Finding Balance

I recently read the following and it really connected with me. I thought I'd share.

Right Living in a Consumer Society by Roger Pritchard

We feel alienated from our work. We don't love what we do, we merely tolerate it. We work only to earn money, and we use that money to consume more than we really want. We feel a dissatisfaction with our lives, and yet we feel powerless to change.

Our modern economic system is based on the manufacture of goods, the extraction of natural resources without regard for the consquences, the progressive eliminiation of meaningful work, and the constant increase of consumption. Consumption is insatiable: we want more and more and the economy has to grow and grow to meet our needs--just like some cancer.

We are materially wealthy beyond our own wildest dreams. Yet we feel uneasy. Studies have shown that there is no correlation between happiness and wealth, fulfillment and material possessions. People in our society regularly report that to be happy they "need" about double their current income.

"Right livelihood" offers us a positive alternative, a middle path between growth for its own sake and stagnation. An increasing number of Americans are following this path. Many of us are looking for ways to break out of the current system. We want to reduce consumption, conserve natural resources, cut down on pollution, eat more simply and nutritiously, bring more spirituality into our lives, and develop more of a sense of community. More and more of us are convined that each generation should meet its needs without jeopardizing the life support system of future generations.

Those of us who start on path to right livelihood find that our lives are more balanced, simple, clear, and focused. We are no longer strung out in a meaningless cycle of material consumption.

The contemporary economy focuses on this cycle of consumption. It doesn't really support our efforts to find meaningful work. Today, work is a means to consume or to pay debt for consumption already indulged in. How many people do you know who really love the work they are doing? How many feel bored and alienated? How many are simply earning the money to spond it on material pleasures?

Right livelihood demands that you take responsibility for making your work more meaningful. Good work is degnified. It develops your faculties and serves your community. It is a central human activity. Work, in this view:

* makes you honey with yourself,
* requires that you develop your faculties and skills,
* empowers you to do what you are really good at and love to do,
* connects you in a compassionate way with the outside world,
* supports the philosophy of non-destructiveness and sustainability, and
* integrates work with personal life and community.

In our time only artist have been given permission to look at work this way. So you might say you should consider your life a work of art. And whereas those who follow the way of the starving artist are expected to accept poverty as the price they pay, those who follow the way of right livelihood are not. Right livelihood gives material well-being a place, it simply does not put it on a pedestal. In right livelihood, material wealth is not the "bottom-line." The true goals of work are, rather, self-fulfillment and wisdom--and, ultimately, enlightenment.

Those who pursue right livelihood are neither in poverty nor strung out in an overextended cycle of material consumption for which work is simly a means. They do work that feels and is right for them, for their community, and for the planet.

Most people find that it takes years to make the transition from the mainstream to this new way of life. First you have to admit that you are responsible for your self-actualization. Then you have to make the journey. This can be a painful process--to let go of the old and familiar ways always is--but most people are very satisifed with the results.

Don't think you have to take this journey alone. In fact, it's terribly important that you look around and find people and groups who wupport the right livelihood way of life. Giving and getting support while trying to meet the challenges of learning a new way is key. And shartin gthe journey with others of like mind ensures tha tyou keep your motivation high.

You can start small, perhaps by recycling or using more public transit. As you gain experience and confidence you can begin planning larger steps such as a career change.

Most people find that it takes years to make the transistion and settle into this new way of life. But once they have embarked most people report increased feelings of self-esteem and well being. They feel good that they no longer wupport the damage that the industrial era has done to the planet and to people. They have found a positive, balanced alternative through right livelihood.

Dairy and Soy Free Cookies. Yum yum

Anyone else out there dealing with food allergies in a small child, I feel your pain. My little one is too little to understand why she can eat the cookies with everyone else at Sunday School.  :o(  And it isn't that we didn't send a snack for her, it's that I didn't know they were having cookies, and apple sauce and a banana just don't cut it in comparison to cookies. So, time for me to make cookies that she can have since there don't seem to be any cookies in stores that she can have other than ones that contain peanuts!


I've modified a basic chocolate chip cookie recipe to come up with something yummy that everyone should be able to have (except for her Uncle Todd who happens to be allergic to almonds). 

Makes about 50 small cookies

Ingredients

½ cup         125 ml    Sugar

½ cup         125 ml    Brown sugar

1 cup          250 ml    Dairy and soy free margarine

¼ cup         50 ml      Almond milk (or other milk substitute)

1 teaspoon  5 ml        Vanilla

2¼ cups      550 ml    Flour

1¼ cups      300 ml    Dried fruit of your choice (we like dried cherries—but check that they haven’t been coated in soy oil)

1 teaspoon  5 ml        Baking soda

Steps

Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C).

1.       Soak whatever dried fruit you plan on using in hot water.

2.       Cream margarine and sugars until light and fluffy (you can use a wooden spoon or a mixer).

3.       Slowly add the almond milk, mixing well, then add the vanilla.

4.       Combine the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl then add the dry ingredients to the creamed mixture and stir to blend.

5.       Fold in the dried fruit.

6.       Drop by teaspoons on greased or parchment-lined cookie sheets (If using stone-wear baking trays greasing or parchment-lining is not necessary).

Bake in the preheated oven for 8-10 minutes.

I haven't looked at any brands of chocolate chips or bakers chocolate to see if there is a variety she can have. There certainly weren't any chocolate cookies on the shelf of the store that were dairy and soy free.

I killed the camera!

Well not really, but I have to deal with the fact that the card in it is completely full. Somehow I have to find time when my little girl is awake to download all the images/video on to my husband's computer so they can be deleted off the camera. So I am still showing, just can't do posts with pictures. . . yet. . . 


I'm also off on a permaculture/gardening kick. I have to have the planting plan submitted for my community garden plot this Friday, so a lot of my possible computer/sewing time is being spent on that. I'll have more to share with you soon!


In the meantime, if you are interested in permaculture at all and university lectures don't scare you off, nc state distance education has a set of twenty-nine 90 minute lectures the include topics such as soil ecology, vermicomposting, green architecture, etc. This of course excited me to no end. If you feel the same way check it out here: http://mediasite.online.ncsu.edu/online/Catalog/pages/catalog.aspx?catalogId=f5a893e7-4b7c-4b79-80fd-52dcd1ced715

Exciting news!

The sun isn't up, the snow is falling and I'm sitting here smiling. Why? Because I'm sitting here in my cozy alpaca socks and planning my garden plot!  :o)


I got the news yesterday, I was able to get a garden plot in one of my local community gardens. It made me smile. 


So now I'm off to You Grow Girl's post about the lazy gardener's seed starting chart (in excel--so it does all the math calculations for you) and to http://www.seeds.ca/ to find out when my local Seedy Saturday or Sunday (seed exchange focused on heritage varieties) is.

I LOVE treehouses!

There something you probably don't know about me. I LOVE treehouses! And I dream of one day having a low maintainance, environmentally friendly cottage.  

 This is a part of me that hasn't been reflected on my blog so far. Really all I've wrote about is sewing, food, and baby stuff. There is a lot more to me than that! I feel it is high time that I share more of this part of me. After all, I can't be the only person out there that has this dream can I?  

I've loved treehouses since I was little when Philip, Ashleigh and I built a really cool one all by ourselves. My room was the biggest and the floor was a discarded door. How could any 9 year old not think it was the coolest thing in the world?

Well, I'll be thirty this year, and I'm not afraid to admit that I want another treehouse. The one we built as kids is long gone and it is high time there were another in my life.  

The one I want to build is going to be a more adult version with things like a level floor and actual walls around the outside. I'm planning on doing a spiral staircase around the tree trunk and have a pulley system for carrying things up (like groceries and luggage). It will be in the neighbourhood of 550 square feet. We may put two small lofts in it for sleeping spaces. It will house a small kitchenette, a banquette, and some comfortable seating, and maybe a small wood-stove. On the outside I want to have a small screened in porch (4 1/2' x 10') with a few chairs hanging from the roof of the porch like swings.  

I have the tree picked out. Well, almost. . .
I'm having trouble deciding.  

Do I pick the lovely oak tree that is very conveniently located at the end of the driveway that is in a more sheltered area (it doesn't get a breeze in the summer and comes with a very populous mosquito population)? Or, do I go with the tree that you have to cross the river by boat to get to? The second tree is a lovely maple tree beside a very calming creek and has a lovely light breeze in the summer. 

I have to wait a couple of years before the necessary amount of money will be saved, so it isn't a decision I have to make today. But I really feel I need to settle on one or the other to get an action plan in place.  

Decisions, decisions! 

Regardless of how much I want to treehouse, I have to start with something a lot less glamourous. The dreaded outdoor bathroom.  

As I write this there is a broken chemical toilette sitting in a falling down structure the same size as an outhouse. Our current solution is to bush pee and for other business drive to the nearest town (10 minutes out). Clearly not an ideal solution, or a viable longterm one. Especially with a little one that we will need to start potty training at the end of summer! 

Eventually we want to be comfortably able to use the property on weekends during all four seasons. It's on a river, so it would be really cool to go skating there in the winter (as long as the ice is thick enough) and then make s'mores! That means having a winterized bathroom is ideal for us. 

The property is off the grid.  So just plugging in a small space heater isn't an option. I'm actually looking at using passive solar to heat it 90% of the time. It has to be built from scratch, so if we can adjust a few small things when constructing it and not have much in terms ongoing heating and cooling costs, why not? Especially when it only means increasing the cost of construction in the neighbourhood of 10%. That's a heck of a lot cheaper than ongoing fuel costs, especially with the way the cost of fuel just keeps increasing.

I just need to really focus and pick the right composting toilette. So don't be surprised if you hear more about them.

eatrightontario.ca

If you live in Ontario, you may be interested to know that we have a free service that allows us to connect with a dietian really, really easily. I'm not sure if other provinces have this or not.

Yesterday I phoned the toll-free number and was pleasantly surprised when I was talking to an actual human in less than two minutes! And a helpful human at that. She had loads of great information and I feel like I have more of an idea of what we're going to try as a milk alternative for my daughter. Although, it's possible she has grown out of her milk protein allergy at this point, so guess who gets to try a very small portion of milk this weekend if I can find the ear plugs (having a screaming child on your shoulder trying to sooth them makes the ear plugs necessary).

WIP Wednesday

What a week! My daughter became ill with that cold that has been travelling around and then the rest of us got it. No surprise there when you get a wet hand stuck in your mouth unexpectedly. Add a hospital trip for an eye swollen completely shut, a trip to the 'baby doctor' for a swollen belly, then an allergic reaction to the meds for said swollen eye (no surprise there), a ton of snuggling, and you have the last couple of days pretty much covered. Needless to say there wasn't a ton of sewing going on. However, I did manage to finish my daughters new sleep sack complete with zippers and snaps.

My brother's quilt hasn't progressed any further. But I did manage to try thread sketching for the first time prior to getting sick. I'm not 100% happy with the center of the poppy, but it's my own fault for not stopping and looking at an actual picture before stitching it. I used 2 layers of stabilizer since I knew I'd be putting so much thread in the center area.

I'm behind in following along with Leah Day's FMQ along. I don't want to just FMQ a sample piece, so I have to keep stopping and getting something I'm working on prepped to use. I get that a LOT of people are afraid of messing up their masterpiece. I've just decided that I know it's isn't going to be perfect and I don't want the waste of just doing practice. Not that the other way of thinking is wrong, it just isn't what works for me. 

I did manage to get half of my sister-in-laws table runner quilted during one really, really short nap. Thank you to the makers of Benadryl for putting sorbitol in the children's version of their medication, my daughter is hyped up and can't really sleep. 

Now a warning to everyone out there learning to FMQ. I'm really, really thankful that I wear glasses. Not quite sure what I did (probably had something to do with forgetting to switch needles), but I ended up shattering a needle and a very small piece landed in the corner of my eye. After a couple minutes of flushing my eye out, the problem was solved. However, I'm certain that if I wasn't wearing my glasses, a trip to the emergency room would have been necessary for me. I personally recommend wearing glasses while learning to FMQ on your own. Then again, I truly am one of those people who is an accident waiting to happen.

And last but not least. . . our daugher is turning one in a couple of weeks. Yay! Allergy testing can finally happen.  :oD  I'm super excited about this! I decided it would be nice to have a birthday banner made from outgrown sleepers and some scrap hot pink interlock. I used one of my new AccuQuilt dies to cut the triangles. I'm still trying to decide between ribbon or cotton binding as what I'll sew the triangles to. But I better decide soon, her birthday isn't going to wait for me to make up my mind.

Check out what everyone else is working on here:

and here:

WIP Wednesday

I still can't bring myself to do a full tally on what I'm working on. . . I have a strong feeling that the list is a little bit insane, so I'm avoiding that knowledge. I'm also avoiding starting a couple projects that are calling my name until I finish a couple things. 


I did some FMQ this past week and blogged about it on the post before this one, so I'm not going to talk about it here. But I realize that I have some other WIP progress I haven't shared here yet.


I have the quilting design for my Asian Bargello prepped.   :oD  The picture is the process I use for tracking out large scale designs on really, really cloudy dark days.

I'm super excited to get quilting this, but I really need to finish off my last couple Christmas gifts first. (Our TV isn't a plasma, it's glass so for those of you having a heart attack seeing this, it's OKAY. No TVs are being harmed in the making of my quilt.)


Speaking of which, this table runner for my sister-in-law is ready for quilting.

Don't mind Bella. She thinks the camera loves her and therefore she should be in all photos taken. I swear she sees the camera come out and comes running. It's quite comical to see. It's also the reason that I don't press prior to photo taking. I'd have been seriously annoyed if I had pressed it and then cat paws wrinkled it up again.


Then of course, My red piece. I thought M-R's idea of exploring colour this year was a great idea. To read more about it go here http://www.quiltmatters.blogspot.com/2012/01/colour-my-world-colour-your-world.html.  I don't know that I'll get a chance to follow along every month, but there is no harm in trying. This is where the piece is at right now. 

I still have to thread paint it, and I probably should have read a little bit more about the technique I was planning on using. I should have used something to control the bleeding. But it was a lot of fun and I think it will make a cute cover of a book or pencil case, or something.


Check out what other's in Canada are doing here:



And the linky party on Lee's WIP Wednesday here:



PS. I'm using flickr to upload my pics instead of blogger for the first time. It's sooooo much easier. Why didn't I try this before?

Cat's and quilted items and a little bit of FMQ

What is it about cats and quilted items?


I've been learning to FMQ using Leah Day's Free Motion Quilting Project and decided to take some pictures this morning. The light filtering in was perfect. Well it turned into a bit of a cat photo shoot! 

This isn't the actual course of events. Really you could hear me saying things like, "Pia, stop blocking the light!", "Bella, you fatso catso get off! I'm trying to take a picture.", "Pia, do you have to lay on everything that's white prior to letting me take a picture?!?" Clearly they did have a bit of a fight over who's quilted item it was. Jokes on them though, it's for my daughter.

Anyway back to the original point of this post. 

I'm pretty happy with the advice Leah Day shares in weeks one and two on quilting. She's moved away from the little 4" blocks and decided to go back to the basics. If you want to see what advice she has to offer, check out here website here:

I, of course being me, didn't follow her instructions to a "T". But I did stop and listen to what she had to say and learned a lot. These are my results so far:

I know, I know. I was supposed to not cross over the lines I already made.
But I got bored and like crossing lines so I did it any way. 

My version of a worm. We sometimes call my daughter a "wiggle worm".
Needs some work, but was a lot of fun to quilt in.

A shot from the back so you can see the stitches.

Considering this is my first project with any type of actual FMQ. I'm pretty please with results. It's only up from here!

Where are all the cool knit fabrics?

Okay, I have a confession. I love knit fabrics!

They're comfortable, snuggley, don't fray when you cut them, and come in 100% cotton. Why do people hate them? What makes people afraid to sew with them? And where the heck do I find more selection of them?

There isn't a lot of fabric manufactures printing knit fabrics out there for the retail market. I know the fabric exists. Almost all of my daughters clothing is made from the stuff. Yet, when I go fabric shopping there isn't much out there. Patty Young seems to get it, maybe it's because she has two young girls and makes a lot of children's clothing patterns. 

Many people would recognize this:

or this:

But I want more! And I'm not willing to accept the polyester garbage. 

For now I'm focusing on projects with small pieces, so it's fine, I can re-purpose my daughters old clothing. But at some point, it would be nice to just purchase 100% cotton yardage.

Victoria and Albert Museum--super cool patchwork generator!

Have you tried the patchwork generator over at the Victoria and Albert Museum website? I've known about it for a while, but I was always trying to use images of actual people and was really unsatisfied with how unrealistic the result was. 


Well today it dawned on me that the patchwork Canadian flag quilt that I want to do would be the perfect project for trying out the patchwork generator!

What do you think? I always see Amercians making all kinds of quilts for the 4th of July. Maybe this is my year to make a Canada Day quilt?


I'll probably simplify it and only do the maple leaf as patchwork. Oh how I wish I had a bunch of red scraps to do this as a scrapy quilt! Hmmm...maybe I go rerun it with just the maple leaf. If anyone wants a copy of the pdf that they generate, let me know and I'll email it to you.


Edited to add:
Looks like this is my WIP post for this week. Check out what everyone is doing here:

and here:
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WIP Wednesday (mostly)

It's official! I'm back to work. Monday was my first day after being off for a full year. It's a bit of a shock to the system, but my daughter is taking it like a champ. . . and I get the most amazing hugs when I get home and see her. Not that I don't get hugs from her all day long when I'm home with her, but these are different hugs. The kind that come with the biggest smile you've ever seen and really have a way of warming the heart.


Now back to all things fabric. Do you remember when Lee of Freshly Pieced posted about her lego play mat? (If not, you can read about it here.)

Photo belongs to Lee of Freshly Pieced.
This is not my work, just the inspiration for what I am working on.

Well, I fell in love with the idea, but realized right away that I just didn't have the necessary skills with the rotary cutter to cut the angle pieces accurately. There was no way I was going to use scissors to cut it all. And I really didn't want to order a custom die that I may only use a few times (although I do have a lot of ideas how pieces like that could be used to make a reproduction of a quilt from the Infinity Quilt Show that was in New York some time ago).


Well, I want to make similar bags for my daughter, but with a lot less time invested. Anything that makes cleaning up and organizing easier is a good thing in my mind when little children are involved. But at the same time, I want my sewing time to be for me and what makes my creative juices flow.


So, I made an easy-peesy method out of knit fabric! It's my go to fabric when I don't want to deal with fraying edges.


I started by using a ruler as a compass to make a quarter circle.

Then after folding the fabric in quarters and cutting out the 1/4 circle

Then I cut holes spaced equally apart.

And then ran a matching ribbon through the holes, long enough to stay in while the 'play-mat' is laid out.

Now I plan on cutting out some funky flowers out of some knit fabric and stitching them to the outer edge. I was annoyed with the fact that it's really difficult to find a variety of 100% cotton knit fabrics. And then it dawned on me, clothing that my daughter wore out and isn't good enough to sell at a Mom-to-Mom sale is the perfect source for making flowers!

So my next step is to chop this up.

I'm also working on a blanket for a little new arrival, but I didn't do the letters on the blanket in a knit and they've already started to fray! No wonder I love my knit fabrics! Because the letters didn't start to fray until after I had put in the last stitch on the binding and now I need to cut out the woven cotton print without ruining it. :o(

What is everyone else up to? Check it out here:

and here:

WIP Wednesday

This week has been all about embroidery.


I finished embroidering this:

And I've been working on learning how to use an embroidery machine (thanks Mom!) and digitize my own graphics. A lot of the celtic/norse knotwork I see out there isn't what I want, so. . . I'll make my own. It's fun too!


I also finished my Dad's laptop bag.

I had a lot of fun making it. My Dad drives all day long and his laptops are constantly being vibrated and can be in and out of the cold sometimes. Since "this grade of felt is suitable for vibration absorption, resistance to abrasion and wear" (from www.thefeltstore.com) I'm hoping that this helps reduce the wear and tear on his laptops for him. 

Now, back to digitizing this file so I'll be ready to make my equilateral triangle quilt soon:

Check out what other Canadians are working on at The Needle and Thread Network. Hopefully Lee's WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced is back soon. Check out what everyone has been up to here: 

WIP Wednesday--still working on Christmas here!

Yeap, that's right. I'm still working on Christmas gifts. My parents are driving here from Saskatchewan and that has given me a little bit of extra time to work on my Dad's and Sister-in-Law's gifts. Good thing too because my package of felt that I had ordered went MIA for a week and is the main material in my Dad's gift! But it did eventually arrive safe and sound.


Here is what I've been working on doing with it:

It's a little hard to see, but I think you can see the turtle I embroidered on the 1/8" thick felt with my sewing machine. I wish I had of had some of the thicker Aurifil threads that I just learned exist. Oh well, I'm really happy with how the turtle turned out and know my Dad will appreciate it. 

The lettering is much easier to see. I used my AccuQuilt Studio with my AccuCut alphabet dies and cut the same shape out of both the grey and the orange felt. I really like the look of the orange felt inserted where I've removed the grey felt. Next time though I'm going to go with a thinner felt, the grey became really difficult to cut. I did some random stitching over the letters to hold them in rather than trying to glue them like I originally had planned (the glue I was going to use isn't safe for me to use while breastfeeding). I tried to give it a watery, wavy feel. Not quite sure I achieved that, but I think it looks cool. It's time to sew the rest of the pieces together to finish off the laptop bag before they arrive tomorrow.


I was really surprised how easy the felt was to work with, even though it's so thick. The felt was ordered from a Canadian source, just a few kilometers from where we live (www.thefeltstore.com). Yay! I love buying from local suppliers, feels like I'm keeping jobs in my community.


 I had no issues with using my rotary cutter and one of my quilting rulers. I found it a lot easier to cut than I do quilting cottons. I can think of another project around a year ago where my husband probably would have been a lot happier if we had done that. Oh well, we have the knowledge to try the rotary cutter first now! 


And for that other Christmas project for my Sister-in-Law:

I think it's looking a lot better thanks to everyone's advice. I'm really surprised at how much I'm enjoying it. This style of snowmen really isn't my cup of tea, but I'm not totally hating the project. I'm really enjoying the process and seeing the simple line drawing come to life. There will be more hand embroidery projects in my future I think. If you're wondering why I set out to do something that I don't like, it's because my Sister-in-Law will love it. And by love it, I mean LOVE IT. 


I had a couple finishes this week. A pair of lounge pants made in interlock with a gambling print for my Uncle P. (Which my Mom loves because they say "hit me" on them.) I also finished my daughters Christmas stocking. Just in time too! I finished it the morning of the 25th before she woke up.

I can't wait to show you what I made for my Mom, but she actually reads my blog. So you'll have to wait to see it until after I give it to her.

It really is Christmas in the USA today

We don't watch a lot of TV around here, so I quite often don't hear about the news until it shows up in my husband's MacLeans. But this piece of super exciting news did make it's way into my bubble:

The Mercury and Air Toxics Rule Released by the EPA

You can read a brief little bit here:

http://www.non-toxickids.net/2011/12/mercury-and-air-toxics-rule-released-by.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Non-toxicKids+%28Non-Toxic+Kids%29&utm_content=My+Yahoo

Or watch President Obama here:

Maybe this is happening now because of the upcoming election and the pressure Obama has had from voters who helped put him in the office the first time around. However, cleaner air for Americans is a really, really good thing. I'm really thankful for them, that someone in power is stepping up and staying enough is enough. . . and not unselfishly wondering when we'll do the same thing here in Canada. But still, a big hooray for Americans! 

And a Merry Christmas to anyone celebrating this week. We are and today's the day to me!

I think I killed it! And not in a good way either

I've always had a lot of respect for anyone who does beautiful hand work. Now I have even more respect!

I really do think I killed it. . . so much for simply reading the instructions and following along. I was only doing a back stitch and it's such a small table-topper, I really didn't expect to have so many issues from the onset.

Do you see what happened to the thread? Yikes! Clearly I'm not doing something right.

Thanks to my Mom, I have an embroidery machine and digitizing software. I think it will be a lot less of a headache trying to complete this in time for Christmas if I just digitize it and do it on the machine. (I've already digitized half of it.)

But, I'm not giving up! I'm going to figure out how to do this by hand at some point, because I really do think it will look better done by hand. Any tips for me?


PS. I really is a lovely pattern! I ordered it from the Sew Sisters Quilt Shop (based out of Toronto).

Play Dough :oD

I don't know if you were like me and liked to eat play dough as a kid or not. Oh how I loved to make things with my play dough! It was almost as good as playing at the water table. Because of my lovely habit of eating play dough, my mom used to make the play dough for my entire kindergarten class. I guess she realized it was a lot easier to make it from something that couldn't hurt me than have the constant battle of telling me not to eat it. 


I'm not sure at what age you start to introduce play dough, maybe at 18 months? 2 years? Gosh, I have absolutely no clue! Anyway, I'm ready for when the time comes, whenever that may be. Forget the over priced store bought kind made with nasty chemicals, I have the recipe [insert evil laugh here]. And, I'm going to share it with you. [okay so maybe the evil laugh doesn't fit after all]



2 cups all purpose flour
1/3 cup salt
2 tablespoons alum or cream of tarter

2 tablespoons of oil
2 cups boiling water
Your choice of colourant--food colouring, jello powder, or kool-aid.
(Some people add 1 tsp of cinnamon)


1) Mix your dry ingredients together in a bowl.
2) Mix your wet ingredients together and then pour into the dry ingredients bowl.
3) Stir until you can't, then knead until smooth.


Store in an air tight container, ziplock bags work great.

Is it stealing?

I really want to do some really cool FMQ on my Asian Bargello. I'm picturing two really cool koi fish circling around each other. Now, I'm not particularly skilled in terms of drawing. What I see in my head doesn't come out on paper. To compensate for this, I've mostly stuck to abstract art in the past (my perfectionism doesn't get in the way there). So I "borrowed" an image from a google images search to use as a starting point. I've edited the photo I "borrowed" a little, but not significantly. However, I'm also sure that it will look different once I've stitched it in to the quilt.

But is it stealling? I'm not selling this quilt or profiting from it in any way. I just really appreciated the quality fish Koyosan drew and wanted to use that as a launching point for my creative indevors.

This is Koyosan's awesome fish:

http://koyasan.deviantart.com/art/Gold-fish-145015978

This is how I've changed it somewhat to use as a guideline while I'm FMQ:

Picture the above as the primary the quilting on this quilt:

I'll have to add some other background quilting to cover the needs of the batting. I'm cosidering different wave options, but don't want to detract from the fish.

But, I'm on the fence. I can't decide if I'm abusing my googling and CorelDraw (yes, I prefer to use Corel products for graphic manipulation) skills and plagerizing (or whatever the artist equivilant of that is) Koyosan. Or if I'm just being inspired by the excellent work Koyasan has done. I'd like to consider it a spark, but I'm not sure if I'm just making excuses.

Anyway, check out what everyone else is working on here:

http://needleandthreadnetwork.blogspot.com/

WIP Wednesday

I can't tell if I'm in a turkey coma (we decided to pretend we were American on the weekend and had a thanksgiving dinner with some loved ones we missed the first time around), or if maybe I'm tired because my daughter has 7 swollen gums and is little miss cranky pants today. Who can blame her? If I had 7 swollen gums (5 of which are back teeth), I'd be a little miss cranky pants too!

But on the bright side, I've been sewing a little when I'm able. My husband is really great and understands my need to do something creative for at least a few minutes every day for some sanity. I've made great progress on my Mom's, my sister's, and my in-law's Christmas gifts. Now if my Dad would stay away from his laptop long enough for my Mom to take measurements, I'd be a little closer to having more than half the Christmas gifts I'm making this year well on their way to completion.

I have a finish, albeit a really simple one. It is one of the bags we'll be using to 'wrap' Christmas gifts this year, rather than dealing with wrapping paper and tape. A) It's great for the environment; and B) It's great for the lazy mother that tires easily of wrapping gifts (a.k.a., ME). And who doesn't love that little robin holding on to a letter for Santa with a little bit of gold sparkle to it?



Next, I was just messing around with some HSTs. I needed to add a HST listing to AccurateCuts' etsy store and needed pictures to do so. I ended up piecing the HSTs just because I could and knew I wouldn't have to trim them to square them up after. :o) 

Not quite sure what I'll make out of the square though. I don't have more of the fabric, the rest is being used in my TSX quilt that is sitting in a pile in a deep dark corner of my sewing nook not to be resurected until maybe February, or more realisticly April.

Anyone out there making charity quilts that could use a 12 1/2" square (as pictured above) for a charity quilt? I'd be happy to donate it.

WIP Wednesday -- Stroller Blanket

If I had to describe sewing in one word, I would chose "empowering".

When I am using something and I don't like how it functions, or I can't find what I want in a fabric I like, I know I can make it. That is an amazing feeling for me.

This week's post is a prime example of that. I am tired of picking the blanket from the stroller off of the ground. It doesn't matter what ingenious way I try to wrap it around her legs, it will come off. She doesn't seem to care that I've wrapped it around her legs to keep her warm. It's like she thinks it's the "let's pull every book off the shelf" game. Fun for her, not so much for mom.

So, I'm in the process of making a warm sac for strollering. We walk just about everywhere, and this just seems like something I can't live without. Why I can't buy this in stores I don't understand. But it is okay, because I'll just make it if you don't want to sell it to me you baby product marketers out there.  :oP

So without further ado, here's my stroller sac (so far)!

I've used a really soft and cuddly flannel on both the inside and the outside with two layers of my go-to batting (Warm and Natural). I had some fun with my new sewing machine and played around with my choice of stitches on the quilting.

 And to make sure I don't infringe on the safety features of the stroller, I added an extra large buttonhole on the back to allow the safety strap to go through.

I still have to finish off the top and I'm thinking of putting in some short ties with snaps to connect to the stroller. Haven't quite decide if I want to use a piece of matching solid for that or if I'll just continue with the same fabric.