Reducing our carbon footprint Part IV

Garden organically.










And use every bit of it. Even if it has a bruise. Or bump. Or isn't as pretty as what you buy at the grocery store.





And if you can't garden then shop at your local farmer's market weekly.




-dana

Have I mentioned future quilt giveaways?

I want each quilt giveaway contest to be more exciting than the last. So, I've been tossing around ideas and think that next time I'll give away three quilts to three different winners.




Melissa Averinos has designed her debut fabric line, Sugar Snap, for FreeSpirit and is going to hook me up with some of it to make a quilt to give away here. How stinkin' cool is that?????!!!!!??




And then you'll remember Russ, my long-arm quilter extraordinaire from The Back Porch Quilters (did I tell you he'll be featured in McCall's magazine in Spring 2009). Well, he thought the last giveaway was so much fun than he is going to make a quilt for the next one too. He even got an industry friend of his (Tula Pink!!) to sign a piece of her new fabric for Moda called Nest.




And the third quilt? Well, that has yet to be determined. More than likely it will be a scrappy quilt made from my stash of fabrics.

I'm thinking one of the three quilts will be awarded to the best YouTube video entry. Oh, the mere thought of that makes my heart sing and my cheeks turn up in a goofy grin.

I wonder what other mischief I can dream up . . .

-dana

school = end of summer

School starts tomorrow and I'm sad. School means summer is over. And, my little lovelies aren't here to play with me.






Their days will be filled with other things. As will mine.





I'll miss shopping at their store.







And be a lonely momma for sure.

-dana

Exciting and nerve wracking

This week has been exciting for me. And nerve wracking too.




I had a crew of people in my home on Tuesday filming a podcast. I know!!! How cool is that?!! It will be edited and made into a segment all about Old Red Barn Co. I was so incredibly nervous about this. I couldn't sleep the night before. I couldn't eat breakfast. Dude, I was nervous. I was more nervous about this than I ever was about arguing a criminal case before a circuit court judge.

Whew. I'm so glad that it's over and I can eat and sleep again.

Also, this week Gina Halladay featured my headband tutorial at Quilters Buzz. Whoa Nelly. First of all, GINA HALLADAY. And secondly, QUILTERS BUZZ. Wanna talk about a buzz? Try getting news of this in your inbox.





Next week is sure to be a real let down.



Especially since the girls go back to school on Monday.

-dana

Today your 9

Today you are 9 years old.

With 9 year old feet.






And beautiful 9 year old blue eyes.





With a gentle and cautious spirit.





Thoughtful, caring and clever.






And loving. So very loving.






You have a contagious giggle.





And a snorty goofy laugh.





You watch and take it all in and carefully consider your options.





And your trying incredibly hard to stop picking at your fingers.





Happy birthday sweet girl. I love you more than you can ever imagine.

-Mom

Driving me crazy

Ok. So, I love my kids. I love my kids immensely. Like a whole, whole lot. Great big bunches I tell you.

But they have started this thing that is driving me crazy. And, I really need you to tell me that your kids do it too.





It's the crazy "what if" questions. What if this? What if that? Take for example our drive yesterday to clogging practice. We started talking about four-wheelers and the reasons why I won't let them ride one. Licious then asks, "But Mom, what if the world was covered with mattresses?" Nope. Still can't ride one. Boo asks, "What if everything in the entire world was made of marshmallows?" These what if questions were just on this subject but they go on all day.

What if the car next to us didn't have windows?

What if the swimming pool is empty when we get there?

What if my socks slip down and my feet start to hurt in my new sneakers?

What if a tiger escapes from the zoo and makes it to our house and tries to live in the barn?





Dude. Seriously.

What if they literally send me to the nut house with their constant questions about the what if's?

-dana

Headband tutorial

Since so many of you asked how I made these headbands I thought it high time I tried my hand at a tutorial. I'll attempt to teach you how to make them with pictures and words. My words can get kinda confusing so bear with me.




First off you'll need fabric, 3/4 inch wide elastic, a cutting mat, rotary cutter and straight edge. You'll also use an iron, ironing board and sewing machine.




Cut 2 19 inch x 4 inch strips of fabric. These will make the front and back of your headband. I used matching fabric but you can use coordinating fabric and have an reversible headband. Hmmm . . . wonder why I didn't think of that before now.

You'll also cut 2 2inch x 6inch strips of the same fabric. Or not. I mean go crazy. Use whatever fabric your little heart desires. I'm not the headband police.

While your at it also cut a 3 inch length of elastic.

Oh, and ya know these measurements are what works for us. Maybe you have smaller heads. Maybe you have bigger heads. These work for the girls (ages 8 and 6) and work for me too (age 36 thank you very much!) but you may need to play around with the measurements to see what works for you.




Now go to your iron and thank your lucky stars that your ironing board doesn't look like mine. You'd think I'd make a cute little cover for it but I just don't follow patterns well and haven't managed to take the time to figure out how to make one on my own.

Anywho, take your 19 inch long strip and fold it in half and iron it at the crease.







Now, one at a time, line the folded strip up on your cutting mat with the folded crease at the bottom. Double check and make sure the folded crease is at the bottom. Go ahead . . . I'll wait.



Good. Now using your straight edge line it up from the bottom right hand point up and over 1 inch in on the top. Then make the cut with your rotary cutter.

This is how you get the nice wide portion of the headband that goes at the top of the head and the narrow part down by the nape of your neck.





Do the exact same for the other side.




Now go back to your ironing board (I'll spare you another glimpse of mine), open up the fold and iron back nice and straight. Also, iron about 1/4 of an inch in on each end on each strip.

Then, with the rights sides of the fabric together, line the two strips up on on top of each other and pin together.





Sew each long side using 1/4 inch seam allowance.




Now you have to turn this right-side-out. I get it started with my hands and then use an unsharpened pencil to help me finish the job. The first time it can be tricky but you'll get the hang of it.





Just keep turning it right-side-out until it looks like this.




Then iron it nice and flat.




Top stitch along each length to give a nice finished look. I'd guess that it is about 1/8 of an inch in from the outer edge.




Ok. Remember the 2 inch x 6 inch strips of fabric? Now it's time to make a sleeve for the elastic.




Place them right sides together and sew along the two long sides using your 1/4 inch seam allowance.





Then you'll turn it right-side-out just like you did on the main headband portion.





No need to iron this one all pretty though because it will be all scrunchy here in a minute anyway.




Place the elastic in and have it just about even with one edge of the sleeve.



See how it is just about even?


Now this whole contraption fits into the end of the headband thinger-ma-bob you made a minute ago.









Now sew it securely with your sewing machine. I go back and forth 5 or 6 times to be sure that it is a good and strong connection.



Then you do the same for the other side. However, you'll have to shimmy the fabric sleeve down to find the end of the elastic. Don't get frustrated. Just work at it for a few seconds and you'll have it.

Sew the other side like you did the first and viola!!





Your headband is complete!




Once you have one under your belt then you'll be able to whip these out in record speed. Hey, I know!!! Let's have a race? Wanna??

-dana

Reducing our carbon footprint Part III

An absolute must see. Go here and watch this 20 minute video. Watch it with your kids too. Then watch it again.

-dana

The quilt giveaway bug

The quilt giveaway bug is a good itch to scratch. Amber of One Shabby Chick made this beauty and is giving it away to one lucky winner. Rush to her blog and enter for your chance to win. And, wish her happy birthday in the process!

-dana

Life is like that . . . and several other things

When I woke up this morning there were several things waiting for me. Real mail. Email. And, tomatoes.





As I got the water boiling for the tomatoes I checked my email and found three different people asking such things as, "How do you find the time to do such things?" and "Is there nothing your not good at?" Both to which I laughed heartily.





Perhaps the world gets a shiny beautiful package all wrapped up in a bow of what my life is like from this blog. I show projects I'm proud of. Share stories that I love. Photograph images that I find beautiful.





I certainly don't go around photographing the dust bunnies under my sofa. Or the unmade beds in every bedroom. And I'd never dream of photographing the puny little onions that came from my garden.





I don't ever plan to grow puny little onions. I aspire to huge globes of allium goodness and obviously do something wrong every single summer.





But, I try not to focus on my failures. Rather I just try to see the goodness, bounty and grace that comes from a happy life.


So to answer your question about whether there are things I cannot do, I answer, but of course! I merely share with you what I can.




It's the world as I see it. A beautiful world indeed. Just please don't mind the dust bunnies. I am only human after all.


Oh, and lest I forget the real mail. Christina had a little contest on her blog and my winning prize was a jar of her blueberry jam and an original Nutmeg Kid. Thanks Christina!







Let's recap. I'm human. And I'm lucky.

So very lucky.

-dana

No doubt about it

Absolutely no doubt about it. None. Zero. Zilch.














These two are meant to be.

-dana

Quilt-i-ness

Lately I'm addicted to sewing. I want to do it all day, every day. I think about it as I'm falling asleep and dream about it at night. If I'm at the pool with the girls then I'm thinking about what to do next and scheming how I can create time to do it.

Must have something to do with all the great fabrics I've recently purchased from Karen and her lovely etsy shop.



-dana

Your Weekly Moment of Sven

Howdy, fellow netizens! The time has come to flex our fix-it muscle again!

First, I'd like to thank everyone for their warm welcome. Secondly, it seems that most people were interested in furniture restoration as our next topic of interest. To wrap it up, I'll also try to help my new friend with the discolored porcelain tub.

Before we go into it too far, let me just say that I'm not going to try to teach you to refinish a piece of furniture. There are thousands of books on the subject and they all go into the required depth of furniture restoration. Instead, I'm going to go over three levels of repair, from minor to major, explaining each one briefly and giving you enough information to get you into trouble.

Before beginning, let me say that true antiques are often valuable because of the history attached to them by the finish. Before you strip, sand or repair, think about what you're doing. I've seen a lot of historical pieces destroyed by someone with a can of Formby's Finish-In-A-Can.

1) Minor scuffs, scrapes and abrasions: Carnuba wax is the king of hiding minor imperfections. I like it so much in fact, it will be the last step in every level of our refinishing. I'm not talking about that almost-wax in a bottle that everyone is so fond of now. I'm talking about hard carnuba wax that your dad used to let dry on the car too long and took hours to remove. If you have a piece that has some wear marks on it, then you want to make this your first stop on the road to redemption. Sometimes nothing more than a good wax will make the piece take on a whole new look. Apply it and let it dry, only not for as long as your dad did in the blazing sun and polish with cheesecloth.

2) Major scrapes, scratches and marring: For pieces that are beyond a wax job but still have some form of finish over the wood, you'll need to get your hands a little dirty. We're going to do this with sandpaper. Before the instructions though, we're going to have a few warnings:

WARNING! Sandpaper is abrasive! I know that on the face of it, that's a stupid statement to make, but I'm serious. You have to be able to control how much you remove because if you burn through the finish, you buy yourself a ticket to stage 3 of the list, which is a full refinishing, so be careful! You have to be even more careful around edges. Don't sand them. just sand up to them and leave them alone. any sanding at all over a sharp edge will remove the finish quick and in a hurry.

Before you begin sanding, use a mild cleaner to try to take off the years of grime from the surface you're going to try to repair. Dirt clogs sandpaper and sandpaper gets expensive, so clean it up as best you can.Once it's clean, you want to start sanding.

You will want to start with at the very least a 400 grit paper.On flat surfaces, you want to use a sanding block. Keep in mind that the newer the furniture is, the thinner the finish and you can burn through the coating on a 50 year old piece of furniture in no time flat, so be careful! You want to sand gently in a circular motion, never pushing down but allowing the weight of the block to push the paper against the piece for you. Check your paper often as it will get little balls of grime on it that can scratch the piece more than it already is. Also use an old paintbrush to whisk the dust from the piece so it won't clog the paper. Once the finish is uniformly sanded, hit it with 600, 800 then 1,000 grit. A lot of work, I know, but worth it if you can save yourself the hassle of refinishing the piece. Normally, you would continue with finer grits and then rotten stone or pumice, but you probably don't have a thick enough finish to do that, so I'll leave it to you to decide when you've taken as much as you're willing to take off of it.

Got that done? Then head to step one and wax that baby!

3) Complete refinish(or "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here"): Ok, your child(or your husband maybe?) has run their toy cars and tractors across the top of your coffee table and there's not enough finish to fix? The first thing you want to do is impress upon your child(husband) how much work you're going to have to go through to fix the piece. After that, it's time to get started.

If you're only going to be doing the top of a piece, trying to save the finish on other parts of the piece then you're going to want to stop sanding before you begin affecting any stain that's on the wood because you're going to have a tough time matching it. Also, tape off the edge of the area so you don't over-sand accidentally. You'll want to stop your refinish effort along a hard edge, since you'll not be able to blend the two finishes. If you're refinishing the top of a piece, then run tape along the bottom edge and attempt to make the transition from new to old at the lower edge of the table. This gives you a better chance of hiding the repair. If you're refinishing the whole piece, go to town and use whatever stain your heart desires and stop sanding when the piece no longer has any finish on it. When sanding wood, ALWAYS sand along the grain and not across it. The only exception is end-grain which you'll come across at either end of most single-plank topped tables. Sand end grain in whatever direction is most comfortable for you. If you're removing a finish completely, you start with about 180 grit paper and begin working your way up to at least 400 grit. The smoother the wood, the better the finish will look.

Once you've prepared the piece, it's time to decide on a finish. If you're working with an older piece(70 years or older) and it's not been refinished, you're almost certainly dealing with either a shellac or varnish. It doesn't keep you from using a polyurethane, but if you want the finish to look the same, you'll want to try to stick with the same finish. Some notes on the differences between them:

Varnish: Widely used on furniture, varnish is a durable finish that has some give, moving with the wood if it's used in an environment that causes the wood to swell, twist or flex. Although it comes in different tints and flavors, if you're matching an old finish, chances are that you just want a clear gloss finish.

Shellac: Normally sold in the form of flakes that you have to mix with alcohol, shellac is the finish that provides unsurpassed depth and glow to a piece of a wood. It dries incredibly hard and for that reason, you don't want to use it on a piece that might be in the elements or humidity. Although it's the hardest finish to work with, when applied with care, it's results can make a grown man cry, and not because his toy tractor got taken away.

Polyurethane: A late arrival to the world of furniture restoration, it is, as it's name suggests, made up of plastics and other man-made chemicals. For that reason, if no other, some furniture restoration experts cringe when approached with it. I'll leave it to you to decide if you want to use it, but will only say this. If God wanted you to put plastic on your wood, he would have issued a roll of seran wrap with every tree.

Alright, you have a sanded surface and are ready to put a finish on it. How nice it looks completely depends on how much work you're willing to go to. You know those gorgeous pieces that you see with a finish so deep, you feel like you can reach into it? Those often have as many as 20 coats applied. Before you decide that's not too bad, keep in mind that you must sand between at least every other coating. For a piece that gets used daily, four to five coats should suffice in making a protective and beautiful finish. You'll want to apply two coats then let it cure completely(follow the instructions on the finish you selected), sand with 400, then 600 grit then apply another two coats. The sanding is done to level the finish, getting rid of brush strokes, orange peel and fish eyes. Sound nasty? Don't worry, they're just certain mottling that occurs to an applied finish. Point being, sanding gets rid of these. Sand carefully as you don't want to remove everything you worked so hard to get on the piece.

Once you have applied the finish, you want to move on to step two, then step one.

Piece of cake, right?

Now, let's take a look at porcelain cleaning. It's not as easy as it sounds as porcelain is touchy. First off, as my new friend has found out, porcelain is somewhat porous. Secondly, you can't use any real abrasive on it because once you've marred the glazing on the porcelain, you can't really get it back without the assistance of a professional and at great cost. for that reason, you want to use a ridiculously mild abrasive to clean surface grime. I like toothpaste applied to a tennis ball to rub onto the surface. Not only does it clean(just look at the tennis ball when you're done!), it also polishes!

Unfortunately, we're not dealing with a surface problem. She's got something that went past the glazing, which is really tough to get to. I have one suggestion that holds some promise.

Go to your local hardware store and pick up some PVC cleaner in the plumbing section. You're doing a tub, so buy the big container. Be sure to buy the clear cleaner and not the purple. WHATEVER YOU DO, DON'T BUY THE PURPLE! Unless, of course, you want a purple tub. Before applying it to the center of an area, be sure to try it on a hidden surface. This makes sure there's no repair coating or finish on the tub that will be affected by what you're about to do. This is some serious stuff and you want to make very sure that you're not going to make matters worse where it's visible. Apply it with the dauber attached to the lid and rub it in well. Immediately wipe it clean with a paper towel. It flashes incredibly fast and if you don't wipe it quickly, it will simply dry, leaving the contaminates on the porcelain. Once you're sure that you're not going to affect the tub's finish in a negative manner, start on the problem area. Use either the dauber or a towel wrapped around your finger applying a liberal amount. You don't want it to dry while you're working, so apply in small areas, wiping clean often. For incredibly hard discolorations, you'll have to apply over an area repeatedly.

That's it for this installment, my friends. I wish you well in your furniture and tub renewal endeavors and until next time,

Happy Trails,
Sven

It's a fruit pie thing

In the summer we eat many fruit pies. Blueberry. Peach. Cherry. You know . . . summer fruit pies.





But this summer the old, old apple tree in our yard produced apples for the first time since we have lived here. We pruned it pretty hard a few years ago because it never did anything but provide shade. As if by magic, blossoms appeared this spring followed by apples this summer.





So, lucky for us we got to enjoy our first apple pie in the summertime.




I dare say it makes me hungry for fall.

-dana

Summer sewing

Boo and I have been sewing up a storm lately. These little sleeping bags were made entirely by her. All 38 of them. Licious needed them for her Littlest Pet Shop animals. Licious made 38 little pillows.






Boo also has become quite a bag lady. The ideas and designs are always 100% her own. She understands basic construction of the bag and even is sure to make a strong sturdy handle that is sewn on well.





And check out her mini quilt! Again, all her own design and construction. We were each sewing on our own machines and when she showed me this I nearly fell out of my chair. The T blocks at the ends?? Shut up! I would have never done something so creative and striking. That girl could teach me a thing or two. And, in fact, she does on a daily basis.





I've been making headbands for both girls to wear. Easy, fast and very cute I think. Now they have lots to choose from.





Finally, I had some scraps leftover from the quilt I made for the giveaway and wanted to use them in a quilt to keep. You can see the Ginger Blossom fabric in the middle. The borders around them are all vintage linens.




Poor picture for what is really a lovely quilt.

-dana

I found my inner lazy

We took a road trip this weekend in search of our inner lazy. We stayed at a favorite historic inn.



And skipped-to-my-lou'ed on the porch.




Well, the girls skipped-to-my-lou'ed. Razor and I sat and watched.






We searched for quilt blocks all around the square and found other nostalgic sites along the way.








Of course we managed to find some good eats.




We did have a reason for traveling to our favorite lazy summer place.



And it involved me pedaling my wares.



But we definitely found our inner lazy.



-dana