A Look back at Halloween

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, there's so many decorations you can get/make and dressing up is fun. Mostly I like the ability to be wildly creative with my kids's costumes. It seems a little counter intuitive for me since I was never anything but a black cat...except one year I was forced to be a unicorn because my cat costume was lost.

This year Zoey decided she wanted to be Princess Bubblegum from Adventure Time. I used Simplicty 2330 which I had to alter slightly to accommodate the purple belt. It was pretty easy except I decided to put in an invisible zipper and that was a best! I also had difficulties with the collar and had to do a lot of hand tacking on it to get it to sit properly. Initially I was going to buy a wig for her to wear but I couldn't find anything I liked at a reasonable price that would fit her well so I decided to just crochet up something. Since technically her hair is actually bubblegum, a crochet wig seemed to bridge the gab between cartoon and realistic. And yes, I did crochet this incorrectly. If I were crocheting into the stitch instead of the space it wouldn't have been so hole-y. I also wished I had used a darker color, but due to time constraints I just used what I had enough of in my stash. The construction paper crown also suffered from my lack of time. Brandon fashioned it and it worked surprisingly well.

Costs:

Pattern: $1

Fabric: $6

Notions and accessories: $5

Total: $12

Ian was originally supposed to be Jake, and then we decided on BMO when I got some great boxes that would have worked just right. As I set to fitting the box for his costume, it became blatantly apparent he was NOT going to wear that. A short freak out later, I decided to go with "Super Ian." It was the most I could hope to get him to wear. I could have drafted my own cape pattern, but I decided to buy one I found because I didn't want to deal with the stress of failures, I was out of time. I also decided to just use some fabric I had in my stash in case Ian still refused to wear it. So, not the most coordinating, but I didn't really care.

Costs:

Pattern: $3

Fabric & notions: free from stash

Total: $3

They had a good time at the ward Trunk-or-Treat and Trick-or-Treating. Zoey decided to give her candy to the Great Pumpkin and she got some stickers and games in return. Ian ate the majority of his candy, with a little help it was gone in just a few days. Whew, glad that is over. I hope work isn't so busy next year and I can make costumes for the whole family.

The Spinning Adventure Continues

After I got a load of wool from a local friend, my interest in spinning really ramped up. I expected she would just give me maybe 8 oz or so, but instead provided me with an entire raw fleece. So much for easing into the hobby, haha.

There it is, the whole intimidating fleece. A nice looking brown color.

So I bundled a little at a time.

Soaked it in soap saturated nearly boiling water for 15 minutes.

And that's what the water looks like after the cleaning. Blech. I rinsed twice in very hot water.

With my impatience looming I got the great idea to put the wool in my dryer! We have a shoe rack that sits in the dryer so the shoes don't bang around in there while getting dried, so I laid the wool out on the rack and set it to ultra low heat and let it dry that way. It worked really great. So it turns out the wool isn't brown after all (except the stained tips) it's a lovely gray. I guess lanolin is pretty yucky in the raw...and I put that stuff on my nipples when I was breastfeeding, lol. 

Using some borrowed hand carders I made some rolags to spin on my drop spindle. And I started spinning. I made a couple of observations: (1) I don't really care for spinning from rolags, I don't like the yarn output and (2) this is going to take FOREVER on a drop spindle to spin ALL this wool!!

Naturally, I must remedy these problems. :-) So, I bought a pair of Indigo Hound 4 pitch English Wool Combs (thanks for the recommendation Beth). They are not fancy and nicely finished. Mine actually have a couple of snags and other imperfections, but the price was right, and they do their job perfectly well. And I LOOOOOVE using them. Man, if my kids would let me, I'd comb wool all day, I just really love doing it and diz-ing off the roving is way fun!

Problem 1 solved.

Now on to the next issue, I started browsing spinning wheels, so many options, so expensive. I wasn't ready to commit to buy a contraption I had never even tried at such a price. I wasn't sure if that investment was worth it for the hobby I was just learning. So I thought that perhaps I could build a simplified version and decide if I even liked spinning that much to invest in a real wheel. Well, one thing led to another and I eventually found The Electric Eel Wheel, I was hoping just to buy a kit and build it, but they were sold out with no plans to produce more. Better still, by the creator's grace, this was an open source project and I had all the instructions there in the builder's guide to order the parts and make one myself. That's it, I was sold. I was going to build my own electric spinning wheel.

I have some working knowledge of electronics so I thought I could wire in the option of using my sewing machine's foot pedal to control the speed instead of just the control knob. I ordered the extra parts I thought I would need to make this work, but after trying and tweaking and everything I could think of, I just couldn't get any of the sewing machine pedals I tried to play nice with the motor controller I was using. I figured my only option at that point would be to build my own foot pedal using a potentiometer I knew the resistance of and had all the connection points I was expecting. I decided that was too far off the beaten path and would have to be revisited later so I could actually get to building and using my electric spinning wheel.

It took about 4 days 4-6 hours/day from start to finish to assemble the whole thing. A couple of things I wish I had known/used for this build:

• A crosscut blade for the circular saw. I used oak veneered plywood for the box and the rip cut blade on our saw just tore the veneer to shreds. It looks so bad I decided to not even stain/finish the wood like I originally planned.
• A drill press. There are a lot of holes of varying size that have to be drilled in the box, electronics box, flyer and bobbins. A lot of mine didn't come out straight or very true to the size I was drilling and a press would have made this so much easier.
• All the metal and nylon flyer and bobbin parts have an acceptable process variation...What that means is a 5/8" outer diameter pipe might actually be 5/8" and a tiny fraction. That doesn't seem like a big deal except when you want to put on the pipe a 5/8" inner diameter spacer or pulley or shaft collar, except that it's 5/8" and a tiny fraction so it basically doesn't fit. Towards the end of the build, I figured out a Dremel with a grinding or sanding bit was the best choice to take out the "tiny fraction" and make everything come together properly.

I didn't take any pictures of the build as it came together because I did exactly what was on the EEW build guide and they have lots of pictures there. But here's a little video review for you to watch.

Adventures in Spinning

Remember that roving I bought at the Houston Pony Meet? Well I ordered a knitpicks Turkish drop spindle and worked a little on it, it was difficult and I did like it, but it wasn't going as easy as I hoped. Learning curves, and the fact I was trying to teach myself really. Then work got busy and blah blah blah. Well I started watching some more drop spindle videos and learned a few new things so I picked up my spindle and started again, this time it was going much better! Before I knew it I had spun up all my roving into two lovely little balls of singles

Clearly my technique needs some refining as the singles are wildly thick and thin. I figured after plying it would balance out a bit.

During plying I realized I did not add as much twist to the yarn as I should have, because it turned out very puffy and loose looking, but it held together well anyway

I got pretty quick and plied the second ball in about an hour. The Turkish spindle is great because it makes a center pull ball and you can ply from the inside and outside without a problem. I love it.

Then Zoey helped me wind into a skein and tie it up to prepare for setting the twist. Without a niddy-noddy I used two chairs next to each other. I could have just used one chair back, but I like the way a longer hank looks. I wound up with about 110 yards of yarn. To set the twist I soaked in some water for a few minutes, rinsed in cold, squeezed out the water in a towel, whacked it against the tub a few times and hung to dry.

When it was done drying, I twisted it into hanks. Lovely. There it is, my first hand spun yarn all ready to use.

It took me a while to find a pattern to use since I was overestimating how much project I could get out of my 4 oz of bulky/super bulky yarn. I did find this pattern for a headband ear warmer which I decided would be just right. I don't really wear hats in the winter because my hair is always in a pony tail, so this sounded like something I might actually use. It took just a couple hours to knit up (with kid interruptions) and used slightly less than one of my balls of yarn. I think I might make a matching one for Zoey if I don't find any other pattern I like.

Over the weekend I started looking at hand carders...and wool combs...I think I might see some in my near future. This whole spinning thing is way fun!

A Little Nostalgia

While we were in Louisiana last weekend, we went to a Chinese restaurant for dinner one night and on the dessert bar they had these sugar coated peanuts that tasted just like these pink peanut patties that we used to get as kids. They are so good! I haven't seen them in ages, I'm sure you can still get them out there somewhere. They're one of mom's favorite candies. They're very similar to a pecan praline, but are a little more chewy. When we got back I started looking for a recipe because I was sure someone out there loved them too and had replicated them. I found this recipe and decided to give it a whirl yesterday.

Cooking to Soft Ball, still got 40 more degrees to go. It takes a while and seems like it'll never get there, but it eventually does. When it does get there, and you add the powdered sugar, this stuff gets super thick and gooey and it's so hard to stir but you gotta keep it moving so the sugar crystals form. When your arm is about to burst into flames from the burning, it'll finally start losing gloss and then you know it's time to drop them!

I buttered some cookie cutters and filled those first and then just dropped the rest by spoonful on the parchment. I removed the cookie cutters after it had set enough to keep shape but not completely cool and they slid right out and I had some really cute shaped patties. The preliminary tasting was promising, After they had set undisturbed a few hours I ate one and it was amazing! The texture was so close, maybe not perfectly perfect, but really really close and the taste was nearly spot on. The key is to used RAW peanuts, not roasted ones. It makes a huge flavor and texture difference. I think these will have to go on my yearly Christmas candy list. I'm sure the color of them would have been better if I used red food coloring instead of pink and I didn't add very much, flavor and texture was the important part.

Dinner from Scratch

I was feeling a little bored about 2:30 this afternoon and decided to make some marinara sauce from scratch using all the tomatoes I had ripening on my counter from the garden. This is quite a lengthy process, the longer you cook it, the better the flavors. Last summer was my first attempt at this, and it turned out ok but not great.

First, blanch fresh ripe tomatoes for 1 minute. Cool in ice water and slip the skins off.

Core and cut out bad or tough spots, cut tomatoes in half or quarters and squeeze out seeds and juice. Crush the meat. This is a pretty messy process.

Yep, all over the floor and myself too. I'm happy this year I can put all the "waste" into my composters to go back into the garden. I love my composters.

Saute some onions, peppers (from the garden), and garlic. Add the tomatoes and cook for 30 minutes at least. Add some fresh herbs like basil, oregano, rosemary, and thyme from the garden.

Keep cooking! You can finally see a reduction of liquid. Add salt and pepper and taste and adjust.

Once it has reduced enough to start sticking if you don't watch it, puree in a food processor. I only did about  90% cause I wanted a few little chunks of seasoning for texture. Add some more fresh herbs and cook until you're ready to serve.

Serve with some oven fried eggplant (also from the garden) and fresh bread. Yummy Yum. It still is hard to believe this is the end result of tomatoes from my garden. Lots of work but very rewarding!

Wheat Bread

Our ward was doing a wheat order of some high gluten white wheat, good for bread, and I finally decided to take the plunge and buy some for food storage. I've been reluctant for a while to buy whole wheat just because I wasn't sure how to use it. After all I have had an unopened bag of wheat flour in my pantry for a couple months now. Intentions were good but I just never got around to using it. After I put in my order for four 6 gallon buckets of wheat I started baking to see if I could even use this stuff.

I modified my White Bread Recipe and used half whole wheat flour. I also added one tsp of vital wheat gluten and substituted honey instead of sugar. I am really happy with how it turned out! Very light, springy, and delicious. The kids ate 2-3 rolls each for dinner and Brandon and I polished off the pan. Next day we ate 85% of the loaf between all of us before we were just "breaded out" We don't eat a lot of bread to begin with.

I also made chocolate chip cookies the next day and substituted half the all purpose flour with whole wheat and they turned out fabulous too. I guess using whole wheat flour isn't that big of a deal after all! I've been wanting to try a whole wheat pie crust. I know the bran can be prone to burning, but pumpkin pie in a whole wheat crust is sounding pretty good! I guess now that I have the wheat coming, I should invest in some kind of mill/grinder. There are so many out there, it's hard to choose.

Love That Bug

On our drive back from camping a week ago I got a call from a lady that works for Simplicity and she told me that I had won second prize in the Baby category for Ian's stinkbug Halloween costume! I was super excited to find out I had been one of the top 5, but I was beside myself thrilled to learn I had actually placed! I really didn't think that I even had a chance knowing I was going up against so much talent out there. While there was virtually no creativity in the sewing of the pants and jacket, I figure it must have come down to subject matter. Stinkbugs aren't a common Halloween costume choice. That and Ian is downright adorable as a stinkbug. How could you not love this:

So what did I win? Other than bragging rights, I got a fabulous certificate declaring my awesomeness and a check for $250! Nice! Maybe I'll have to enter more contests.

Surprisingly Not Awful

4 o'clock rolls around every day and I think, crap, what do I make for dinner? Well I opened the fridge and found a lot of stuff nearing the end of its age including some carrots and cabbage from the garden. I was pretty determined this year to actually use my cabbage. So a little hocus pocus later, out came dinner. I was really worried it was going to be horrendous because I was literally just throwing ingredients and seasonings in the pot hoping it would turn into something edible. When I finally sat down and took the first bite I exclaimed "Wow! That's surprisingly not awful. It's actually pretty good." Since I originally planned to make sweet and sour pork, this is really similar. We ate it on rice.

Pork With Vegetables


Ingredients:
1 lb pork cut in cubes
1 onion chopped
1 green bell pepper chopped
handful of carrots chopped
2 small heads of cabbage cut in thin strips
salt and pepper to taste
dash red pepper
good sprinkle garlic powder
2 fair splashes of apple cider vinegar
2 big plops of brown sugar
4 sage leaves cut in thin strips
2 large pinches of dried thyme
1 can chicken broth
2 Tbsp corn starch

Directions:
Brown pork in a little oil. Add vegetables and cook 10 minutes. Add half the broth and remaining ingredients except corn starch. Cook until cabbage is tender, about 25 minutes. Mix corn starch with remaining broth and add to pot, cook just until thickened. Add water as necessary. Serve on hot rice.

A Rabbit's Feast

I'm finally getting around to preparing for planting my spring garden. Even though it's barely the beginning of March, since the winter was so mild, planting sooner is probably better. We might have another really hot dry summer like last year, it was really hard on the plants. I typically just let the carrots that I plant stay in the ground until I'm ready to use them. The Danvers that I plant don't seem to get too woody as they get bigger and the flavor is always so sweet and delicious. But in order to plant corn, I had to take them up and I had so many more carrots than I expected.

These completely filled my deep kitchen sink. These things have got to be the most labor intensive vegetable to store long term that I've grown so far:

1. Pull out of the ground
2. Tear off the tops
3. Wash
4. Wash again
5. Wash another time
6. Trim the ends
7. Peel...soooo time consuming!
8. Wash again
9. Cut into circles, sticks, or cubes
10. Blanch
11. Cool
12. Pack
13. Freeze

If I had the energy I might have frozen them individually on sheets and then packed for easier usage, but my feet were killing me by the time I got to the blanching. I kept some unprocessed past peeling and washing so I could make carrot cake today, and it is delicious! If you have any favorite carrot recipes, I'd love to know I've got 8 quart bags packed with carrots in my freezer!

Adventures in Woodworking

Brandon had mentioned before in the past that he might be interested in learning to do woodworking. I have always hoped to encourage hobbies other than video games. I don't have much against video games, they're good stress relievers and fun to play, but sometimes you need a hobby that is enriching to your mind, has useful skills and invokes a real sense of accomplishment.

For Christmas Santa brought Brandon a new drill, hammer drill, and a nice ratchet set. The first thing he asks is what should I build with my new tools? Some brainstorming went on and we decided on making a bench to put in the hallway to organize our shoes and make a convenient seat for putting on shoes. For years we've had just a large wicker basket to hold our shoes and up until recently, all the kids shoes plus the 4 pairs of shoes Brandon always wants in the basket, it just wasn't enough room and Ian had really taken to dumping out all the shoes so he can flip the basket over and stand on it to reach things on the counter (who teaches these kids these things?!).

We both came up with a general design we liked and then Brandon worked out all the measurements and details and purchased the materials. The bench is 18"x16"x6' has 6 cubbies on each end and a large open space in the center. Each cubby is large enough to fit an adult pair of shoes side by side. Brandon decided to make it from solid pine with oak cubby dividers and stained in pecan. He wanted a darker stain like cherry, so I don't know why he chose a pecan stain. I guess he figured the soft pine would absorb more stain than it did. It looks fine anyway. The whole assembly is grooved, glued, and screwed. It's not gonna fall apart anytime soon. We learned after the fact how to route a straight groove through the center of the piece of wood so he had to do a lot of wood filling to close up the gaps in the seams. It's not too noticeable unless you're looking for it.

When it came down to sanding it before staining, it sat in the garage un worked on for several days. I know how these projects go when you get to your least favorite part of it. After the excuses kept flying, I went ahead and did all the prep sanding myself so Brandon could get right to staining and the garage could be restored to order. It really bugs me when things are out of place and especially half finished! So he spent all day Saturday staining it up, the most beautiful day ever. It was like the perfect spring day. Seriously, is it really winter? While he was doing that I went out to find just the right set of baskets for the center space. After digging through and measuring about a billion baskets at Michaels, I found the perfect pair. These baskets were made just for this bench. Better still they were 50% off. When it was all done and put together, we brought it in and it fit the space perfectly. The shoes fit in just right, the kids were so excited to use the new peice of furniture that they both went running all over the house to find every shoe possible to put in the bench. When Zoey asked what the baskets were for, I told her they were for socks and hats and gloves and the like she immediately went upstairs to find socks to fill them. So funny. I just hope its a while before Ian realizes he can take those baskets out and dump them out and flip them over to reach things on the counter :-P

Funny thing is he only briefly used his Christmas drill, but no other Christmas tools for the project. I think it cost about $140 for the bench. Pretty good price for a solid piece of custom furniture. Brandon is pretty proud of how it turned out ad I really like it too. For a first project with no prior experience, it's downright amazing. We learned a lot, I see plenty of future projects. I intended to take pictures of the whole process of the bench building but somehow that didn't happen so here's the finished product.

Brandon probably should have wrote this blog himself, be he said men don't blog, so check the comments, I'm sure he has something to say for all this.

Here in My Arms

Since I graduated high school almost 10 years ago I don't play my cello very often, but every now and again (I guess about every 3 years) someone finds out that I can play and asks me to perform with them. It's always around Christmas, which is great, I love Christmas music. I'm usually really reluctant to play but eventually give in and agree because if you don't use a talent, then you lose it. While playing once every three years isn't much exercise for a talent, it's enough to keep it from completely rusting over. Every year, the Kingwood, Texas Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints holds a Nativity Display and Music Festival where many groups in the area perform while anyone come into the building and see hundreds of nativity scenes from all over the world. It's so beautiful to see all the renditions of this miraculous event that Christmas revolves around. In 2008 I was asked to perform this song with a vocalist, and a string ensemble including a harp. I love harp, one of these days I'm gonna learn to play one. I'll probably be really old, but I'm gonna do it! After  a couple years of chaos the vocalist contacted me and asked me to perform the song again with the group.

This is not a very well known Christmas song by Rob Gardner, or really known at all. Brandon has been on vacation all week and I've been working during the day so I was really ingrained with  programming code so I felt really off for the performance. It didn't help in my hour long cram session I gave myself a blister practicing. But I won't point out all the flaws, just enjoy the words.

Moms in IT

I have a degree in Information Technology from BYU. There are certain things I knew I would use, like the programming and networking for my own hobby use or home network stuff. I didn't think so much that it would actually be useful to my life as a mom. In IT101, Introduction to IT we made these little circuit board Ys that have an LED that blinks and it plays a couple songs. That one lab taught me the basics of circuitry and electronics and how to solder it all together.

Last year my dear MIL bought the kids this awesome MP3 player for the kids, it looks like a little boom box and has easy to use buttons and functions for the kids to use. I really like it since i was able to put 15 cds worth of songs on it for the kids to play whenever they like. Well Zoey decided one day it would be fun to throw it over the railing upstairs. Lucky thing ended up smashing on the tiny tiled area in front of the fireplace. It rattled but it was still working, amazingly.

The MP3 Player boom box the kids broke and I fixed.

Then one day a week or so ago, it quit working. I figured it was only a matter of time, but I decided, hey I know a thing or two about electronics, I'm gonna fix this thing. First problem, one of the screws holding the halves of the casing together won't unscrew and I end up stripping the head trying to get it out. I left it abandoned on the counter for a week or so. With Thanksgiving coming up I knew I was going to need to clear it off the counter so I finally decided to either fix it or trash it. I took a drill and drilled out the screw so I could get it apart. On first look I can't see any issues with the electronics. As I'm doodling with it checking from the battery to the switch to the circuit board I finally notice one of the ribbon cables from the switch to the circuit board is partially broken away. I immediately think back to my IT 101 class and I'm sure I can fix this.

I rummaged around for the soldering iron, some desoldering braid and wire strippers. I spent the next hour and a half messing with the stupid thing. I talk about Brandon getting fixated with things, but I was not going to give up on this because I knew I could do it! I was having a heck of a time pulling up all the old solder so I could remove the broken wires because the manufacturer put some kind of hot glue over it and it was just making the contacts difficult to get to. Eventually I cleaned out 3 of the 4 holes for the ribbon wire. The last being the ground I couldn't clean out but the contacts were exposed enough that I figured I could just solder over top the existing wire bits. I soldered the ribbon wire back into place and tried to turn the box on and it wouldn't boot up. I knew I should have double checked the markings on the switch and board. I wound up soldering the ribbon on backwards. DOH! So I unsoldered it all again, soldered it back on properly and it fired up perfectly. I put it all back together and strut out of the office buffing my fingernails and jammin' to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

With all the electronic toys these days, it's pays to be a mom with IT experience.

For My Gouls and Goblins

I didn't think I would like being a Nursery leader as much as I do but I really look forward to church every Sunday to spend time with my little bunch of kiddos. With it being the Sunday before Halloween I wanted to give my kids a little treat. I thought I had plenty of clear cellophane treat bags, but it turns out I only had 4, and on average we have about 8-9 kids. It was about 10:30 and we have church at 12:30. I thought about just using sandwich bags, but that seemed cheap. I remembered some Halloween theme fabric I had in my stash and I ran upstairs and whipped out 12 treat bags, filled them with goodies and tied with a pretty bow. Took about 30 minutes in all. I love that serger, it made quick work of these baggies.

The kids were off the wall CRAZY this Sunday, usually they're a pretty mellow bunch. I'm sure it was a result of the Trunk or Treat we had the night before. I didn't feel bad at all sending them home with a little more sugar. Hehe.

Bugs in my Shortcake!

I've been RREEEAAALLLY super excited this Halloween to make costumes for the kids. I finally got Zoey to settle on a "Strawberry Shortcake Princess" and since Ian couldn't really tell me what he wanted to be, I decided for him, a Stinkbug, because that's what I call him.

For Zoey I used Simplicty pattern 2073 and New Look 6880. They're both the same company so merging the two to integrate the sleeves only required some minor adjustments. When I saw the costume pattern I totally fell in love with it, it was the boning in the skirt. I just love that poofy flared look and I knew it would really suit Zoey. After I bought the pattern I scoured the internet for hours and hours looking for the right fabric and it just wasn't out there. Finally days later I came up with a solution, sequins! I wanted it all to be as shiny and sparkly as possible because she was a princess too, not just strawberry shortcake. It took 4 tries to find the right color pink satin. Thankfully it was cheap at 3 dollars or less a yard. I glued on the sequins because it was less work that way but Ian has since ripped many of them off so I reinforced by sewing them on and gluing. It was not as easy as I thought it would be to arrange all those dots evenly on the dress because of the shape of the fabric I couldn't just measure and mark and have everything square. So it's not perfect, but at a glance I bet you can't tell many of them are off.

2009 Version Strawberry Shortcake. She has a show on The Hub.

Once the dress was all put together I just couldn't figure out the right head accessory. I kept coming back to a tiara for the princess effect but I couldn't figure out how to tailor it to what I wanted. As I was browsing around the internet for ideas I came across this Strawberry Fairy Hat and decided that style was the perfect accessory. So it kinda fits in the fairy category than princess, but I figured I was taking creative liberties on the Strawberry Shortcake character anyway I might as well do what I thought fit the style of the dress best. It took me three pattern drafts and mock up hats before I got the flare, ripple and crown all fitting and looking just right. The last thing left was to make the strawberry stem and leaves. That also took several drafts and tries to get it right. The green satin I bought was "costume" satin. Read: low quality and ravels easily. The rest of the satin for the dress was made with "special occasion" fabric, it was much more cooperative to sew with. With a butane lighter to melt the edges I was able to make it work. I decided to skip the glue for the hat and just sew all the sequins on.

The pattern did include tights but I decided to just purchase some from www.welovecolors.com. To let me have time to focus on Ian's costume. And so, I give you the Strawberry Shortcake Princess Fairy in all her glory!

I'm so happy with how her costume turned out that I'm entering it in two contests. One from Simplicity and one from We Love Colors. WLCs has a people's choice prize so head over to their page and Like Zoey's picture! The Simplicty contest is much more hard core, if you make the first cut you have to send them the costume for examination! I'd be really lucky to make the first cut, I'd be going up against some of the most talented sewers! Although, I did use a bit of creativity in altering the pattern and the inside of the dress is crazy neat thanks to my serger!

Totals for Zoey's Costume:
Pattern: $1
Fabric (3/4 yard pink, 1/2 yard white, 1/4 yard green): $4
Notions (thread, glue, sequins, zipper, boning, etc): $13
Tights: $9
Total: $27

Now what about Ian? I call him Stink bug because 1. His poop stinks 2. He can't ever stay out of the garden, just like the stink bugs this summer wouldn't get out of my tomatoes! I decided to go with the Brown Marmorated Stink Bug because those were the variety eating up my plants and they seemed less boring looking than the green ones. I originally wanted to just go find a hoodie and pants for Ian's outfit but after much searching, I could not find anything I liked reasonably priced. Then I remembered some fabric I had that my mom had given me two years ago to use for Brandon's Jedi costume, but I wound up not using it then, glad I still had it, it was just right for Ian's costume!

 I used Simplicty pattern 5316 without alterations (other than shortening the legs and cinching in the waist band because my kids are tiny). My first time putting in a separating zipper and I think it worked out pretty great. Then I just sewed some pipe cleaners to the hoodie for his antennae. I twisted two colors together that gave it just the right verigation. Though it is hard to tell the fabric is also sorta stripy in tan and cream. While in reality the bug's underside is more solid cream colored, it seemed to make more sense overall to have it just be brownish. The shell is where I dedicated the most work to Ian's costume. Yes, sewing the hoodie and pants took time, but only a couple hours overall. I spent that and more on the shell.

Since stink bugs don't really have very curved shells, I wanted it to be mostly flat but with some dimension. I glued together about 20 layers of newspaper on the hood of Brandon's car to get some slight curvature. I used this great paper mache paste recipe. I like it better than raw flour and water, it's smooth and seems to dry stronger. It's best used warm, once it cools it gets kinda chunky jelly like. I loved the way it came out but after searching more pictures, it needed way more dimension. I cut out a shield shape and then added another 10 layers of paper mache with some extra padding to bring it out more. It ended up rehydrating the bottom layers and they lost their shape. I guess it didn't really matter in the end.

I originally planned to paint the shell myself and I was really dreading this part. My artistic skills are basically nil when it comes to drawing, painting, coloring, or using any kind of medium in that range. After looking over lots and lots of pictures, the task seemed even more daunting because of all the variation in colors and pattern in the shell and wings. Then I had the great idea to blow up a picture of an actual stink bug and paper mache it to the form I made! Bingo! I found a high resolution picture, blew it up a little, shaped it to fit the shell I had made and paper mached it on. Perfection! I painted the back of the shell plan gray and then attached two straps I made from leftover fabric. I'm actually still struggling with this part, the straps work, but as long as Ian doesn't do anything toddler like, ie: run, fall, twist, or otherwise struggle in the thing or the straps break away from the paper mache. I've tried hot glue and heavy duty staples to keep the straps attached but it just isn't strong enough. I'm thinking I'll probably have to drill some holes and thread the straps in so it's holding to more than just the surface layer of paper.

I realize if I wanted to be proportionally correct the shell would have to be much much bigger, but he's a reluctant toddler as it is, I was lucky to get him to wear this much. Overall, I am very pleased. Ian makes a great stinkbug!

I'm going to enter Ian's costume in the Simplicity contest as well since I did use one of their patterns, but I doubt his will place since there is no real creativity in it on the sewing front.

Totals for Ian's costume:
Pattern: $5
Fabric: Free
Notions: $6
Shell: lets just say $1 in the cost of flour and paper, and glue, even though I got the newspapers free and I already had everything else.
Total: $12

Emotional Gardening

There is something about gardening that is horribly addicting. When I started my first garden 3 years ago, I had visions of grandeur, this amazing flourishing garden producing pounds of vegetables and fruits at my will. I've since learned, you gotta keep your expectations low when you're starting out because even if you read all the books written, you have no idea how it works out until you put into practice. The variables are endless. Season one was mostly a bust, except for the gobs and gobs of eggplant. Yet I persisted to try again. Season 2 was quite a bit more fruitful and I gained a lot of confidence. I've now successfully gotten to grow three plantings each year. Right now I'm on the final planting of the year, the fall garden. My favorite things to eat are grown in the summer, but the fall/winter garden is the easiest to manage with the highest yield. If it's green and leafy or grows underground, it's a fall vegetable.

Mustards, Turnips, Radishes, and Peas

This year I'm growing:

• Collard Greens
• Cabbage
• Carrots
• Kale
• Turnips
• Radishes
• Mustard Greens
• Peas
• Broccoli
• Cauliflower

There is a bit of an emotional cycle when you plant a garden. After the ground is prepared and you plant the seeds, you worry. Did I plant them deep enough? Are they too deep? Did I put enough seeds in each spot? What if they don't sprout? How do I know it's the plant I want and not a weed?

Peas

With luck a few days later you'll see tiny little plant emerging in evenly spaced clusters. Then you feel total exhilaration  There's just something about those new little lives beating what seems impossible odds to make it through the dirt and into the warm sun striving to be a big healthy plant. Now you feel exceptionally protective.

The tiny little plants are very fragile at this point, I'm sure this is when the kids dislike me most because I'm completely psyco about them getting too close to the garden and destroying the seedlings. After the first true leaves appear, you relax a little, but continue to check them every day and nurse them ensuring the soil is just moist enough and that they are being properly fed.

Ian tests my patience by poking at the garden with a stick.

After 6 or so true leaves appear, now it's just a waiting game. The plants, if cared for regularly, will survive and over time will produce the fruits they are intended to bear. This is the most boring phase because you don't notice the rate of growth so easily and the plants are strong enough to handle an accidental trample from a child or obnoxious dog. This is also the point where said children and dog lose interest in attacking the garden because you stop paying such close attention to it.

Radishes

For flowering plants, the next exciting phase is when you see all the blooms, they're beautiful and each one invokes a hope that it'll pollinate and become a fruit. All the potential is amazing! You'll scour the garden every day for pollinating bugs and carefully examine each blossom for signs of swelling indicating pollination. Once fruits are set and growing, you enter another boring phase of waiting for maturity. It usually seems like forever, but the wait is worth it. For non flowering plants, you don't get the gratification of seeing the flowers, but you can be more instantly gratified that once a leaf is big enough to use you can eat it right away. Non flowering plants typically mature faster, the leafy types, though the root types take a lot longer and it's really frustrating not knowing if they're ready until you pull them up, so if you plant roots, make sure you plant lots so you actually get to eat some at full maturity.

Turnips

It's essential that all first ripened fruits and mature harvests are eaten on the spot right from the plant early in the morning. The taste will totally blow your mind and all you can think is: I'm awesome, I GREW this and it's SO GOOD!! Take that mega mart! It's totally euphoric and empowering. It makes all that waiting and nurturing worth it.You'll continue to feel totally awesome as you harvest over the next several weeks, storing some, giving some away to friends and family, and eating the rest. You'll find your culinary creativity exceeds your expectations. 

Forest of Rosemary

The last emotional feeling is dread. It's a lot of work ripping out the spent plants and preparing the ground to start again on a new crop. But once you muster up the energy to get it done, the cycle can begin again. I guess that's why it's all so much fun.

Kale

Collard Greens

Look for future posts featuring my fall harvests and delicious recipes.