Thrift Kitchen Each Thursday I post about ways to be thrifty in the kitchen. To me, it isn’t just about being cheap, it’s about living creatively! Finally have some food for eating from the garden. I’m scarfing it all down as quickly as I can. I’ve stored the potatoes in
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Here in Iowa, farmer’s markets are really starting to ramp up. It’s no longer just rhubarb and asparagus, but beans, peas, and so much more. Most weeks, it’s a better value to purchase produce from your local farmer’s market instead of the grocery store. I’ve most likely told you about this a million times before, Local Harvest is a great site to find farmer markets in your area.
I love working in my garden in the summer, but after about 10am it becomes blistering hot. This hat is made out of a grass like material called raffia and keeps the sun off your head, ears, and neck. At the same time keeping you cool by letting the breeze through the open stitch work.
Working with Raffia can be challenging to work with unless you know a few simple tricks that will make it slide off the hook. In this pattern I keep you right on track.
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The weather has been absolutely wonderful lately and I was pretty excited to get out into the community garden this weekend and even this morning. This morning we had a pleasant surprise–carrots! Check out these little stubby guys:
Making bundles of herbs to dry is a great way to both use up leftover herbs and use up little scraps of wire and ribbon. Not to mention they are really pretty around the house, smell wonderful, and nicely dried can be wonderfully delicious in any meal. We had quite
Read MoreI went through two book shelves this week (very hard work for me) and found a box of books I know I will never read. And I did something for the first time – I took them to FireHouse books and exchanged them for $12 in store credit, which I
Read MoreWhen faced with a mounting pile of cherry tomatoes, what does a gardener do? I Eat Them! Yum yum yum! Rooting through my frig and realized I had the perfect combo of ingredients to make my all time favorite dish from the garden: Cucumber Salad! You can toss this wish
Read MoreWeaving is such a versatile craft. Yes, you can make throws and rugs and tapestries. But you can also make clutches and badges and, like in Weaving Unloomed by Diane Gilleland – patches and pillows and all sorts of other things. And that’s just with yarn. There is so much
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Enter the Maker’s Apron. It’s a studio apron, cooking apron, garden apron, and painter’s apron. Calling it a Maker’s apron just made sense. Put it on and you are ready to go. The plan was just that it would be a little apron for wearing in the garden and I was going to give it away. Well, I tried it on and wore it around (just to see if it felt right on you know) and before I knew it, it was filled up with my phone, pencils, pens, erasers, paper, scissors and all sorts of other things. And I wore it the rest of the night. Then I was like “crap, I don’t want to give this away. I like it to much!”
As I explained in yesterday’s post I’m trying to get canning down so when it comes time to make a ton of jams, chutney, pickles, and preserves in general I’ll be all set. I really want to get it right the first time so I don’t botch a ton of
Read MoreAs I was pulling all the grass clumps out of the freshly tilled soil I was thinking “oh great, what am I going to do with all this sod? good for nothing grass!” And then I read that you can actually compost it no problem, you just need plenty of
Read MoreI wrote about it in the April issue of Craft Leftovers Monthly and am not sure if I ever talked about it here, but I’m starting a garden this year! At first I was going to have a plot in the community garden, but then Jason and I’s friend offered
Read MoreI’ve been getting my garden underway this week. I just planted my strawberries on Sunday (I can’t wait to get fresh ones!). Anyway, with more and more outside time, I’m thinking my head would be better off covered. I have a lot of scrap yarn to use up and some
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This apron sure is a walk in the park to make. It’s so fast and easy to whip up in an evening or morning, or afternoon for that matter. Use a pattered fabric for your main piece. Something kind of darker and kind of “filled” works well to hide stains and smudges from cooking. I’m always wiping my hands on the sides of my pants because I’m used to wearing my studio apron just about all the time. I made this apron a bit more wrap aroundish for that reason.
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