The TV Matches the Curtains??

I couldn't take the hideous curtains in our living room anymore. They were there when we moved in and made the whole front room dark since they covered the only window at this end of our townhouse. So, I bought this gorgeous paisley-esque fabric plus a little extra in case I should happen to want to use some for a quilt or something... 

Well, then we decided we should reward ourselves for paying off our car (yippeeee!) and finally buy a TV. After 5 years of marriage we have never had a TV. We started out as students and thought a TV would be a huge distraction (the internet was bad enough!). Not to mention we loved it when cable companies would call us up, trying to sell us their services and we would tell them we didn't own a TV. They're stunned replies were delicious! "Oh!"...long silence... hahaha! Well, we didn't go totally entertainmentless. We enjoyed watching movies and we were so ready to enjoy the scrumptiousness of Pride & Prejudice and whatnot bigger than on a 17" computer screen. (Well, that's my opinion of course. My husband prefers The Hunt for Red October and things like that.)

Anyway, we got our new TV recently and not only was it big, our tiny living room made it look gigantic! And the only reasonable place we could put it was right in plain view and the first thing you see when you walk in our front door. That is a HUGE pet peeve of mine. I don't want people to think we worship our TV, you know? That big black screen just kept staring at me and staring at me... until I threw a piece of fabric over it. What a relief that was! The fabric happened to be the extra scrap of fabric from the curtains that I was saving for a quilt. Well, my husband liked it so much that he asked if I could make a cover for our TV out of it. WHAT?!?! Sacrifice my quilt fabric for our TV???

Ok.

So, now our TV matches our curtains. And it's actually quite lovely. It's almost a work of art in and of itself.

Almost.

This Year's Garden Plan

Flowers emerging from the leaves.

Mt. Vernon, VA

Spring is in the air, robins are hopping around, and crocuses and daffodils are showing their faces! Hooray! I've tried to ignore the growing itch, but I couldn't. Every spring I get that urge to plant something that is so hard to ignore. But we've got some challenges this year.

1. We rent our townhouse.
2. The yard is slightly sloped.
3. Drainage is not very good.
4. We got attacked by caterpillars last year and I'm afraid for this year!!
5. This year is supposed to be the worst ever for stink bugs. (Where are the natural predators, I ask you?? Are stink bugs invincible?)

So, here's the solution I've come up with:
1. Build 2'x2'x1' planters that can be set on cinder blocks or blocks of wood.
2. Try out the amazing square foot gardening method designed by Mel Bartholemew so I can grow twice as much in a much smaller space.
3. Do not use mulch! (Black walnut wood is poison to tomato plants and I strongly suspect the stuff I got from a large home improvement store, which I will not mention, had that wood in there. My poor tomatoes!)

My plan is to line the bottom with gardening fabric, drill small drainage holes, put down a thin layer of sand, then some top soil and leaf compost. Woo! I am so excited!

Today, my kids and I made a trip to a locally owned plant nursery. They had the best deal on dirt and compost I have ever seen, considering I usually buy the bagged stuff from home improvement stores. Not only that, but I was pleasantly surprised with how helpful, friendly, and informative they were. They even had a pet rabbit my son loved looking at. Just another affirmation of how buying locally can be so much better! They weren't working for some corporation. They were working for themselves and they were locals and knew their stuff. I will definitely be going back there for my other gardening needs later on.

Spring Sunrise

I found this amazing, springy, happy drink on the Progressive Pioneer. It's strawberry grapefruit juice and it is wonderful. I've never been a huge fan of grapefruits, but having it in this form is very nice.

It's a simple recipe too:

1 grapefruit
Ripe strawberries
Sweetener (I used a couple tablespoons of sugar, but you could use honey or something else.)
Ice

Peel and de-seed the grapefruit. Throw it in the blender with a couple handfuls of strawberries. Blend. Add the sweetener and ice and blend for a minute or two until it is smooth. Drink right away! It really does taste like a beautiful spring sunrise!

(If you don't like your drinks really pulpy, I'd recommend juicing the grapefruit instead of throwing the whole thing in the blender.)

"Granola" Bars

Sorry I haven't posted in a bit. I was down with a really bad cold and then my mother-in-law was in town and we've had birthdays... Whew! It's been a bit crazy, but things are winding down now.

I had an idea for an easy "granola" bar that's a spin-off of rice krispy treats. There is something in a rice krispy treat that satisfies something deep down in my soul. There's just something so delightfully wonderful about that sweet chewiness... MMM!

Lately, I've been using the Arrowhead Mills brand of puffed rice for my rice krispy treats. I love this stuff because it's actually the whole grain of rice you're eating, not rice powder blended into a paste and made into rice-like shapes. So, not only is it whole grain, but it's also brown rice, and when you make rice krispy treats with this stuff it actually tastes like you're eating something other than air and marshmallows! Amazing!

Okay, enough with the slathering of praise. Let's get on to the recipes:
They are essentially the same except for the extra add-ins for the granola bars.

Whole Grain Puffed Rice Marshmallow Treats
(a long name, I know, but it's not really rice krispies unless we use that cereal, is it? lol)

1/4 cup butter (sometimes I use less)
1 pkg. mini marshmallows
1 - 2 Tbsp. peanut butter
1/2 - 1 pkg. Arrowhead Mills puffed brown rice cereal

Melt the butter in a large sauce pan. Add the mini marshmallows and stir until mostly melted. Add the peanut butter and stir in until smooth. Remove from heat. Add about half the package of puffed rice. You might need to add more or less depending on the ratio of marshmallow to cereal you like. Stir until the cereal is coated well. While still hot, pour into a greased cake pan. With greased hands, press the mixture until it's flat and even. Wait to eat until cooled... or not!

"Granola" Bars

1/4 cup butter (sometimes I use less)

1 pkg. Mini marshmallows

1 - 2 Tbsp. peanut butter

1 pkg. Arrowhead Mills puffed brown rice cereal

1 cup rolled oats, toasted*

1 cup lightly salted almonds, toasted & chopped

1 cup raisins, dried cranberries, or chocolate chips, optional

*I toasted these in on a dry cookie sheet in a 350º oven for about 15 minutes, stirring every now and then.

Melt the butter in a large sauce pan. Add the mini marshmallows and stir until mostly melted. Add the peanut butter and stir in until smooth. Remove from heat. Add the oats, raisins, and almonds and stir in. Add about half the package of puffed rice. You might need to add more or less depending on the ratio of marshmallow to cereal you like. Stir until everything is coated well. While still hot, pour into a greased 13"x9" cake pan. With greased hands, press the mixture until it's flat and even. When cooled, cut into bars and wrap individually or serve as is.

Note: You might want to leave out the peanut butter since I didn't feel it went very well with cranberries. I made mine with raisins and it was okay with the peanut butter taste. You might even want to add in lightly salted peanuts!

A Crow in the Sunrise

We had a beautiful sunrise this morning and we've had constant flocks of crows lately. This is a shot of a crow in a tree behind our home.

Felted Balls Tutorial

You know, I think this is my first real tutorial!
I got one request for it (Thanks, Holly!), and one is enough for me, so here we go!

The first part is making a felt ball using roving. Using roving makes felting go much, much faster. But if you'd don't have roving, that's ok. Just skip on down to Part 2 where I show how to do it using wool yarn.

Part 1 - Felted Ball Using Roving

1. Start with your cat/ferret jingle ball found at pet stores.

2. Hold the ball in one hand and start wrapping the roving around it.

3. Keep wrapping while trying to keep the wool even all around.

4. Keep wrapping...

5. Wrap enough roving around until you get the size of ball you want. Keep in mind that it will shrink some while felting, so you might want to make it a little bigger than what you want the finished product to be.

6. Get an old nylon stocking. It's easier if you cut it so it's only about 12" long. Gather the nylon in your two hands until you get to the toe.

7. Then shove the ball in, pushing it as far into the toe as you can.

Make sure the end of the wool is facing the toe or it could come unraveled a little.

We don't want that!

8. Get out your dish soap.

I promise this is not an ad placement!

9. Drizzle the dish soap on.

10. At this point you might want to get out some rubber gloves. I didn't which is why my fingers are red.

Twist up the end of the nylon like shown above, so that it helps maintain a round shape and hold the ball under hot water. You may also need to pull and tighten the nylon around the ball throughout this process. Scrub with one hand while rotating the ball in the other hand. Continue to get it wet, scrub it, get it wet again, and scrub it, etc. After awhile you'll need to add more soap. You'll notice the ball will get lumpy and uneven. It's okay! The wool is shrinking. Keep up the scrubbing and soaping and wetting under hot water for about 5 minutes. Then rinse and squeeze repeatedly to get as much of the soap out as you can.

11. Remove from stocking and you're almost done! Run the ball under water, perfecting the shape as much as you can. Squeeze out water as best you can. Set on an old rag or cloth to dry. If its dyed wool, there may be some staining to the rag. Let dry over night in a warm place.

Part 2 - Felted Ball Using Wool Yarn

Make sure you use 100% wool yarn that specifies that it is good for felting like the "Fisherman's Wool" line of yarn which is what I used in my project below.

1. Hold your yarn in place and start wrapping.

It may be a little difficult as the surface is slippery plastic.

2. Keep wrapping...

3. Try to keep the yarn evenly distributed as your wrap until it's the size you want.

I wanted a little one.

4. Finished ball.

5. Now get that nylon stocking (12" long), stuff it into the nylon (making sure the end doesn't come unraveled), and duplicate steps 8-11 above except increase the scrubbing/soap process to 10 minutes.

There will be some shrinkage, but not as much as the roving ball.

The yarn ball will hold its shape much better than the roving one too.

Beautiful!

Aaah! A completed set. I'm so excited!

Can you tell I love these things?

*Note: If you'd like a crinkle ball, replace the center jingle ball with a big wad of cut out bill envelope windows. What a great way to recycle!
*Another note: You don't have to put anything in the center at all. If you want just a plain ol' wool ball, just wrap the yarn or roving around itself in a tight ball and wrap to the size you want, etc.

Good luck and have fun! Let me know if you try this out and send pictures!

Felted Balls

Finally, some of the apples are on the stove, simmering down to soon become applesauce. It's a good thing too, because we've gone through half our applesauce from the last canning adventure. It's giving me a really realistic picture of the volume of applesauce I would have to can in order to feed our applesauce appetite around here. I truly think an entire wall of our basement would be dedicated to applesauce and we'd need to have at least 3 apple trees.

Okay, so on to the felted balls! I've been eyeing felted balls as they've appeared on various blogs I follow and the library books on felting I've checked out. It was my goal to make some for my daughter's first birthday which is next week. 

I bought some jingle balls at a pet store (The balls are meant for ferrets, but I'm sure they sell them for cats too). Last night I tried the felted balls for the first time and I was totally thrilled with how easy they were! I tried two balls with dyed roving and they, by far, felted up the easiest and fastest, although they did end up with some creases. I tried one with thick, one ply wool yarn and that felted up pretty well too, were very even all around, but the yarn lines still show. Not a big deal, though. It's for a baby! One of the balls also has a bunch of bill envelope windows wadded up inside, so when you squeeze the ball it crinkles. I'm really happy with the way these turned out! I'm planning on making a few more since I have some jingle balls left. If you'd like a tutorial, just let me know and I'll take step-by-step pictures when I make them next.