Growing Green Onions

My mom has always been an avid gardener.

I think it was therapy for her to go out into the garden all my herself and putter in the soil.

And she could make pretty much anything grow!

Well....God made it grow of course.

But really, she could take just a snipping of something, plant it and it would not die!

I have always wanted to try my hands out on gardening but where God has us right now there is no place for planting.

However....Green onions can be grown indoors!

When you buy green onions at your local produce store, they come all intact with their root system!

When you are ready to use them in your culinary creation...

Leave about two inches above the roots uncut.

Place a paper towel in the bottom of a clear glass or jar.

Fill jar/glass with half an inch of water.

Place in your window.

Watch them grow!

It's as simple as that! 

The weather is turning cold here and I have fresh green onions ready to use anytime! 

They keep growing like grass!!

A Little Preparation Project

Wow! It's been a while since I've posted on this little spot in cyber-world. Summer has come and gone with all its craziness and settling down into a routine is a nice thought but in all practicality I highly doubt that it will happen....

....you see, in 5 weeks a little person is scheduled to enter our world!

I thought I would quickly share one of the projects I did over the summer in preparation for this little person!

YEP! 

Cloth Diapers! 

Cloth diapers have come a long way since my generation was in them! 

No more gigantic safety pins!

These are adjustable with velcro or snaps!  

AND they are actually kinda cute....for a diaper! 

The initial purchase of cloth diapers can be expensive. So I decided to start out my cloth diaper experience with a craigslist find and see how it goes! 

The "G-Diapers" that I found were in really good shape but did not come with the inserts. 

I looked online and new inserts run about $5 each.

OUCH! 

So,  to Google I went and began research on DIY cloth inserts.

I read a lot about different materials and their absorbent levels and chose to try Micro-fleece and Micro-fiber. 

This was a middle of the road choice....cheapest on one side and all natural fabrics on the other. 

I'm not a natural freak but nether did I want to go so cheap that I forfeit the absorbent quality. 

Micro-fleece is a little more expensive than regular fleece but it is softer on the baby little butt!

*Note* never put the fiber side touching the baby. It will dry their little bottom out too much! 

I let J pick out the color! Thus the Hunter Orange - WABANG!!! 

It actually worked out quite nicely because when I went to the store to get the micro-fiber towels they only came in neon colors! 

*Note* find micro-fiber towels at Walmart or any automotive shop.

I made 21 diaper inserts for around 70 cents each! 

Not Bad! 

AND I had fun doing it! 

Can't wait to try them out!!

COUNTDOWN!!!!

Without Power is Possible

Were you one of those children who thought a power outage was a great adventure?

I was!

I loved it when the electricity would blink off and mom would pull down the candles and lamps from the high kitchen shelf.

It was exciting to pretend that we were living life like the folks of the olden days!

Because of those found memories I, even now, don't mind when the power goes down.

It's amazing really how so much of our daily life activities require electricity. It is a convenience that we take for granted every day.

Coffee Maker
Microwave
Computer
Fridge
Dishwasher
Washer/Dryer
On and on......

Today our area had a planned power outage due to a pole replacement.

It was a lot of fun making due without electricity for several hours!

Time in the Word was sweet! The desk under the window was a cheery spot! I could not type notes into my "Devotional" Word Doc. but a notebook did the job just as well! 

A Letter!!! J and I communicate a lot via my e-mail. Learn how we do it HERE. Since E-mail was inaccessible I took the opportunity to sit down and write him a good old fashioned letter! It's practically a lost art today...

SEWING!!!  Without a machine!! 

I've been working with hexagons! I could still work on this project with the power down because these hexagon flower are simply whip-stitched together! 

I didn't even need an iron because of a handy-dandy little sewing help that my Aunt V gave me! 

FABRIC GLUE!! These make hand sewing hexagons so much more happy! You simply apply some glue to the edge of your hexie template and fold the fabric over! TUDDA!!! 

You can even make butterflies out of hexagons! 

With or without electricity, I hope you all had a wonderful day! 

Tee-Shirt Quilt

I live in tee-shirts almost everyday. Most of them hold memories of places I went or events I attended. What to do with them when they are no longer wearable....sew with them!!!

Over the past 2 weeks I've used some of my time to make a tee-shirt quilt out of a bunch of my old Camp tee-shirt!

This was my first attempt at such a project and I made a few discoveries of what I will NOT do again and what I would do again!

I will not share a detailed tutorial with you since many of those can be found online written by much more experienced quilters.

But I hope I can inspire you to make one yourself and maybe you can get a couple ideas from me!

Without mentioning how many times I pricked my fingers...I had SO much fun with this project!

J encouraged me to make this quilt with random size blocks. As you can see no long horizontal or vertical lines catch the eye.  

Just a hint - this makes for some awkward seems. If you want a more straightforward tee-shirt quilt HERE are some great instructions. 

What you need: 

- Tee-shirt (the more the better)

- Quilt Batting or old blanket 

- Fabric of your choice for backing and binding (I just used inexpensive cotton).

- Mediam Weight Interfacing 

- Rotary Board, Ruler, and Cutter

- Scissors

- Tape measure 

- Calculator  

- Note pad

Even with the aid of my calculator I had a brain workout laying out this quilt! I'd not done that much math since grade school. 

1. Lay out your tee-shirts on your floor before cutting them. Checking to see where you will want colors and designs. 

2. Use your tape measure to make sure your tee-shirts will be wide/long enough for the size quilt you want (60x80 is what I did). 

REMEMBER TO FIGURE IN SEEMS!! I did half inch seems - that meant my blocks would be cut 1 inch wider and longer than I wanted them to end up. 

Do your math, double check, triple check before you cut!! 

I used a note book to draw out a diagram of the quilt as I went along. This helped me  keep track of all the numbers.

3. Cut your shirts 

4. Iron on your interfacing to each block

HINT: make sure your interfacing is not smaller than your block. If it is, your tee-shirts will stretch as you sew them together. 

5. Sew your blocks together 

If you look at my quilt above, you will see that there are 3 patches that are off set. What I did for these was to put 2 pieces of iron on interfacing together back to back (sticky sides to the outsides on front and back). Then I quickly sewed them together, cut it to fit my patch, ironed it onto the main panel, and then hand stitched around the edge. 

HINT: make sure to put a cloth over your patch when you iron it on or else the design on the tee-shirt will melt onto your iron. Yes...this happened to me...

6. Lay out your backing, then batting, then your quilt on top of that. Making sure it is all flat, safety pin the 3 layers together. 

7. Quilt the layers together and finish it off with the binding of your choice. 

I chose to hand quilt.What I did was to quilt around the tee-shirt design. It looks pretty cool on the back! 

This is the very first quilt I have ever quilted together. In the future I think I will appreciate machine quilting! 

My fingers became very sore! I tried using my mom's thimbles but it made my fingers feel big and clumsy. 

So here is what I did instead! 

It worked GREAT! :D 

J and I want to take many camping trips in our early married life. So, since this quilt is made out of my old Camp tee-shirts I think it will become our camping quilt! 

I am NOT a quilter and this quilt came together fast and was a lot of fun for me! So if quilting looks ominous to you, try your hands out on an easy quilt like this and see what you think! 

Have fun!!