Thursday, August 23, 2012

I love aprons

After about a day of rest, Flo (my sewing machine) got to work on something other than a quilt.  I know, I know!  I don't remember when I cut out the pattern pieces for this apron, but it was sitting there on my to-do pile.  During the school year, I go through aprons in class pretty quickly, so having another one is always nice.  I even put the optional pockets on this one.  I think I bought the fabric at Hobby Lobby (last summer, maybe?), but I have one more completion to add to my summer list.  Who knew that having to go back to work on Monday would inspire such sewing out of me?  :)


I think I'm up to having 5 or 6 full aprons now.  When I'm teaching high school or junior high foods, wearing an apron is a very good idea.  My students know that if I'm ever wearing fancy clothes and heeled dress shoes, we're not cooking that day.

And yes, my hutch contains more fabric than it does breakables.  See why I've been sewing?

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Another finish

I woke up today at 4 in the morning.  Not because I wanted to, but because somehow, my body thought I was ready to be up.  After trying to get back to sleep until 6, I gave up and went to do some sewing work.  I spent some time cutting out borders and miscellaneous other pieces of fabric.  I don't actually plan to put the borders on today, though.  My sewing machine needs a day off, and my brain is still to sleepy to actually sew anything together without making any mistakes.  I have a nice pile of strips to start on the borders, but two quilt tops with double borders (and a third quilt top with a single border) will take me more than an hour or two to do.  I'll put up pictures when I'm done, though  In the meantime while I contemplate a mid-morning nap, here is another project I finished this summer.

A long time ago when I was an undergraduate student, I went to a FACS teaching conference.  One of the activities involved embroidery to make part of a pillow.  Well, I actually finished the embroidery pretty fast, but I didn't really care for the pillow style that the instructions had.  I made two other embroidered squares on my own, and I set them aside waiting for the day when the perfect fabric would appear.  Fast forward a few years.  I had found a fabric that would work, but I still didn't really care for the pillow pattern.  I'm not really into primitive style decorating, and the pillow pattern was all about mis-matched plaids and the primitive look.  I was walking through Walmart one day this summer when I saw a hanging frame.  I thought, "hey, that has 3 openings; maybe I could use my embroidery there."  I'm sure you can see the end of the story.  I bought the frame, painted it an off white (buttermilk, to be exact, Mom :) ), and trimmed down my embroidered squares to fit into the frames.  I like it a lot, much better than a pillow, and plus it's one more project off my to do list. Isn't summer fun? :)





Thursday, August 16, 2012

Jolly Rancher Lollipops


Instructions:

1) Preheat oven to 250 degrees F.
2) Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper

3) Place 3-4 unwrapped Jolly Ranchers onto the parchment paper.  Make sure to leave 4-5 inches between suckers if making more than 1.

4) Place cookie sheet in oven and bake for 8 minutes.

5) After 8 minutes, watch the candy through the oven door.  You will need to watch carefully for this next step.  When candy has melted into one large glob, but still kind of holds its shape, remove from oven. The glob stage can take anywhere from 2-5 minutes or so; you just have to keep watching it.  

6) Remove pan from oven.  Immediately roll lollipop stick into end of melted Jolly Ranchers.

7)  Let lollipops cool for 2-3 minutes.  Carefully lifting edges of parchment paper, lift the parchment paper off of the cookie sheet and move to the counter.  Your lollipops will still be warm and flexible, so be careful not to drop them or knock them off of the sheet of parchment paper.

8) Let lollipops cool completely (10-15 minutes).  Once completely cool, package & tie or eat & enjoy.



Here are the results of our latest batch:

Sometimes they come out with really weird shapes--but they still taste good!

We used more than my recommended 3-4 candies here; you can see what happens when globs meet (sounds like a horror movie waiting to happen--Attack of the Sugar Globs!)
I had good helpers.  What's more fun than giving a 4-year-old lots and lots of sugar right before bed time?

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

I'm on a roll

This summer, I've spent a lot of time trying to organize/clean/sort out my sewing room.  I have found comic book boards to be a fantastic way to hold fabric, but I'm slightly frightened at how many boards it's taken to start to contain my fabric collection.  At least  I found a local source so I don't have to keep ordering the boards online.

In the interest of getting projects done, I finished sewing the sashing on a lap-size quilt tonight.  I can't show you pictures of it yet, though.  Although the person for whom it's intended doesn't read blogs, his mom does, and I don't want to spoil the surprise.  I got a quilt back pieced tonight as well, so I feel like I'm finally making some progress.

I also managed to get a fleece blanket tied tonight.  The fabric is a purple and white spotted leopard, with a purple fleece layer on the bottom.  I know it's crazy, but I like it.  Plus, it's one more project that I can cross off my list.  On a tangent, have you ever put something you've already done onto a list, just so you can have the pleasure of crossing it off?   The fleece blanket is going to live on the edge of my couch; during the school year, I tend to fall asleep there a lot.  Plus, I live in a basement apartment.  Extra blankets are always nice during the winter.

Anyway, as soon as I get my other computer fixed, I can upload pictures from my camera and show you some actual details of what I've been doing.  I made some Jolly Rancher lollipops last week with some of my favorite little persons (nephews and a niece), and I for once remembered to take some pictures.  It's an activity I do sometimes in my class at school, and the lollipops have never failed to turn out.  The only real problem is making sure that some Jolly Ranchers make it into the oven to melt, rather than all of them disappearing into your mouth. :)

Update:  here is a partial picture of said blanket.

The pillow I actually made while in graduate school.  When I was growing  up, my grandparents had two quilts with the parasol lady pattern at their cabin.  One had pink sashing, and one had orange sashing between the ladies.  I remember looking forward to sleeping under these quilts every time we got to visit.  I think my sister and I may have even competed to see who could get the quilts first, but I'm not sure of that memory.  It was really fun this summer when my eldest niece actually got to sleep under the fabled quilt.  Nice to know some things never change. :)

This pillow was my attempt to try to recreate the pattern.  Turns out the interfacing I used was too heavy to turn into a quilt block, so I improvised and made a pillow instead.  One of these days I might find a lighter weight interfacing and make an actual quilt.  Of course, I might just keep the pillow as a reminder of the quilts.  My little sister has already tried to swipe borrow this pillow one or twice, so I think I might need to keep an eye on it.  

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to my favorite 12-year-old.  I hope it's wonderful, G-unit. :)  The 30 foot weasels send their best wishes as well.

Here we go again


I've had a few requests lately from family and friends to post pictures of my many projects.  Since I'm always up for compliments and admirers, here we go.

I recently helped two of my cousins make some pajama pants.  We added a pocket on to the original pattern, and I love that the pajamas just match my cousins' personalities.  The girls did all of the cutting and most of the sewing themselves.  I did do some seam ripping and resewing when we needed to fix a seam allowance, and my aunt helped me pin the hems, but the girls did about 95% all on their own.  

It was funny later that night as I was going to bed (late); my cousins were still up playing with the machines, trying to create new things.  I fear that I've helped to spawn a new hobby. . . :)

The finished products
No, my cousins are neither
Smurfs nor have blue faces; I'm doing a little privacy protection. :)