Drop Spindle

When I first learned to spin, about a couple years ago, the instructor gave me this. All it is, is a sick with a hook on one end with two cds sandwiched together on the stick. It was terrible.

Somehow, I spun this:

Not too bad considering.

If you remember, I posted about it first here.

I had also spun some on a wheel, which was more successful.

Now that I'm in a new place, I want to finish up all my projects that were on hold. There are a few, one being this wool.

When I was in Solvang last week I came across this store:

Village Spinning and Weaving. I remembered that when I was taking that class a while back the woman told me that this is where I could get a spinning wheel, or a drop spindle. Considering that a wheels can cost about $600, I chose an $8 drop spindle. I spoke to the lady a bit, she wondered why I didn't get a wheel since I liked them more. She doesn't realize that once things go about $200, they might as well be $1000 because I'm not going to buy it on a whim!

Here is my new drop spindle

I spun a bit today, and set it aside. Its not a very fun activity for me. I prefer other things. My goal is to finish this wool, dye it yellow like the rest of my stash that I spun, and make something.

Just for sun, some garden pictures. I was playing with my camera this morning out in the yard.

A garden spider, hanging out on the tomato cage. I must say, I love spiders. They don't hurt the vegetables, and I'm hoping they will eat all the bad bugs!


A little cactus a friend gave me. Home to some spider webs, and doing well in the sun.


The peach blossoms!


On the agenda for today -
plant the herbs out on the front patio
joann's trip for some elastic and to search the scrap bin

Making Kid's Pants

I found a couple posts online about making pants using a simple tutorial.

To see the tutorial, click here.

There was another post about adding awesome pockets..

Here is my version of the pant. Definitely not finished. I need elastic for the waist, I need to hem the bottom of the legs, and I have plans for some other decorations.




Can you tell me photos were taken with my new camera? I'm getting the hang of it, I think. You can especially tell in the photo with the close up of the seam. So fancy!

Also, Etsy update! Two new blankets, check out the shop with the link at the top of the page!

Music Monday #2

Typically when I listen to my ipod in the car, I skip through songs that I'm not very familiar with, with the occasional stop on a song with an interesting title. I'm really glad I stopped for this song, which is now one of my favorites.



Today I didn't work on any sewing project, that will come in the following days. Today I had my parents visiting, as it was my birthday. On the weekend, my husband took me to the wild animal park, and we stayed in a beautiful bed and breakfast. On the way home we visited our close friends who have a 3 week old baby. They are very lucky and we were honored to meet the little guy. It was truly an amazing weekend.

At the park, we fed giraffes. They tried coaxing the rhinos out for apples, but it didn't happen.



At the bed and breakfast, there were amazing sunflowers and other wildflowers everywhere.




This morning my husband surprised me with a happy birthday banner downstairs, and a new camera! I've been really wanting a fancy schmancy camera, and he really went all out.

It truly was a wonderful birthday.

Fremont Camping Trip

Back from my camping trip. It was a hot, dusty, tiring few days, but I definitely found a place I'd like to go camping again!
The campsite was in the Los Padres mountains, about 3 or 4 hours from my house. The campground was called "Fremont", but if I had to do this again, I'd camp at "Paradise" camp, which was closer to the swimming hole, farther from the main road.

Our campsite


The swimming hole. It was the perfect temperature, and very deep. It was a great quite place to relax.


Neat little blue dragonflies


I tried making this easy recipe I found for little cakes inside orange peels. They didn't work out at all. Too long cooking, too close to the fire.



Link Love

light sensitive fabric dye.
Girl's dress from an apron.
cute little mushrooms for gardening
Unique baby blanket/carrier

Music Monday #1

I'm instating a bit more of a schedule with my posts, which I think will help me organize my thoughts a bit more.
Mondays are now : Music Mondays - Songs to Sew to!

This will include a song that has really inspired me this week, as well as sewing projects I'm working on.



My husband introduced me to this song a few days ago, and I was instantly obsessed. Something about it really makes me want to move to the middle of nowhere and sit in a field all day doing nothing, or climb trees, ride horses, things of that nature. Oh, wait... I wanna do that anyway.

Today I mostly finished the birds I am making for the cousin gift.
Here they are sewn.

And stuffed.

They just need their tail sewn shut, and then I will work on the hanging string.

I also finished a blanket today. I anticipate that there will be an etsy shop update Friday.


After this blanket, I will concentrate on clothes for a little while. I ordered my new labels, and hopefully they will be here quickly.





Tomorrow I am leaving town for a few days to go camping/getting a haircut/meeting up with friends in my old town. That should all make for a fun update when I get back Friday.

Giveaway

Imagine Childhood is giving away $75 to their amazing shop. I would live with just about anything there!

Click here to enter!

Attempt at goose bread

Today's post was supposed to be how I made beautiful Goose Bread and how scrumptious it was. It has now changed to - how I ruined the Goose Bread and what I would have done differently.

You need -

1 tsp yeast
1 tbsp honey
1 cup hot water
1/4 cup sugar
1.5 chicken eggs (or 1 goose egg)
flour... I think I used about 4 cups, maybe less.
1/2 stick butter

Add yeast, honey, and water together in a bowl and whisk together. Let sit for 10 minutes or so.
Whisk in eggs and sugar

Add 1/2 cup flour at a time until you have a non-sticky dough that you can knead on your counter or cutting board.
After kneading for about 5 minutes, rub your hands with butter and coat your bread.

Put it in a clean bowl and set it aside to rise for 2 hours. Damp cloth on top, of course.


After 2 hours, knead again to get all the air out.
Form 3 balls, lightly flour, and roll into snakes
Braid. I stretched as I braided so it was really long!!

Coil your braid and put in buttered cast iron to raise for 2 more hours. Isn't it beautiful?

THIS IS WHERE I WOULD HAVE DONE SOMETHING DIFFERENT
After the last step, my bread looked AMAZING! beautifully filled the pan...

Next, you are supposed to boil the bread lightly on each side, maybe for 1 minute.
When I tried to take my bread out of the pan it collapsed.

When I tried to take it out of the pot, it broke into a million pieces.
Eh, I baked it anyway...
Disgusting.
I threw it away. It tasted bad after baking. EW.

Do over.
After raising for 2 more hours, lightly coat with melted butter and sugar.
Put bread directly into over at 360 degrees for 30 minutes.

I would skip the boiling. Better yet, don't even touch it after the 2nd rise.
I will try this again another day. Not today.

I'm off to work on some more birds...

Bath Day

Pretend its yesterday when you read this... I had some issues uploading the video. Finally decided to go with youtube...

I now know the feeling parents get when their kids go to a sleepover, or a playdate. True freedom!
Today my husband took the dog to work (they allow dogs, how cool is that). I spent the first part of the day looking for him because I forgot he wasn't here. Then I spent the second half being glad he was away, cleaning dog hair off of everything and baking without little feet begging for things every step of the way.

I went upstairs. No feet.
I went downstairs. No feet.
I opened the pantry. No feet!!!

It was amazing.

On the other hand, I love that dog to death. I couldn't live without him.
Yesterday I got him ready for his big day out. He is quite the stinky dog, so he got a serious bath.

When he first get in, he won't look at me. He is mad.

Bubbles!

Ready to get out.

After he gets out, this is what he does.

Little Birds

Yesterday I made this little bird and decided I wanted to make something for my cousin.
My cousin in 15, lives in Poland, and is into crafting, which excites me. When my mom came back a few weeks ago, she brought me a necklace and bracelet my cousin had made me out of fimo beads that she had made, and I felt really inspired to inspire her.

As I sat there making this bird, I decided I would make them for her. I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to do with these little birds, but my idea is to make something like this :


Hopefully she will look at it and feel inspired to make things for people.

What my birds look like. Before embellishment, of course!





In addition -
I made my first etsy sale today! I was a little overzealous in sending it quickly, but lets pray the payment goes through, HA! Hopefully there are many more to come. Enjoy Colorado!

Easy Baby Blanket Tutorial

As promised, a tutorial on how I make my blankets. The process is fairly easy, and I'm definitely getting better at the process. The blanket I made for this tutorial was the best one I've made yet. There were no mistakes or do over's, which is a first for me!

On to the tutorial.
Place the fabrics you choose to use on a flat surface in the payers you want them to be in when the blanket is finished. You can use any fabric or batting that you like. I used the floor for my flat surface. First layer is my bubble plush fabric, face down. Then, the cotton batting. Its very thin and gives just the right amount of fluff. Finally, the design fabric, face up. For this one I used a fall design by Robert Kaufman called Nutmeg.

Keep in mind, your blanket can be any size. I am making this one large, to fit a crib.

Next, you want to pin your layers together so that when you cut and sew they stay together how you want them.

Then, you want to trim excess fabric to a point where you feel comfortable sewing. I usually trim enough so that I don't have to trim after I sew. This is mainly to avoid extra work, and because there is less risk of mis-sewing layers.

My layers.

Sew your layers! It doesn't matter what color thread you use, this will be covered up.

After sewing, you're going to want to pick a color of satin ribbon that goes with your blanket. Sometimes when you buy its even called blanket binding. For this one, I picked orange. Pin your ribbon around the edges leaving about 1 or 2 inches on the ends where you start and finish.

At the corners, I used a mitered edge. This was something that has become easier for me, but initially was pretty difficult to get a nice seam. When you get to the edge, pin the binding as close to the corner as you can, then begin folding over the next side without worrying about the edge. This will automatically create a dog ear corner which you can pin down.


When you finish pinning and you come the the end of your blanket, the last edge can be trimmed to about 1 inch. Then, I cut the ribbon in half leaving a bit of binding to cover the edge so that it isn't left raw. Honestly, I'm terrible at the endings and beginnings.

After cutting, fold at a diagonal.

This one looked, just ok after sewing.

After pinning, start sewing on the far edge of one of your corners. I use a zig zag stitch on the corners, and a straight stitch on the edges.



Now, you're done! I added one of my labels into the seam as I was going along.



Hopefully, that was somewhat helpful, feel free to ask if I was unclear!