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Confessions of a lazy wannabe homesteader

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Piecing together

February 27, 2012 Marie 2 Comments

I had a mini meltdown this morning. As I gathered my supplies together to work more on my quilt, I started doing the math in my head. Queen size quilts, by the measurements I found here, should be 88×96. I thought surely I had purchased enough fabric. But as I did the math I started to realize that maybe I was wrong, and that perhaps I would have to cut my quilt down to maybe a full or even a twin size. Which just wouldn’t do.

I started thinking of other ways to make the fabric work. After all, that was $40 I spent just for the tan fabric for the top of the quilt (as I have yet to buy the batting or the backing fabric). Sidenote: Thinking about how much this quilt costs when everything is said and done makes me cringe. I won’t spend $100+ for yarn for a sweater, and most of my clothes and home decor and whatnot is thrifted. Suddenly I’m now making a $100+ quilt for my bed. But I digress…

Turns out, after much fretting, I was perfectly fine. And the quilt is piecing together quite nicely.

Posts quilting, sewing

Shaping up

February 23, 2012 Marie 1 Comment

image

It’s no lie that I tend to bite off more than I can chew. For someone who barely knows what she’s doing a queen sized quilt is probably a bit much.  Admittedly this quilt is basic. I lack patience for sewing a bunch of little squares together. And my previous plan has been thrown out at least temporarily (I plan on trying it out on a doll-sized quilt before I commit to a giant version). So plain/basic quilt it is.

I severely underestimated the time it would take me to cut the strips of fabric and sew, and after a much too late night last night I’m about halfway done with the quilt top. I didn’t anticipate this, and I have zero in the way of supplies like batting and binding and whatnot. So this project might fizzle out before it even gets started, at least until pay day.

Posts sewing

Lazy Sunday Planning & Cake in a Mug

February 5, 2012 Marie Leave a Comment


I got it into my head today to make a quilt. I had purchased a package of fat quarters a few weeks back thinking it would make a pretty, small quilt to curl up under on the sofa, but this morning I realized that the colors in the fabrics matches quite well to the wall color of our bedroom. Naturally, I had to start planning it out right away. I’m aiming for something simple for this quilt. I’m still not quite comfortable with my quilting skills just yet, so I don’t want to get overly fancy/complicated. I probably should have started with a quilt for the twin size guest bed… but whatever. Biting off more than I can chew is practically the story of my life.


And in the “shit that kinda scares me” category… cake in a mug. I saw the idea floating around on the internet and decided to try it. I mean, I love cake, but we generally don’t need an entire cake to eat around the house. Really, I just want cake for the day and then I’m over it. Brownies, on the other hand… but I digress.

The cake in a mug thing goes as follows: You buy two boxes of cake mix – one in a flavor of your choice (I picked chocolate fudge), the other *has* to be Angel Food cake. You mix them together really well and store it in an air-tight container. When you want a piece of cake, you take 3 tablespoons of cake mix and add 2 tablespoons of water and stir it up until it looks like a batter. Then you throw it in the microwave for 1 minute.

A lot of people online were raving about how awesome this is. For me it’s just kind of ‘meh.’ It doesn’t taste chocolatey to me like I had hoped. The batter gets frothy when you start mixing it, and it has a smell that I just can’t put my finger on. It certainly doesn’t smell as delicious as a traditional cake. Plus there is all those weird ingredients listed on the packaging. I’d rather bake my own cake from scratch with whole wheat flour, real butter, etc. Unfortunately I now have a big container of the mix. What to do?

Posts food, quilting, sewing

The perfect remedy for a bleak, cold, rainy day?

January 12, 2012 Marie 3 Comments

I loathe this time of year. It’s dark, dreary, and no amount of daylight ever feels like enough.

I picked up some fat quarters the other day. I fell in love with this fabric – the colors, the pattern, the flowers. It seemed like it would be a good remedy for days like this. We need some new cloth napkins, or at least that’s what I told my husband when I came home with these. (Though at this point I think he knows me enough to see through that and know what’s really going on!)

I haven’t decided, yet, if I want to edge them with a contrasting color bias tape (or maybe just a plain plum that matches them?) or if I just want to leave them with a plain hem. What do you think?

Posts home, sewing

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