of scraps.  We’ve got an outrageous sum of oddball fabrics, so we’re just putting things together in somewhat random order – it’s really quite fun – goodness knows I like things gaudy! 

Love to you all,

Petunia

Another Sweater Pillow – with how-to!

I just couldn’t stop this evening.  I needed another project, something simple and straightforward that I could finish tonight. 

Do you ever get that feeling?  Fortunately, I had just the project and I even had everything I needed to get it done.  Now *that* is rare!

I decided to do this sweater pillow in an envelope style.  The bottom of the sweater had some great ribbing that I wanted to use, and there’s the added bonus of being able to remove the pillow insert and wash the cover.

Supplies:

1. One wool sweater, put through the washer and dryer several times to make it shrink and felt.  I found this one at Goodwill.

2. Store bought pillow form.  Even cooler would be to use an old decorator pillow from the thrift store.  Reuse at it’s finest!

3. Sewing machine and matching thread.  No need to be perfect here – the stitches shouldn’t show at all.

Process:

First, cut apart the sweater.  Cut up both side seams, cut off the sleeves and across the shoulder so you end up with a rectangle.  It’s okay if there are some shoulder seams showing – they may or may not be there when you’re done measuring. 

Next, sew the tops of the rectangles together, right sides together – NOT the ribbed bottom edge.  Press the seam open with a steam iron.

Now it’s time to play with the positioning of your envelope opening.  Lay the fabric down, right side down, lay your pillow form on top, and fold over the top and bottom to create the overlap you want. You do want substantial overlap – the stretchy fabric will pull once stuffed.

Once you’ve determined how much overlap you want, remove the pillow form, and re-fold the fabric with right sides together.

Keep in mind that the fabric stretches, and this is a *good* thing.  Measure your folded fabric to be sure that it is slightly shorter than your pillow form’s dimensions. I used 16” for my 18” form.

Now, the sides of the fabric need to be trimmed to one inch wider than your previous measurement (to account for ~1/2 seam allowance). 

Now, pin up those sides and sew’em up!  Turn it inside out, stuff in the pillow and you’re done!

I love these pillows.  I’ll be making several, and am saving the cut open sleeves – eventually I’ll make a patchwork bedspread or blanket out of them…it really will look sharp!

Love to you all – and goodnight!

Sewn Shopping Bag – in progress

The primary goal today was to get the house cleaned.  After that, there had to be some project that wouldn’t cost me much energy (I’m still recovering from a little cold).

Ah-hah! 

I’ve already posted a little about this project, but it might be good to start putting it all together now.

Some time ago, I bought these wonderful hobo bags from Target, on sale of course, with the thought that they’d be great shopping bags.  Well, they are *perfect* for groceries!  Their size, shape, weight and style are exactly what I wanted.  I could never understand why reusable shopping bags had to be ugly – well, they don’t.

I’m not crazy about the blue plaid that the bags are made in, and I knew I’d want more than I was able to buy, so I set about copying the pattern…

The white yellow paper is the paper and tag board pattern that I made from the original.  The plaid is the original bag.  The white is the mock-up, which was perfect on the first try.

Just before Christmas, Mom made up a bag with scraps that we had lying around.  It was a beautiful bag, and the woman who received it was very pleased.  Unfortunately, I didn’t get a picture of it…

Tonight I went ahead and started sewing up another bag that I had cut out previously.  The fabrics are terribly obnoxious, but that goes well with my personality.  All I completed tonight was the outer body – tomorrow I need to go buy more rotary blades and will get it completed.

Honestly, I’m not sure what’s more obnoxious – the bag or the cat!

Love to you all…

Thanksgiving. Bird Watching. Bread Baking. Sewing. Snow. Cookie Making.

It’s been quite a couple of weeks around here, what with finals and the beginning of the holidays…
But my second to last semester is finished, and I can spend the next month being creative, and dangit I’m jumping in head first!
My husband and I celebrated our fourth anniversary the day before Thanksgiving and I was thrilled to have him up here for an entire week.  It’s hard living in separate cities, but it’s only six or seven more months and I’ll be able to move down there…
My sister and her family came to visit for a week during Thanksgiving and we had such an amazing time.  They are a beautiful, incredible family and I am so proud that they are part of ours.
For Jason’s and my anniversary, which is always the day before Thanksgiving (whatever day that falls on), we had a wonderful dinner – yes, we like any excuse to eat!

For Thanksgiving, Mom and Suvetta put out the good linen and dishes, we all pitched in with the cooking, and it was absolutely lovely…

The other day, just as the weather was turning, the birds came out in full force.  I throw seed on the ground just outside my french doors so I can get a close look (and to entertain Godfrey), so I planted my butt on the floor with the camera and tried to get some shots.  None came out terribly well – I need a better camera for that – but I thought these were rather pretty:
Red Bellied Woodpecker…

Tufted Titmice…

Black Capped Chickadee…

There are two things that I’m really excited about now – one, I am back in the studio sewing.  No pictures of current projects, but I’ll tell you that I’m working on a fitting block dress.  I’ll explain more when I post pictures.
The other thing is that I’m back in the kitchen.  Yesterday I started a loaf of sandwich bread using Michael Ruhlman’s recipe from his blog.  Mom baked it last night, and I’m about to tear into it for lunch. Reviews to come!

Then today after I came home from work I made chocolate chip cookie dough which will rest in the fridge for a day or two before being baked.  I also made some spritz cookies with the cookie press – now I just need to glaze them…

I also have cut-out cookie dough in the fridge and will probably bake those tomorrow. Yes, it’s cookie time – we’re getting ready to make our gift baskets.  What a great excuse, huh? 
I almost forgot something huge – an extremely generous coworker and avid deer hunter gave me an entire deer, skinned, gutted and moderately butchered.  It was unbelievable!  Beautiful, beautiful meat that Mom and I spent several hours finishing and vacuum sealing. We made a roast that night which Mom and Bill didn’t care for, but I absolutely *loved*.  It was incredibly mild, but I guess they don’t like venison at all.  No problem – Jason and I will enjoy it, and we won’t have to buy any red meat for at least a year.  Now *that’s* the way to do it.
To top everything off, I woke up to snow this morning – a beautiful white blanket of snow…

Anyway, aside from my stress over finals, it’s been a lovely couple of weeks. 
Now on to our regularly scheduled program…

Custom Fabrics Galore!!!

Spoonflower is a site where you can print custom fabrics as well as purchase fabrics that others have designed.  It’s wonderful!  Not cheap, but wonderful nonetheless…

Now I’m all inspired to make some lined garments, just for an excuse to have fun, unique linings for a little suprise…

An entire day!

This is a thrilling, rare experience – an entire two days OFF! 

Now, don’t get me wrong – I’ve got tons to do.  It’s a great opportunity to get caught up on some schoolwork for one thing. But I simply refuse to let this beautiful fall day go by without enjoying it a little bit.

1. 10 Minutes a Day!

1. Bedroom:	done!	5. Studio:	done!
2. Bathroom:	done!	6. Hall & Stairs:	done!
3. Kitchen:	done!	7. Patio:	done!
4. Dining:	done!	8. Office:	done!

--> Reorganize CDs:

DONE DONE DONE!!!

I have added a new region to my 10MaD – the patio.  Until winter hits, it could use some daily attention, too.

2.  Craft: Toiletry Bag

I’ve gotten pretty tired of having loose toiletries floating all over my suitcase (yes, I use a real, vintage suitcase) when I go out on my 24 hour shifts.

I used this tutorial from Craftster.org as a guideline for making a new toiletry bag. The square shape in the tutorial wasn’t appealing to me, so I went ahead and let it have the angled sides that naturally occur when you use a simple rectangle for a pattern.  The fabric is stuff I have had laying around for years – and it worked beautifully for this project.

The tutorial is fantastic – I only got confused when I tried to not follow the directions (though I still don’t really know what she means when she said to “pivot” at the zipper).  But it’s okay – it worked out in the end and didn't even take very long.

3. Fix the Sun!

Oh my gosh, I did it!  I finally fixed my wonderful, beautiful sun.

Mom gave me this pillow many, many years ago.  20? 25 years?  I don’t remember.  He’s a beautiful hand painted sun with his eyes open on one side and closed on the other. 

He got this little hole a long time ago – at least 15 years ago – and only tonight did I get around to fixing him.  I love him so much and can’t wait to get him hung up.

Can you believe he’s been sitting in this sad little plastic bag for more than 15 years?

And all because of this little, bitty hole.  I was so terrified of it getting bigger that I just put him away…

And of course it took all of 10 minutes to get that little hole mended. Now he’s sitting on my side table waiting for me to install a hanger in the ceiling. It’s so good to have him back!!!

It’s been a good day.  I guess I’m on the right track…

Sweater pillow!

Had a little time to just chill last night so I decided to throw together a sweater pillow.

What’s a sweater pillow, you ask?

Well, I went to the thrift shop and bought some old 100% wool sweaters.  When I got home, I washed and dried them a few times until they became very felted.  Each washing made them softer, denser, and of course smaller.

I cut it apart and sewed it together again, this time with a pillow form stuffed inside.

I didn’t remember to take photos of the step-by step, which I’ll remember to do with the next one, but here’s a bad picture of the finished product.  Okay, almost finished – I want to move the flower a little away from the corner…

It’s a fun, cheap and rewarding project.  I’ve got several more to do before they end up in the Atlanta apartment…

later…

Okay, so I moved the flower and it’s much better.  It still needs something…I’m not sure what…but I’ll call it done for now: