New dinner recipes tried

 Hello, everyone. 

There was a gap in posting because of the disorganization conected with the big freeze and power outage. I have a renewed appreciation for heat and electric lights now!

DD2 had a camping trick she shared with us, when we were puzzling in the chilly dimness.

She taped a flashlight onto the neck of a bottle of clear liquid and the light refracted around part of the table.

The new food is part of renewed emphasis on healthy eating. Sliced mushrooms and onions, roasted broccoli tops and carrots, and cute little meatballs. Tasty!

Starting to think about Christmas

 Hello, everyone.

It's getting toward on Christmas if you're thinking about making things for people! Or making new decorations to expand what you already have.

I tried out a new embroidery pattern. (Thinking about doing it with Mylar shiny stuff but wanted to try it out just as it is first.)

This is a free-standing lace heart. It's being done in red, because Christmas, and it came out nicely. One little thing, though: if you're patching together the good parts of used pieces of wash-away stabilizer, you might not want to use those patched pieces for the free standing lace items. The patching stitching shows between the stitches.

But it's not super obvious.

My other new discovery is that stitching on the mylar stuff dulls the needle really, really fast.

A new sewing project under way

Hello, everyone.

I have begun a new sewing project--well, it uses a previously sewn orphan block, so it might be called stash usage instead.

This "chenille" Christmas tree block was made by mistake when I was at the Jingle All The Way class at A Block Away. (Selected the wrong size in the pattern choice screen. Oops. there are a LOT of items in that set of patterns, it's important to read the size and check the book before starting to sew it out.) As there isn't any place for the small chenille tree in the quilt, and none of the bonus projects seems to have a spot for it either, the block has languished in my sewing studio. 

I noticed a round pillow form, likewise languishing in disuse, tucked into the tub of "things" and after some mental experimentation concluded that the tree block needed to be a round block to make it look nice. And as the pillow form is 14 inches, there will be a surrounding gathered bit to connect the tree block fabric to the side seams of the pillow. Whether to put a bit of piping in is still up in the air.

This required a nice round circle to be made on the block for trimming. Also for seaming, of course!

Enter my Janome circle sewing guide.

 

Above right, the cute little gizmo almost ready to do its thing. The black bit sticking up is the protective cover on the *sharp* tack point. This is the trick that makes the fabric go in a pretty circle with no divots or bobbles in the line.

Above left, the tack cover was removed and the tree was centered on the tack. I placed the tack cover GENTLY on the point as I'm not fond of bleeding on the work. 

Left, the back of the package, showing where it goes on the machine. 

This worked out very well.

I gathered the border strip in the usual way with a row of long-ish stitches and gentle pulling. It's currently in the process of being basted onto the seam line y'all see in the top left photo. After the basting (hand basting, don't faint, sometimes it's the only way) is done, I will stitch the ruffle down, make the two parts for an envelope closure on the back, and assemble the pillow. 

Revisiting fleecy embroidered toys

Hello, everyone.

Yesterday I tried a new approach to the stuffed toy made in the hoop: making an opening to begin with in the back side.

How? you wonder. By piecing the back from two pieces of fleece with an opening in the seam for stuffing later.

The final back side of the kitty. (The seam line can be brushed out if one wants, the minky style fleece has a definite, though short, pile.)

While trimming I accidentally cut the seam allowance off on one of the paws, but that was easily repaired.

The only tricky thing about this pieced back was the sudden discovery that it is really important to tack down the seam allowances of the center back seam. (The seam allowance got eaten up by the foot, and it was a bit tricky to cut it free. Plus there was a small hole in the fabric at the end.) With that adjustment, the trick worked. And an opening that is hand stitched closed with seam allowance at the opening is sturdier than one that is just pulled together with stitches across a slit, and a better looking result than cobbling together seam allowances at the slit that will work like an unplanned dart. IMHO.

This is one of the Minkee Pals toys. It's about hand-sized, and you use the small (not miniature) hoop to make it.

Obviously, since the fleece I have is white, the colors were changed. I think they work out okay. And even though I bought the white remnant expressly to make these critters, I am going to use up the rest of the white: it's officially from stash now. (Found the remnant at Hobby Lobby.)

The kitty can be a toy for a baby, as everything is securely stitched down. It can be a small Christmas gift. It can be a package tie-on. It's a little bit small for a fidget, I think, but the back side is uninterrupted pile so it could even be that. Maybe it could be tucked into a pocket on a fidget, with a little tethering ribbon so it doesn't get lost. A flock of them could be party favors for a children's party.

A new coaster project

Hello, everyone.

At the time I ordered the flowery bull pattern, I also ordered a little flower border. It may or may not become a border on a shirt--but it has certainly become a coaster design. I started with the method in the Sew4Home coaster project, only this time used the new border design.

At the bottom of the color change sheet is a thumbnail of the border the way it was imagined by the designer. (Appears to have been sewn out on ivory colored fabric.)

As iwth the Sew4Home project, the rectangular border bit was copied until there were four and the four were manipulated to become a hollow square.

At the end of the sewing, having accidentally cut a bit too narrow at the turning opening, I deployed basting tape to hold the opening closed for the edge stitching.

Finished. And there is still enough of the navy blue linen to make one more: a pair!

(Linen from stash, threads from stash on hand)

So I looked at Needlenthread, the blog of Ms. Corbett, and was inspired

Hello, everyone.

Ms. Corbett has a very helpful and inspiring blog about needlework. She emphasizes surface embroidery, and it's always fun to drop by there and see what's up. There is a link to her blog along the side.

Recently she mentioned that she has a big magnifier for her embroidery station, by a window, and showed what she is doing to keep the lens covered while she's not working with it. She also mentioned that keeping a magnifier covered when the sun is out can be an important safety habit.

This inspired me to see what I could do to keep mine covered, as it's recently been set up by a window as well.

This took only around three hours to cut out, embroider, and sew. All parts were found in the stash-on-hand, too!

The fabric is some ivory polyester dupioni that was left over from a wedding dress a while back. User tip, I should have secured the edges of the piece before putting it into the Qsnap frame. It frayed quite a bit and loose threads had to be corralled a lot. Because of the nature of this fabric, the cover bag was sewn up with French seams on the sides and a folded over double seam at the top.

The flowers were just sketched with a pencil. The threads are cotton floss, two strands. The floss could be DMC, or Anchor, or some random brand. The cover is not expected to be washed, anyway. And there are quite a few bits and bobs of thread on little cards to use up.

The stems are stem stitch, the leaves a variation on feather stitch. The blossoms are daisy stitch, with French knots in the centers.

The casing is ribbon. So is the drawstring.

This was a fun little project and solved a need as well.

Camino del Norte memories: Tapia de Casariego

Hello, everyone.

I was playing with picture files on my computer, trying some of them in grayscale, and thought I'd see if a picture from Tapia had been posted on the blog already. 

Possibly not. The visit/pass through at Tapia was included in a note about Ribadeo with very little detail.

Tapia has a municipal albergue. It is famous for the scenic view. (Otherwise it is quite basic. And heaven help you if you are there on a Sunday when fewer things are open. Tapia is a very small place.) It is one of the albergues where, if you start your day with fresh tape, you have to go outside and hope the sunlight is enough.

We got some photos of the sunrise from the albergue before we left. I converted one to grayscale and cropped out the invisibly-dark grass at the bottom. This is what was left:

So, if you're very visually oriented, this is what you can see on a spring morning in Tapia as the sun comes up.  The little flash in the rock is a tunnel carved there by the waves.

We met a very nice lady on our way out of Tapia. She told us about roofing styles (being in the architecture business and concentrating on roof design) and after that we were more aware of the slate vs tile roofs of the regions as we walked. She said that the old Camino had not gone straight to Ribadeo, but south along the river through various villages to another bridge, and then back north.  She said it was very pleasant and scenic. Perhaps if we walk the Norte again we will go that way!

We were, frankly, eager to get to a place with a washateria and get some laundry clean, so we elected to go straight to Ribadeo, crossing the high bridge--using the pedestrian walkway, it wasn't all dangerously scary--and getting there early. We then chose a hotel that was close to the washateria and got busy making ourselves look more human.

FYI, Ribadeo on I think it was Monday, doesn't have an open Turista office. (Kind of like museums, really.) The nice police people gave us a map and stamped our credenciales IIRC. Ribadeo was a pretty town to stroll through and admire the buildings and park.

A little kitchen trick

Hello, everyone.
DH and I like to make our coffee from freshly ground beans. We have a little grinder to do this. Over time, ground up bean dust drifts throughout the space under the cover.

The little grinder.

This morning there was a visible brown dust coat on the inside of the base. Problem: the base cannot be immersed in water. I have tried using an old toothbrush--we keep one by the sink for these kinds of jobs--and it didn't work. The bristles point the wrong way to reach into the recess the grinding cup sits in.

Enter the general purpose duster of small nooks and spaces. (A little brush for cleaning sewing machines would also work, if one had a spare that could get coffee grounds in the bristles. It probably won't be usable on the sewing equipment any more, though.)

I turned the base upside down over the kitchen sink and dusted the recess with the paintbrush.

Success!

After-action Report: dopp boxes

Hello, everyone.

This is a small note about how the dopp boxes worked out in practice.

1. They have enough space, if one uses the elastic loops on the lid for storing some things. Otherwise, if one puts the stuff in there in a heap, it becomes somewhat frustrating.

2. A construction note: while most of the seams were glued with Fray-chek after sewing to keep the fabric from raveling, the zipper seams were double stitched and not glued. This was a mistake. Both ripstop and flag fabric ravel like nobody's business. They should have been glued at the edges like the other seams.

3. The shape of the box was reinforced and somewhat defined by the placement of toothbrush, hairbrush, and the folded camper's towel. If one doesn't use the contents to stabilize the shape, the little square turns into a somewhat shapeless lump. (See comment #1.) The standard blow drying brush fit exactly into the diagonal of the box and the toothbrush did also. The other items fit into the triangles of space on either side of the hairbrush.

It's still a good answer to the toiletries problem, at least after the necessary glue lines are added, and is worth re-use on future trips. As deodorant was kept in a folded plastic bag instead of a push-up tube, it just went into the corner. Cotton swabs were in a small box that exactly fit along the side and was exactly the right height to help with the shape as well.

(No picture needed on this post, I think.)

A little crafting tip

Hello, everyone.

Things have been busy, but also there has been a little time to do creative things. And Easter is coming. My local sewing club is working on a project for Easter decorating--placemats. There were a couple of variations to choose from, so I went with the one in the Jo-Ann's project list. It involves several fabrics for the egg stripes, plus backing fabric, batting, plus a good amount of bias for the binding. (Translation: a lot of stash is going bye-bye with this one! Even though there were some new fat quarters purchased from my local quilt shop.)

I cut the bias strips from a piece of fabric and sewed them together in pieces that are long enough for each placemat shape. Then I realized that there are a lot of pieces of fabric running around in this project, and expected to be a lot more, too, and they have to be kept organized. Especially the long bias strips that will tangle and become impossible.

I "recycled" a ribbon spool that was left over from decorating a little while back. As the bias is folded in half and pressed already, the spool holds two strands side by side, and I can keep loading it up until either the spool is full or I run out of strips to store.

Updating on the spin mop

Hello, everyone.

A year or two back, I mentioned that we'd acquired a spin mop. (The Salad Spinner of floor cleaning!)

Well, it got its feelings hurt that I went out of town for a week and when I got home, DH told me that the fool gadget was failing to spin properly. It's hard to mop floors--or shower walls for that matter--if the mop head doesn't drain properly.

I had recently had no luck at all with a similar mop at a relative's house, so several of the ideas that would have been tried were already eliminated. I decided to fall back on one of the more tried-and-true fixes for sticky devices.

Liquid Wrench, next to the mop head. (Strands removed for the moment.)

 Below, photos of parts that were sticking and needed lubrication.

Starting another fidget mat

Hello, everyone.

Fidget mats are supposed to be very useful (at least for people who were fidgety before they became ill) to assist dementia patients. There are lots of them on Pinterest.

The mats are also great ways to use up stash! This time, the base fabric is cushion cover fabric, a poly-rayon chenille design of assorted circles and squares. Very modern! The color tones are browns and creams.  The zipper element thus got a contrasting color for its flanges.

While applying the zipper to the mat, I noticed that the pins were difficult to remove.

It's good to have a tweezer around! It worked really well to just nip those tips in and pull the pin out, and even to then insert the pin into the pincushion on the machine.

The zipper element, a fairly common part of fidget mats, is there for the sole purpose of being opened and closed. This one got a small blue heart added behind the zipper--three cheers for bead stash!--so the person can find something under there besides the base fabric of the mat.

The mat is presently ready for binding.

As y'all can see, there are a lot of neutral colors in this one. The flowered circle is a re-used piece of embroidery, which has been backed with muslin and made into a pocket, with a little bit of lace added to ground the circle a bit. The ribbons sticking up from it hold a cheerful button that can be slid back and forth along the ribbon. The animal print at top left is faux-fur, and it's really soft! The chenille pattern gives texture all by itself, and some of the design elements were outline quilted to increase their prominence. There are buttons to the right of the pocket, some with beads on top of the button, and a dangle loop from the red rosette holds an enamel cross (removable for laundry.) There is also a sprinkle of beads in the circle next to the fur, and the green dangle can be moved around, as well as allowing a person to slide the silver-colored tube bead up and down a little bit. The zipper tape is left over from one of the Fabulous Pack Duffels made last spring, with an extra pull added so it's a usable zip.  (ByAnnies.com has directions on how to do this.) Also the red-ribbon rosette, which sits around the shiny gold button but is't sewn down, can be spun.

All the mat needs now is bias tape around the four sides and it can be given to the person. (There are two more chunks of this chenille fabric waiting in the wings to become mats also!) I'm thinking that if there is enough red bias that would be perfect.