October 20, 2017

Recycling – Plastic Bags

Working on the Blue Jeans quilt where I am recycling our old jeans, has put me in the mood to do more recycling. I hang on to “things” such as plastic bags. I have many bags of bags (hoarding anyone?) with the intention of crocheting them into reusable shopping bags. About a week ago I started prepping and cutting the strips and started a bag.

The kids love this bread.

I have gobs of these bread bags, also wheat bread bags, newspaper bags, the old plastic grocery bags etc. So…I started cutting them into strips!

These are about 1″ strips.

I use the first knuckle on my thumb as the guide which is about an inch.

Connected together.

Once the strip are cut, they are connected together.

Lots connected.

Here are the strips from a couple of bags all attached together.

Rolled up!

Rolled up into a ball. Now, though, I don’t bother rolling the strips into balls. I just attach to the piece I am working on and leave them all next to me and crochet them like that.

A start.

Here is the start. I am a bit farther along now. It will be interesting to see how this bag turns out in the end and if it will be as useful as I am hoping.

Another Beekeeper Quilt Update

OK…so the last time I wrote about this project, I was going to think about ways to make is easier to embellish them. The hexi puff is knit like the toe of a sock, both the front and the back grow at the same time and are connected so that when done, the hexi just needs to be stuffed and sewn up at the top. The small opening is one of the reasons embellishing is so time consuming and challenging. I am trying a different approach…

Knit single sided and currently being blocked.

I decided to knit the front and the back separately. This will make it so I have to sew them up (UGH!), but I believe that adding embroidery to them will be easier. I found this book…

This is a beautiful book!

and was so inspired to try out some of these on my hexis…

People!

I’d like to do a hexi for each one! And…

Flowers!

And flowers! There are pages and pages of these (and I have ideas of my own now as well). There are also pages of birds – Oh, My!!! This should keep me busy and out of trouble for quite awhile!

October 18, 2017

Apples

We have an apple tree and so does a friend of mine. She doesn’t use her apples so she brings them over to me. Lately, I have found myself with a boat load of apples and we can’t eat them fast enough. So… I made apple sauce

Some of the apples, I also used green ones.

As you can see from the above picture, some of the apples were starting to go a little past their prime. I cut, cored and peeled them,

Ready to be cooked!

and placed them in a pot with some spices and cooked them up for…

Loads of applesauce.

applesauce. I made too much apple sauce. We were definitely NOT going to be able to eat as much as I made before it spoiled … so I added a few ingredients and …

Apple sauce cakes.

POOF… apple sauce cakes were made. And then the locusts (known as my children) descended … and …

Poof again… only three slices left! This is what happens when you have four teens and a young adult living at home!

October 17, 2017

Update-Blue Jeans and Flannel Shirts Quilt

I have decided to try to work on this quilt every couple of days. The prep work is quite labor intensive:

After cutting the jeans apart and separating the fronts of the legs from the backs, the circle needs to be traced – Here we are traced. Then:

They are cut out. Here are the backs with the sewing lines traced on them.

These are the fronts of the same pieces. I really like the contrast between different parts of the same pair of pants as well as different pants.

Scraps…any ideas what I can do with these??

More scraps. These are actually the hems and seams from the pants. I know may things can be made from the selvages of fabric – I wonder if these can be used the same way, or if they are too thick. In any case, I am enjoying (& getting a little bored) cutting these out, but I am itching to get sewing. First though, I need to cut out the fabric and batting to go in the middles. Hopefully I’ll get to that soon!

October 15, 2017

Yogurt Bark

I thought I would try another fun snack that I found online. It is called yogurt bake and it looked like it would be very tasty.

Yogurt Berry Bark

Basically, vanilla yogurt is spread into the bottom of an 8X8 pan, berries are spread across the top and then the whole thing is put into the freezer for a couple of hours.

Yogurt Berry Bark

This was really not a winner with anyone. It was rather flavorless and very quickly became gooey. This snack is not a repeat.

October 13, 2017

Quick and Healthy Dinner

The other night, as so often happens right now, I found myself at dinner time with no plan. After school sports and activities are really playing havoc with my meal time plans. I have to be super organized during the day to make sure things are prepared and waiting to be put in the over. Some days are better than others and on this particular night, we went to my daughter’s volleyball game an wound up not getting home until after 7:00pm. What to do…

Whole wheat pasta and veges.

Quickly cut up veges from the fridge and sauté them while pasta is cooking. Not very elegant, but quick, easy and healthy!

October 10, 2017

Nametag Update

Today, I finally finished the stitching on my nametag for the chapter of the EGA I attend.

Woo Hoo! Now it’s time to turn it into a lined, zippered little bag that hangs around the neck. Onto choosing fabric and trim!! Fun, fun, fun!

Connie's Creations

My little place on the web to share my creative spirit.