The Lost Art of Mending

The other day I had the most gratifying experience. I mended. I had a pile of clothes that needed various repairs/alterations that had been sitting around for maybe...years? The stuff that was Maddie's now would fit Elle, and somethings were too small for any kid to wear. It's one way of dealing with mending. But while while my husband was working on our basement, I thought I'd patter around in my sewing shop too. I decided to tackle the pile. And you know what? It wasn't that bad! It only took a few minutes to fix this hem here, and sew that strap on there and replace the elastic on that.

But the fun part was darning. Yes, I said darning. Have you ever darned? I highly recommend it. And as soon as my machine comes back from its tune-up I will do a darning tutorial. Because describing it just won't do it justice. And it's so darn fun. Sorry. Couldn't resist that.

So don't wait til your mending pile is out of date, grab your stash and someone to talk to (this always helps) and get your mending done! You will feel thrifty and prudent and gratified! I promise.

Last Harvest!

Hello everyone! This is Emily. I'll be blogging for this week, and then it's Andrea's turn again.

Today I'm busy wrapping up the end of my gardening season. I've already plucked all my tomato plants out of the ground and brought in the last clinging tomatoes (we already had our first freeze!). I've got them in boxes hoping they're far enough along that they'll ripen, or else it's green tomato salsa for me! But to be honest, I am so done canning this year. I didn't get quite as much canned as Andrea (I think I only did about 100 jars--mostly tomatoes) but the thought of getting out all the gear--strainers, and stockpots, and jars, canners... ugh. I've got more ripe tomatoes sitting on my counter that I've neglected a bit too long. Oops! Into the compost pile! All right, it's canning time for me!

If you're in the same boat, ripening techniques can be found at Tipnut.com or wikihow.

And just in case your tomatoes don't ripen, there's tons of recipes for green tomatoes also at Tipnut. I might be testing these out!

What's for dinner?

I am sitting here at the computer printing a recipe for Sweet and Sour Chicken that is a family favorite because I seem to have misplaced my copy.  I just have to give a little shout-out for my favorite source for recipes these days:  Allrecipes.com.  I just can't say enough good about this website, but here are a few of my favorite features:

• The recipes are rated, so you don't have to worry about using a dud.  And you can actually go through and read the reviews written by other cooks so you can get ideas on how to improve the recipe, or a pitfall to avoid.  You can also rate the recipes too!
• The ingredient search:  I LOVE THIS!  I have literally plugged in ingredients that I needed to use up and seen what kinds of recipes came up.  Sometimes I know what kind of recipe I am looking for and just need to find one that has a certain ingredient, and maybe one that doesn't have another.  You can search for ingredients that you want to include and exclude.  This would be a great feature to use if you have food allergies.
• Nutritional information:  A lot of the recipes also have nutritional information provided.  This is fabulous for people who are counting their calories, or needing to watch their sodium intake.

If you join Allrecipes you can have your own online recipe box where you can save your favorites too.  Check it out!

This is my favorite time of year

although I have to admit, I much prefer autumn in the east.  It used to be that every time I expressed my lament at the lack of trees here in Utah, my husband would look around at the mountains and say, "What are you talking about?!"  Then we lived in northeast Indiana for a few years, and he finally understood.  The fall colors on the mountains are beautiful nonetheless.

What could be more natural than for me to combine my favorite season with my paper fetish?

 

I have two pictures so that you can see more detail in the card.  The flash creates a bit of a glare on "gratitude", but it highlights the cool colors in the embossing powder on the leaf.

Stamps:  Autumn Leaves (how appropriate) and Stampin' Up!

Paper:  Bazzill, DCWV, Roberts Crafts, The Paper Company

Embossing folder:  Quickutz Leaves

Magic Mesh:  Brown fine weave

Ink:  Versamark     

Ribbon:  Michaels

Embossing powder:  Stampin' Up! and Creations Unlimited

Sewing Machine:  Brother

I love harvest time!

Emily and I have both been canning up a storm the past few weeks, and she asked me yesterday how many bottles I had canned.  I honestly had no idea, so I decided while the latest batch of applesauce was in the steam canner that I would take inventory.  There were 193 bottles!  Here's what I have canned this year so far:

• Pears - 7 quarts
• Pear Jam - 13 pints, 5 half pints
• Pear Mincemeat - 3 quarts, 1 pint
• Peaches - 39 quarts
• Peach Jam - 6 pints, 5 half pints
• Peach butter - 7 half pints
• Peach chutney - 4 pints, 4 half pints
• Tomato Salsa - 26 pints, 4 half pints
• Tomatillo Salsa (salsa verde) - 9 pints
• Tomatoes - 7 quarts, 16 pints
• Elderberry Syrup - 4 pints
• Elderberry Jelly - 5 half pints
• Chokecherry Syrup - 4 pints, 1 half pint
• Blackberry Jam - 8 pints, 5 half pints
• Apples - 5 quarts
• Applesauce - 5 quarts

Phew!  And there will probably be some grape jelly and maybe some plums to come.  Call me a geek, call me Betty Crocker, but I think bottled fruits and veggies are beautiful!  They just look so much prettier sitting on my shelves than ugly aluminum cans.  They make fabulous Christmas gifts too!  That said, canning is hard work and in the process of doing all this I learned a few things.  First of all, personally, unless you are growing it yourself or have been given the produce for free I don't think it's worth it.  Unless you really love canning, it's cheaper to go to the grocery store.  Second, ask your friends and neighbors if they have bottles they aren't using and would be willing to give you.  The jars are expensive, and although you can use them over and over again, it's great if you can get them for free!  Third, recruit a friend or member of your family.  It goes way faster and is a lot more fun when you have someone working alongside you.

Just for laughs, here is my Top 10 ways that you know you've been doing too much canning (and I'm not admitting anything!) and they are in no particular order:

1. If your two year old has watched every DVD in your collection
2. If said two year old refuses to eat at the kitchen table anymore because he has eaten so many meals on the couch in front of the TV
3. If your 8 year old sends you an email saying that she hopes that I, "have good canning days," and when I'm done could we please do some crafts together?"
4. If your house hasn't been properly cleaned in weeks
5. If the weatherman says that there's going to be frost, and instead of covering up your beloved heirloom tomato plants you just let them succumb to nature
6. If you tell your neighbors that they are welcome to anything in your garden they want, if they will just come and help you do the canning!
7. If every horizontal surface in your kitchen is covered in a layer of sugar syrup
8. If your husband has been able to sample 4 different varieties of salsa
9. If your fingers are burning for days after chopping the peppers used to make the salsa (I know, I know, I'll use gloves next time)
10. If your family would never know that you love to cook because you have been feeding them frozen pizza and every other frozen leftover you've been able to find.

Update:  Make that an even 200.  I did 7 bottles of plums, and I think if I can anymore I'm going to have a nervous breakdown, so that's enough for this year!  ;-)

Time for a change

Anyone who ever has followed this blog knows that I haven't updated it for a long time - for a year as a matter of fact!  I think I figured out that even though I know how to be frugal, I don't necessarily like talking about it all the time.  So I started thinking about what I feel passionate about, what I would have fun sharing, and what (hopefully) would be fun for others to read.

Here's my confession:  I'm a housemuffin.  What is a housemuffin you might ask?  I don't know who originally coined the phrase, but I know that I am a housemuffin because I am the daughter of a confessed housemuffin.  My mother is one of the most creative, intelligent people I know.  My mother sews, cooks, gardens, and is an incredible artist just to name a few of her many talents.  She taught me the joys of working with my hands, and perhaps more importantly, home was a place that I wanted to be because of her.  Because of her fine example I too am drawn to the "domestic arts".  I like to cook for my family, I love to go into my craft room and play, and I love a clean and orderly house - well theoretically, it doesn't happen that often!

I would also like to welcome my good friend and fellow housemuffin, Emily.  She is one of the most talented and creative people I know, and I might add, is much more adventurous when it comes to trying new projects than I am.  I love reading her blog and can't wait to read her contributions here.

If you don't feel like you have been blessed with talents in the domestic arts, I am here to tell you that they are worth aspiring to!  As Emily and I find the divine in our day to day domesticity you will have opportunity to share in our triumphs and failures in everything from crafting to housekeeping to provident living.  Here's to finding fulfillment within the walls of our homes!

My garden survived!

I just returned from a 12 day vacation and should be blogging about that, but that is going to have to wait.

Thanks to a friend's vigilant care, I returned home to find that my garden not only survived but that she had been feeding it steroids! Seriously though, I can't believe how huge everything is, especially my tomatoes! My zucchini and squash plants are ENORMOUS (bush variety, my foot!) and I have already harvested 2 zucchini. I may just have to get the shotgun out yet though because I can see evidence of where some zucchini blossoms have been nibbled off. Those stupid deer!

As you will see from the pictures below, the stars of the show are definitely the tomatoes. I decided to try some heirloom varieties this year and for those who are interested, here are the varieties I am growing: Japanese Black Trifele, Aunt Ruby's German Green, Cuor di Bue, Tigerella, Speckled Roman, Yellow Brandywine, Super Sioux, Italian Heirloom, Hillbilly, Snow White, Cherokee Purple (not sure if that one is heirloom), and Brown Berry. In the future, I won't try and fit 5 tomato plants into these planters because I am going to be hard pressed when it comes to harvesting trying to find all the tomatoes! The tallest is my Yellow Brandywine which is 46 inches tall! I am not the most experienced gardener, but I have never seen tomato plants this size. Now I just need to figure out how I am going to get the tomatoes to grow as big...