Sewing club

 Hello, everyone.

I really love going to Sewing Club. We meet at our local quilting shop. We all put our heads together and pick out projects, and often the projects are things I would not have thought of before we talked them over. I learn a lot from my fellow members of the club.

This month our project was the Folded Star Trivet or Potholders. Below, the one from class on the top and a second one on the bottom.

This is a pattern from Plum Easy patterns. It uses up a fair amount of scraps from the stash, and a template that becomes part of the project.

I recommend using a fresh sharp (not universal) needle for this one.

Tortilla de Gambas y Hongos

 Hello, everyone.

Yesterday we indulged ourselves:

The tortilla on a plate before cutting. 

A cut serving: 1/4 of the whole.

I used about 2/3 cup of peeled, deveined, raw shrimp. About 5 large red radishes, sliced, salted and drained for a few minutes. About 6 Baby bella mushrooms, sliced. Salt of course and some onion powder. And 5 large AA eggs.

Did it in the medium sized skillet, cooked at about the same setting as for scrambled eggs or omelets,  covered the pan for a few minutes just before the flip.

The flip went perfectly! And shortly after that the proper color was on the bottom--that had been the top--and it went onto the serving plate. 

Sprinkled with some parsley leaves for pretty, as there was some on hand.

This is a low carb version of the wonderful Spanish tortillas de patata we ate while on the pilgrimages. The radish slices substitute very nicely for the potato slices.

We finished it off as our dinner, counting the vegetables in the tortilla as our veg dish and the shrimp and eggs as our protein dish. Yum.

 

Paint

 Hello, everyone.

As happens from time to time, Ye Olde Homestead sprang a leak in the roof a little while back. The leak propagated to a ceiling below it and messed up the plasterboard.

We fixed the roof, of course, and the very amazing gentleman did tape and float work on the ceiling afterwards. We discovered that we had handed him the wrong paint can to do the final coat, so we decided to re-do the paint ourselves.

We put a little more thought into it this time. (Y'all will note the variety of paint chips taped to the ceiling.)

Then we picked another wrong shade! Sigh.

After that dried, we were looking at the various options and decided to mix the two shades half and half and try that. Success!

And that's what we've been up to lately.

If I get any of the Projects Half-Done finished, I will put them up on the blog soon. 

Pony beads and Grandma Camp

 Hello, everyone.

These two weeks have been very busy with DGD and DGS visiting every day. 

There is a large stash of pony beads in the house, and we had some fun with them. DGS put them onto pipe cleaners. I had found some projects online and printed them out. He wondered about making a pumpkin, but it turned out to be in peyote stitch, and I couldn't figure it out at first. Later I found instructions in a video. 

He had lost interest by then, so I decided to see what could be done with straight lines. (Think of Ladder Stitch here.) And then tried my hand at making a rocket ship pattern, as the rocket keychain pictured in the Hobby Lobby pony bead ideas folder wasn't actually available at their web site.

The rocket ship, woven with crochet thread. I don't really have the correct cord to weave these beads  with, the crochet string is too soft and thin. And any yarn in the house is certainly going to be too soft.

The pumpkin at the top looks like it will be too floppy. I turned the page over and tried again on one without a nose, which looks less floppy, but am looking for the kind of string that Mr. Bennett uses in his Turbobeads videos. That is stiffer and will hold shape better. 

Another low-carb breakfast

 Hello, everyone.

Another in the series of low-carb meals: eggs with a sort-of curry vegetable mix. (Or, maybe, eggs with almost-ratatouille vegetables?)

The vegetables are zuchini and tomatoes--no eggplant, no onion--cooked in extra virgin olive oil. Seasoned with italian herb mix and some curry powder and salt. Eggs cooked in the pan after the vegetables with (I think) more extra virgin olive oil for the pan.

It was good.

Working on PHD's (Projects Half-Done): Rudolf

 Hello, everyone.

Today I resumed work on one of the PHD items in the sewing studio: half-circle folded Christmas napkins.

They're cute, but I suspect they're better suited to being a just-for-grins table setting, not for actual wiping of mouths. Though the bright busy candy-canes print on the back side might conceal a little in the way of spots, I think the half circle shape would be hard to get used to using.

On the right, the completed one. This was a Sewing Club project recently. 

On the left, the other one. (I had cut out two sets of half circles before the club meeting.)

Placement: I used the thumbtack alignment trick from the tee shirt project and the bicycle tote project after marking the center of the design thru a small hole in the paper with chalk. Then fiddled the needle to go exactly where the thumbtack had pierced the light blue dot. If one uses that trick, one must be very careful of the point sticking up through the stabilizer! But it gets the centers aligned.

I think Rudolf didn't draw up as much on this second one. I used two thicknesses of Polymesh as well as the Sulky Sticky Fabri-Solvy that the fabric was floated on. And used a scrap of Sulky Solvy topper as well!

All materials were from stash.

I can stop here and just use these two napkins for decorating...that rather appeals to me. As opposed to cutting out more half circles and fiddling with the placement and stuff. 

Coping with the mosquitoes, maybe

 Hello, everyone.

In a recent post the mosquito problem encountered walking after the the area received rain was mentioned. 

On that walk, we encountered a couple of fellows wearing insect veils--whole head coverings. The mosquitoes were very interested in the faces inside the veils, but couldn't get in to bite them. We continued walking and decided that fighting off clouds of bugs in front on the veil beats race-walking to try and stay ahead of them.

Research online not only told of various things like the ones we saw--the one man said his came from L.L.Bean--but also a number of DIY suggestions. The one I went with was the observation that, for keeping no-see-ums out, one can go into almost any fabric store. The fabric is also called "bridal veiling." AKA tulle!

I have a lot of tulle lying around so pulled out the big chunk of green--I keep it rolled on a paper towel roll--and got to work.

The concept: A full-width piece of the green tulle that looks long enough to go from the top of the head down to below the collarbone, gathered onto something at the top.

Ready for hemming. The white serged seam was only for the first go-around. The second time, I switched to darker threads. Attentive readers will note that the sewing clips are making an appearance here. As well as my old, but beloved, sewing machine table!

Tulle from stash, purple-ish cotton binding from stash.

The last stage of hemming: folding over the binding (like for a quilt) and then zig-zagging the edge down. I used green thread for the top, but since the bottom is the outside edge I used lavender in the bobbin.

On the dress form. It is almost completely see-through, so we can view the wildlife while wearing it.

The plan with these nets is to pin them to the top of our bucket hats so the brim will keep the netting from touching the face. Then we will tuck the hem into the collar of the shirt.