RSS Feed

January, 2012

  1. Jo’s Knitting Bag

    January 25, 2012 by Daniora

    There’s probably no one that appreciates a handmade gift better than a fellow crafter. This past Christmas, I tried to keep the number of gifts I had to make down from my usual unrealistic goals. I couldn’t help making this kitting bag for my very talented friend Jo.

    Jo's Knitting BagJo, whose amazing work can be seen here, is a fiber artist extraordinaire. She spins, knits, crochets, and now weaves. There is nothing this girl can’t do. It seems like she’s always going off to meet with one group or another or take a class here or there. What better gift could I give her than a bag to carry all her supplies in?

    Given her love of sheep and sheep related products, I figured they would be the obvious choice for fabric for her bag. How happy was I to find knitting sheep along with two awesome coordinating fabrics?

    How cute is this knitting sheep?

    This bag pattern was really great. It’s a ton of pieces, which worried me, but it actually went together really smoothly. It’s got lots of pockets on the outside, and the inside has plenty of space for anything you might want to carry.

    Knitting Bag Lining

    Cute lining fabric with knitting phrases.

    Since giving Jo her bag a couple weeks ago, I’ve received orders for three more in varying fabrics. I guess the bag market might be something I want to look in to.


  2. The joy of washi tape

    January 25, 2012 by Daniora

    It’s no secret that I enjoy wrapping presents almost as much as I enjoy buying them. It’s also no secret that I love cute things from Japan. When browsing around for new and unexpected ways to wrap presents, I came across an article on MartaStewart.com about using washi tape to create your own stripped wrapping paper. A quick hunt for a washi tape source led me to cutetape.com. I could spend millions of hours and thousands of dollars there.

    Some of my favorite washi tape from cutetape.com

    For those not in the know, washi tape is a printed Japanese masking tape made from, of course, washi paper. They come in a variety of widths and patterns. Cutetape.com carries a huge variety at much lower prices that most of the other online distributors. They also carry other packaging items, like bakery twine and hanging tags, and other adorable goodies from Japan. One of my favorite things about Cutetape.com is their variety packs. It’s a great way to get several coordinating rolls rather than trying to pick them out individually.

    In addition to being used for wrapping, there are a ton of other crafts that can be done with washi tape. It can be used on cards and in scrap books, it adds to any paper project, and I’ve even seen flowers made out of strips of washi tape. With the variety of sizes and designs available, there’s no limit to what you can do with it.

    Cutetape.com is running a contest right now for a $100 or $200 shopping spree at their store. My friends, that kind of money buys an awful lot of printed masking tape. Even so, trying to narrow down my choices from the huge Cutetape.com inventory would be almost insurmountable. I think I’d find a way to manage, though.

    Imagine the crafty projects we could embark on together, dear reader, with that kind of resources at our finger tips. I’ve been big into paper quilling lately, and I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that washi tape could lead to some pretty awesome results. Look forward to more washi tape goodies in the future.

    Also, these kitty sticky tabs make me want to die from adorable.

    Zomg, adorable.

     


  3. A brief word about spices

    January 23, 2012 by Daniora

    Let’s have a little talk about spices and what makes them great. There are so many different herbs and spices out there, and they can be used to add a lot of flavor without adding fat or salt. They are what give different culinary styles and regions their own unique flare. Spices can get pricey, especially for some of the more exotic ones. However, you don’t have to spend a lot to get the most out of your flavorings. One of the biggest indicators of a spice’s taste is freshness.

    Allow me to present an example:

    Here are two spoons of paprika. The one on the left is from a jar that is of questionable age and has been stored near the stove. The one on the right is from a freshly purchased jar. They are both McCormick brand paprika from the grocery store, nothing fancy. They were the same price. The only distinction is freshness, and I think the differences are readily noticeable. In addition to their appearance, the new paprika definitely had a stronger aroma and definitely tasted stronger and richer.

    The lesson for today: You can spend a lot of money to buy the highest quality spices and grind them yourself… but you don’t have to. Grocery store spices are perfectly serviceable and delicious. Whether you spend a lot or a little, buy in smaller amounts so that they’ll always be fresh and store them out of direct sunlight and away from heat.


  4. Planting Potatoes: The Finale

    January 20, 2012 by Daniora

    Freshly harvested potatoes

    When last we left our little potato plants, everything was going rather swimmingly. We were a bit behind schedule but I was getting ready to fold up the top of the bag and add more soil.

    Shortly thereafter, tragedy hit.

    In addition to many other veggies, we grow heirloom tomatoes. They are delicious and exotic looking and really fun to have around. The problem is that they also have lower resistance to disease than the more commercially bred varieties. Sadly, a few of our tomato plants caught something. Their leaves got all yellow and fell off, and in spite of our best efforts, we lost a couple of plants. The other problem was that this blight (or whatever it was) spread to my little potato plants. The smallest of my potato plants died, and the others looked a little sickly.

    I was hesitant to go adding more soil to the bags; I figured since the leaves were a little sad they probably would need all the surface area they could get. Covering any of them would probably hurt the plants in the end. After that, I left them alone until the end of the season. The largest plant got pretty leggy, and probably would have sent out quite a few new shoots had I covered the stem with soil like I was supposed to.

    Plants ready for harvest.

    Plants ready for harvest.

    This fall was really warm, so I let the plants stay in the grow bag for as long as possible. When the weather threatened to get chilly, I figured it was time to harvest and see what we had gotten.

    Almost a pound and a half of potatoes.

    Almost a pound and a half of potatoes.

    Considering all the problems that I encountered during this experiment, I think we got quite a bit of yield. We wound up with almost a pound and a half of varying sized potatoes (though none as large as they were supposed to be). The picture below shows all my little potatoes with a ruler so you can see what we got. A few of the potatoes had scaly skin which is completely benign, it just makes the potatoes less attractive.

    Potatoes with ruler.

    We wound up eating these potatoes in a batch of kale soup. They were delicious. This was pretty great learning experience. I think I’ll give growing potatoes in the grow bag another shot this year. I’ll be sure to keep them away from the tomatoes this time.

     

     


  5. Resolutions

    January 13, 2012 by Daniora

    New Year’s Resolutions. They can be hard to make and are harder to keep. We’re two weeks into the year, and I’m sure most of us who made resolutions have already broken at least one. Case in point: This post was supposed to be done two weeks ago.

    That being said, the new year is a good excuse to start doing new things in your life. I think people inherently like deadlines and due dates. New Year’s is the perfect universal start date. So here are a few resolutions that I think we should all try and keep. These aren’t the usual “I will lose 15 pounds” or “I will take the dog for a walk every day”. These are more general resolutions that will help make life better for all of us.

    1. Try something new.  It’s so easy to get stuck in a rut. Everyone is so busy these days, falling back on “the old standbys” is a quick and easy solution. We’ve also developed into a society that is totally opposed to mistakes and failure. To combat this, we should all try something new at least once a week. It can be a new food, a new recipe, or a new hobby. Our local technical school has a large variety of classes from auto repair to cooking that meet once or twice a week for a few weeks. They are very reasonably priced and are a great way to try your hand at something new. It’s fine if you wind up not enjoying it or if it turns out to be a complete disaster; even negative experiences help enrich our lives. Besides, you might find there are a lot of awesome things that you didn’t even know you enjoyed.

    2. Read labels. It could be on your food, your clothing, or your new mattress. Wherever it is, give the label a read. Make sure you know what you’re eating, how to wash your clothes, or how not to remove this tag under penalty of law. Labels have a lot of useful information that you might not have known. I think this is especially eye opening on food packages. The number of sneaky, not good for you, extra ingredients or the number of servings that are really in that little bag of chips can be alarming. That doesn’t mean you can’t eat them, but reading the label will make you more aware of what you are eating.

    3. Read instructions. This goes hand in hand with number two. The instructions will not only tell you the right way to do things, they can also tell you about features you didn’t even know you had access. I find this to be especially true when installing new software or playing with a new piece of hardware. If I have a good idea of how something works, I’ll usually just plow ahead and get right to work. Eventually, I’ll need to look something up in the manual and find out that there were easier ways to do things all along. I am all too familiar with the phrase “I didn’t know it could do that”.

    4. Use the right tool. We don’t own a set of dry measuring cups. The fact that my baking adventures turn out as well as they do in spite of this is a testament to the quality of the recipes I’m using. While I do take Alton Brown’s stand of not having a lot of one function tools around, having the proper tools for what you’re doing will make everything easier and faster with a greater chance of success. When you’re done using the proper tools, put them back where they belong. You’ll be less likely to reach for the wrong tool if the right one is easily accessible.

    5. Back things up. I don’t take pictures with a film camera anymore. Most people don’t. As a result, every precious photographed memory I have from the last six or so years is stored as little bits of data on a hard drive. This is a scary situation. Almost everything else on my computer can be reacquired or reloaded. My pictures are irreplaceable.  The only solution is to back them up. I regularly back all my photos up on an external hard drive and hope to add a second cloud storage back up in the near future. The double back up ensures that your files will be safe and sound should anything happen to your computer.

    6. Finish things. I am totally awesome at starting projects. Just ask my husband. I am slightly less awesome at finishing them. I think part of the problem is that every project I start working on spawns ideas for more things to do. I get so excited about these new projects that the original ones get put aside. So this year, I’m going to try and finish some of them. I’ll probably still have multiple things going at once, but at least I’ll have more entering that “finished” pile than going into the huge boxes of “work in progress”.

    7. Take a tech break. I adore technology and gadgets. I also know that I spend way too much time using them. So this year I’m going to try and take a break more often, and I hope you’ll join me. Read a book, make something by hand, play a board game with friends. We don’t have to all become hermits living in a shack in the woods, but we can put our smart phones down for a little while.

    8. Make things by hand or from scratch. So, back on resolution two you read the labels and saw all the extra stuff in the food you eat. So why not try making some of it from scratch? You don’t have to make everything from scratch, but there are plenty of things that are easy to make and actually wind up better tasting and better for you than store bought. Salad dressing is a prime example of this. It’s super fast and easy to make and turns out better than anything you’d buy in a bottle. Whipped cream is way better made from scratch and homemade marshmallows, while a bit more of a challenge, are out of this world. Making other things by hand is a great way to get into that trying new things bit we talked about earlier and it makes you appreciate just how much work goes into every day things.

    9. Support artisans and craftspeople. Let’s face it; there are a lot of things we’re not going to make ourselves. For those things, why not get them from an artisan or a local source rather than factory made? I love farmers’ markets for jam and jelly and sometimes baked goods. Etsy is a great source for handmade stuff; there’s a lot of crap on there, but there’s a lot of really awesome handicrafts too. Maybe you make jelly and a friend bakes bread. Why not start a barter system? I traded a shirt for the Renaissance Faire that I made to a friend who is knitting me fingerless gloves. Trading with others is a great way for you do get something you need by doing something you enjoy.

    10. Take care of yourself. I know, I know, I said this wouldn’t be the “lose 15 pounds” kind of list. Let’s face it, though. We all get so caught up in all of our everyday stuff that we don’t always do what’s best for our minds and bodies. So this year, fix that. Get some sleep. Eat well. Get a little fresh air and sunshine. Take five minutes to decompress and relax. Enjoy your food.

    There you have it. Ten things we can all do this year to make 2012 the best year yet.