I enjoy playing with my camera. I have no idea what I am doing, though.
If you would like to see a real photograph depicting texture, go here:
http://romceg.wordpress.com/2011/09/09/weekly-photo-challenge-textured/#comment-784
I was stunned. You just might find it a jaw-dropper, too.
This blue lace will become the gathered-up fluff ball we use for bath time scrubbers. Some people call them loufas, but that is not what they are. Loufas are tan in color, actually the inside network of a gourd. Since it looks spongy, some people call them sponges. Also incorrect. Sponges are the network of an underwater animal.
Anyway, bath scrunchies are easy to make. Simply measure out a length of tulle or lace 10″ by 60″ or so, fold in half, lengthwise, to 5″ by 60″, sew the long edges together, turn seams to the inside. Then insert a heavy string or small rope and gather it all by tying the string or rope into as small a circle as possible. This will make a very large, soft, and puffy ball of gathered fabric, gentle on wet skin.
To make it smaller and tougher, for calluses and such, gather the entire doubled length and then tie off, from the outside, like a pom-pom.
I plan to make several of the scrunchies for inclusion in the package for the customer, should she decide she needs one to complete a gift. They will not cost much, maybe only a dollar, which would be a about a 350% return on my costs, since the fabric was only a dollar per yard, and actually, is left over from a curtain project. But the customer will be pleased to receive this small thing for nearly free.
We all enjoy finding something we can feel good about purchasing, don’t we. We all should be looking around for things we can include in our daily dealings with all people. It’s the magazine issue you’ve read and passed on, the jar of jam from a huge harvest, or even the offer to babysit, that makes the day for those we meet.
When we keep an eye open for what we have that we can spare, what someone else needs that we can bear to part with, then we practice generosity. We cannot all live with the terminally ill and give them sips of water. We can, though, give in other small, self-sacrificing ways, to anyone we see.
Reach out. The whole world is waiting for a “lace scrunchie.”
How I love preparing for a big project! I think being prepared is one of my favorite pastimes. Of course, it doesn’t hurt a bit that I found most of this grand collection of fabrics for free or at most, $1 per yard at garages sales. Wow.
Not only that, but most of it was neatly folded, just as you see here, and to top that off, clean and tightly-packed in zipper-type bags, smelling of newness and all things nice. Ha! So much fun to find all this lavender-ness standing in line, jumping up and down, crying, “Pick ME! Pick ME!”
Add to that the obvious, my huge collection of actual lavender blossoms, themselves, which you may view here, and you can see I am right on ready.
I am pretty good at staying ready. I am not always so sure for what. How about you?
This time, though, I am sure. I must make as many lavender things as I can, to attempt some sales at a festival in a couple of weeks. So, you might as well ready yourself for lots of purple posts. Ha.
Probably won’t sell much, but these things always make great gifts, and for any birthday, etc., that happens along, I will be . . .
. . . READY!
Yesterday, I finally launched a work I meant to do last year.
And the year before.
Today I actually dragged half the contents of the master closet out into the bedroom and kitchen.
Kitchen? Yes; it’s a walk-through closet connecting the kitchen and bedroom. My side of the bed is exactly ten steps from the corner of the stove where the coffee pot sits each morning. Heh, heh.
But I digress . . .
There used to be no terrific place to put all my sewing project business. However, there was this enormously gigantic closet in the master bedroom. And we are the type that has a normal amount of clothing. So . . .
One new electrical outlet later, and voila! I had a lovely galley sewing room, with space for zillions of yards of fabric to hang on coat hangers around me. Excellent!
Except it was also still our closet and sometimes I put outgrown or off-season kids’ clothing in there. And schoolwork that needed filing. And large skeins of yarn for crochet projects. And gifts I’m hiding until someone’s gift-day comes along. And stuff-Mart bags stuffed with stuff I needed to deal with. And back-logs of un-ironed items. And a multitude of craft supplies.
It was becoming unnavigable.
So yesterday, I hit it.
However, I also needed to wash a couple of intricate loads of laundry, hard-boil a dozen eggs without ruining them, and fix myself breakfast and lunch on time, since I had a tutoring appointment in the afternoon. So I did all of it at once, listening to the washer while watching the eggs come to a boil, and taking bites of my breakfast and sips of my juice, between trips in and out of that closet, loaded down with boxes, etc., and at the same time, sorting contents according to what was throw-away, storage, or put-away. Also re-charged my cellphone, did chicken chores, and made a new pot of coffee.
We call it multi-tasking, and we are good at it because we do so much of it. So many aspects of keeping a peaceful home depend upon it.
Our home is not too peaceful, right now, though, but rather torn out and scattered, waiting for me to finish it. Oh, the worst is over; just have to fit a few things back in, the right way, then enjoy it again.
And when it comes to the soul, aren’t most of us also in that shape?
THINGS ARE LOOKING UP AT OUR HOUSE
Ever have a day when your plans vanish? I’m there. It is good, though.
Today, I assist my carpenter. UP there.
You see, in our world, snow hardly ever falls, but last winter, we frolicked in lots of it. And our guttering suffered from lots of it. It sagged. It bulged. It pulled loose.
Then we learned the rest of the story.
Rot.
In our world, rain usually falls in buckets. Torrents. Sometimes, rain so furiously dumps on us in sheets and waterfalls, that we have seen it splash against a neighbor’s roof with enough force to make a wave that actually rains UP a few yards before surrendering to gravity again.
We need the guttering.
So, today, in firm belief that someday rain will actually fall on us again, we are removing the guttering, removing the siding, mending the rotted places, and re-attaching everything.
It’s a little like other problems: Have to deal with the cause of it to really stop it.
How to cook. How to cook. How to cook for little ones who may not like my cooking . . .
Part of me felt like the character in No Reservations played by Catherine Zeta Jones, who was accustomed to satisfying finicky eaters by scrounging for ever more obscure ingredients, and faced with the dilemma of feeding a small child who did not feel like eating at all.
And part of me felt like just doing my thing and if there was a problem, they would eat once they got hungry. That part of me won out.
The children had expressed curiosity when we were shopping. I selected mushrooms, and they had not ever noticed raw ones before so asked what they were. When I told them, they made faces.
My turn.
For supper, I fixed the best marinara I could imagine and used some of those mushrooms, sliced and sautéed in olive oil, along with a large clove of wild garlic from our field, also sliced. We still have tiny onions left from our overheated garden, and I included a few of them, sliced. As all these paper-thin slices were beginning to brown, I added small chunks of a bell pepper a friend had brought me, along with one of her jalapenos, whole.
While some of the oil in the pan was still available, I tossed in freshly-crushed basil and oregano, and stripped a few leaves off a fresh stem of rosemary. All was sizzling along nicely when I remembered the soup base. I actually made soup base this year, which is merely whole tomatoes, washed and cored, and tossed into a blender, skins, seeds, and all, to be liquefied for a thicker sauce than we can obtain from just juice. I prefer the muskier taste the seeds lend and the redder coloring the skins contribute. It is the only way I will deal with only a gallon of tomatoes. Cleaning out my Victorio tomato strainer just kills me, if it’s for only a few quarts of juice.
Once the fresh rosemary had softened a bit, I tossed in a quart of the soup base. It sizzled just a bit, as it landed in the pan. Perfect. Since one of us cannot eat many foods without some Worcestershire sauce, I dolloped some of that in, too. And a bit of catsup for sweetening.
I slowly brought it to a boil.
Lastly, I added a whole bag of Great Value frozen 5-cheese ravioli. Yep. You may cringe at that, but I have read labels, and it has nothing in it but foodstuffs, all pronounceable. Probably not very organic, though.
Once it returned to simmering, I turned down the heat and covered it. Then I prepared a small lettuce, tomato, and carrot salad. The children had been impressed that the grape tomatoes I had bought had come “all the way from MISSOURI!” That seemed so exotic to them. I figured they’d at least eat the tomatoes.
After all was dished out and cut to bite-size, the littlest one sampled the ravioli and looked up at me so sweetly to comment:
“It tastes just like b’sketti.”
Kudos to the cook, I suppose.
Home's Cool! 