Strong People

Truth for Today

A Simple Project

Miss M is just starting to learn to sew, so we were out on the weekend looking at fabric for some simple projects for her.  Long ago, when I was pregnant with her, I made myself some simple bunny rugs and have often given them as gifts since.  I thought that would make a nice little project for myself, so I bought some pretty blue flannel pieces from Spotlight.

I cut them into squares and pinned them together, rights sides facing.  

Then sewed them together, with just a 1cm seam, leaving a 20cm gap on one of the edges.  When I started to sew, I realised they weren’t perfectly square, and found a few folds that wouldn’t sew through evenly.  I just had to ease them through as neatly as possible.  They won’t look perfect from the outside, but hey, they’re handmade.

Then cut the corners (I had overlocked the edges of mine, a zigzag stitch would also work, just to neaten those raw edges).

Turn them right side out and pin the seam open.  Although I’m not going to sew that seam open, I do like to pin them, to get the fabric sitting nicely. 

Stitch along the edge of the gap that you pulled the material through, and voila, a very simple, pretty bunny rug.

Back to my flannel chenille blanket

Now, where was I?  I was just sewing my binding on - I picked a bright purple double-sided satin ribbon for the binding, it matched beautifully with the purple dots on the cotton duck, and I wanted to avoid orange as I had so much in the flannel.

Before you apply the binding, you need to cut through those three layers of flannel - straight up the middle between the rows of stitches.  Take this carefully, as you don't want to inadvertently cut the outer layer.  Son C interrupted me while I was doing this and asked how I managed to not cut that layer - by concentrating!!

Once the binding is applied, you now have a fairly attractive blanket already:

But the final step is what gives it that beautiful soft chenille look. Wash the blanket, and all those rives of flannel fray beautifully (this is where it is so important to cut it across the bias - if we'd cut across the grain, it would just look stringy).  Chenille is apparently the French word for caterpillar, and it certainly does take on that look.

Now that it's finished, I'm not sure I love the colours.  But, I do love the look and I think I would choose a more pastel, perhaps paisley outer layer.

I hope Miss M loves it. :-)

Meal Planning on a Sunday

Well, good Morning!!  Back to a cool, spring morning here in Brisbane and we are back at school and work, which means I’ve been planning our fortnight.  I always plan on a Sunday, as I'll just duck out and grab our groceries for the fortnight then.  I’ve been through the freezer and have most of the meat required for these meals, so I’ll only need to buy lamb and mince, and my shopping is done.  Cooking for two is not as satisfying, but there’s always leftovers for lunch or for another night.   Just cause I know you care, (and I know cause I need to shop and budget) we are having this week:

Creamy curried sausages

Tacos   (I tried a soft taco once.  It was wrong.  Just wrong.)

Leftover spaghetti (I have several in the freezer for those nights we are at soccer training)

Chicken with mustard sauce

Homemade pizzas

Mini roast chicken

Lamb shanks with mashed potato

I wish I could tell you I am amazing home cook who made these meals from scratch, but .. I'm afraid not!!  Son C gets home at 4:30pm, and I’m usually in around 5, so I ideally like to have dinner on by 6:30pm, so dinner needs to be something that can be whipped together quickly, or can be done in the slow cooker.  I’m still working on recipes I like for the slow cooker, so I don’t have a particularly strong repertoire, and honestly, I quite like the many slow cooker packets you can get in the grocery stores these days. 

There’s not enough here to fill a fortnight obviously, but there will be leftovers on at least two nights, and I know that we are dining out one afternoon, so I’ve covered most bases.  Yumm, I’m looking forward to these warm winter meals!

Peace out, bean sprout! :-)

Finished!

It's a cold, overcast day here in Brisbane. I stayed up a bit too late last night to finish my flannel chenille blanket last night, photos to follow soon when I can prise the boy-child away from Runescape.

The kids all played soccer around midday, it got quite warm out on the field. They played a team ranked higher than them - they lost, but they worked hard and only went down by one.

And then it was off looking at material with Miss M, as she starts her sewing journey. I bought more flanellette, so some baby/swaddling rugs to come.

More tomorrow!!

Dishwasher Dilemna

Pooh.  The dishwasher isn’t working very well.  I’m not a particularly big fan of dishwashers, and I had conveniently ignored my dishwasher for six months, then after some visitors left, decided to run it one day.  You can only imagine the mess as I mopped up the buckets of water flooding my kitchen.

So, I promptly ignored it for another year or so.  Are you sensing a theme here?  I had been having the age-old mental debate:  do I buy a new one or repair what I assumed were old, dried out seals?  I ran the dishwasher again, and after a bit of a false start, it ran through a cycle just fine.  Two years of wasted dishwashing. :-)

I’m just not satisfied with the quality of the washing and rinsing.  I invariably have to rinse several plates/bowls/ pans at the end of the cycle, because there is a small amount of gunk still on them.  And the glasses, well, they don’t sparkle and shine.  

I’ve been using Morning Fresh detergent (which supposedly has a rinsing agent in it) but have also used rinse-aid, and when that ran out, I used a vinegar solution.

As an aside, I’m keen to try a home-made dishwasher detergent, with vinegar as the rinse-aid, and will do so as soon as the Morning Fresh runs out.  Have found a recipe here:

http://www.thriftyniftymommy.com/2012/12/homemade-dishwasher-detergent-recipe.html

But back to my dishwashing woes – I thought perhaps it was the door seal disintegrating and leaving a nasty residue on my dishes, but I’m leaning back towards it being the dishwashing powder not dissolving.

At the moment, I’m washing out the dishwasher after each cycle, particularly along the base under the door jam, as this is where grime accumulates, and I think I will pull out the filter and give it a good scrub.  Hopefully this will ease the problem. 

The boy-child and I are thinking of perhaps moving within a year, and I would hate to have to buy a new machine, just to move out.   There’s only two of us at home, so no great necessity for the machine in the first place.  I just want to keep it on its last legs a little while longer!!

It has started pouring down here while I’ve been typing.  Hope it eases up before the boy-child catches the bus home.