Christmas rugs

 Anyone who has been reading my blog for a long time knows I'm almost as excited by rugs as I am by quilts.  I want to make some rag rugs as Christmas gifts this year.  It's been way too long since I made a rug.  I've been thinking about the easiest and fastest way for me to create the rugs.  It occurred to me that every type of rug I make starts with strips of fabrics.  Sound familiar?  This is the same thing that's true for making quilts.  Many quilt designs start with strips which are then cut to shapes.   I also wanted to use up the many t-shirt fabric scraps I have taking up space in my storage.  I pulled out a bunch and started cutting strips.

I kept repeating to myself..... use it or loose it.  I will either use the scraps or I'll get rid of them.  I pulled out more t-shirt fabrics to cut strips.

Every type rug I make uses the same size strip.  Whether I make braided, woven, twained, crochet, knitted, shag, or other rug making technique, I always start with 1 1/2 inch strips.  So I pulled out more scrap t-shirt fabric and cut more strips. 

Ok, about now (two full days later) I'm getting pretty tired of cutting fabric strips.  But I keep going because I know I'm going to need all that I can cut.  Providing I have the time needed to get all the rugs made.  I pull out even more t-shirt fabric scraps and cut more strips.

Eventually, (three full days) I get all the t-shirt scraps cut into strips.  Aren't the colors pretty?

Even the box of whites look pretty.  I can see a white and cream color rug in there, can you?  Well, at least that's what my friend Martha is hoping for this year, a white and cream color rug.  Shhhhh.... don't tell her I plan to make her one.

When all the seams and hems are cut away (and the strips cut) the fabric takes up far less room in my storage.  I had a small garbage bag full of cut away parts.  At first I was tempted to hang onto those and possibly make a latch hook rug but then I came to my senses.  I let them go straight out to the garbage can for pickup.  I have enough scraps for my rugs.  If I find I'm going to run out of t-shirt fabrics I'll start cutting up some of my scrap quilt cottons.  Those make good rugs too. 

How about you?  Have you started your Christmas crafts yet? 

Frozen skillet meals

Do you ever buy those bagged frozen skillet meals?  Or the bagged frozen crock pot meals?  I can't think of a brand name right this minute.  It's those frozen meals that say brown an amount of meat, add the package of veggies and the sauce, then cook until done.  Do you have any idea how much you are paying for a personal chef to choose the veggies for you, cut them up for you, and freeze them for you? 

Personally, I don't have a personal chef's salary in my budget so why would I want to pay for a personal chef through my grocery shopping?  Gee whiz, buying frozen skillet or crock pot meals is almost as bad as paying extra for frozen veggies with "butter" sauce.  I think I'm perfectly capable of adding a pat of butter to my veggies without the extra cost. 

I don't know about you but I like to choose my own veggies.  The frozen meals often contain way too many cheap "filler" veggies which could be something no one in the family really likes all that well.  You might find many of those filler veggies remaining on the plate after the meal is finished.  So let me ask you?  At what cost are you paying for those frozen meals?  Not the price.... the cost of paying for the convenience of a personal chef?   Wouldn't you rather spend the extra money on something fun to do instead of extra cost on groceries?

Ok, so go sharpen your veggie knife and let me show you how I make my own frozen skillet and crock pot meals.  This is just one example of my frozen meals to show you how easy it is to do your own.  I found these in the discount bin while shopping Thursday.  I like a stir fry made with smoked sausages.  It was just a stroke of luck that these are made from chicken which is better for my diet.

The first thing to do is decide whether the meal will be fried, baked, or put into a crock pot.  I could put all of the meals into plastic bags but I'm going one step farther for these.  I'm packaging these in foil just in case I want to put them in the oven.  It will depend on the amount of time I have when I decide to cook these.  

I cut the sausages into bite size pieces and divide them into portions for two meals.  Five packs of sausages make ten meals for two.  This would be for Ladybug and me or two meals for me.  The largest area I have for laying out foil is my intake table. 

I like onions in my stir fry so I cut up a bunch of those.  Might as well chop them all.  What's left can be frozen to use later in other meals.  Actually, I cut up the onions before I started preparing the meals.  Once I started putting these meals together I didn't want to stop until finished. 

Green peppers (or color peppers) just naturally go with onions in this house.  I happen to have a bunch of them already in the freezer.   I got these peppers from the discount bin back in March.  They are copped and ready to add to the meals.

I like mushrooms as well in my stir fry.  I look in the freezer but there isn't any frozen so I use canned.  Everything is divided in portions and put onto the foil.

I add a bit of soy sauce, a bit of stir fry sauce, a bit of cornstarch, and these are ready to go into the freezer.  Hmm.... I could have added some scrambled eggs or some other veggies.  I think these will be ok as it.  The only thing I'm going to add is some rice.  I look in the freezer and find the packages of rice already cooked and frozen in portions for two.  Ten packages happen to be what I had in the freezer.  Lucky again.

I roll up the foil, stick a label on it, (made from scotch tape), and put into numbered freezer bags.  Two packaged meals plus two packs of rice fit into one bag.  If I make frozen meals that someone else might be cooking, I'd put the cooking instructions inside the numbered bag.  I mean, say for example, a lady prepares these for a husband to fix while she's away at a quilting retreat or something.   Husbands (and others) don't always know what to do with something taken from the freezer so it's best to give them detailed instructions. 

The meals are all finished.  Five numbered bags which represent either ten meals for Ladybug and me or twenty meals for just me. 

Now was it that hard to put together some frozen prepared meals?    Think about this the next time you are tempted to pick up a frozen meal in a bag.  Do you want fillers or do you want only what will be eaten?  If you want to read more about my thoughts on paying for a personal chef at the grocery go read this post here. 

Hmm.... I'm sure the new readers of my blog are wondering about the numbered freezer bags.  You can read more about those in this post here.  I should have another post about how the freezer looked when full but I can't find that post.  Since the time I wrote that post, I've made a few changes to how I organize my freezer.  I'll do an updated post either today or Monday showing more details.  I think the freezer is much better organized than it was back then.

Ok, back on subject, let's say on the day I choose one of these meals for dinner, I decide not to bake it but want to put it into a crock pot.  I remove it from the foil, put into the crock pot, add a can of tomatoes and that's it.  The rice can be either added to the crock pot during the last few minutes of cooking or zapped in the microwave.  If I decide to actually fry the stir fry meal I unwrap and put into a skillet.  Get the idea?  One preparation, several options. 

Bittersweet tangerine/orange jam

Recently I found good bargains on lemons, oranges, and tangerines.   I have plenty of frozen oranges in the freezer already.  What do I do with a windfall of several oranges and tangerines?  I decided to make tangerine/orange jam.   This is a bittersweet jam. 

This jam can be made with only oranges.

Or it can be made with only tangerines or a combination of both.  Use whatever you find.

Here is the basic ingredient list:

5 oranges (or tangerines or both)

2 lemons

1 1/2 cup honey (or 3 cups sugar)

This basic recipe makes 3 half pints.  I'll explain the recipe but the photos are of a much larger batch.  I had bunches of tangerines and oranges so I multiplied the ingredients to make lots more. 

Take one whole orange, remove the seeds, slice into small sections, rind and all.  Put this into a blender or a food processor and grind it into a paste.  The rind should be very tiny pieces.  In this recipe the rind provides the pectin and the juice provides the acid.

Now peel and remove the seeds of the lemons and the remaining oranges.   Put these through the blender or food processor too.  Put it all into a large pot big enough to allow for expansion of the liquids during cooking.  I'm using a large stock pot for my larger batch.

Add the sugar and stir together. 

Place over high heat and bring to a boil, stirring frequently, until it comes to a boil that can't be stirred down.   It will start to foam but this is ok, do not remove the foam.   Be sure it doesn't boil over.  

Boil at a rolling boil for at least 10 minutes or until it resembles a thick syrup.  Stir frequently.  The foam will eventually die down. 

Turn off the heat and pour jam into jars leaving 1/2 inch headspace.   If you made the small batch then the jars can be allowed to cool and stored in the refrigerator.  Allow the jam to age for atleast two weeks before eating or it will taste very bitter.  Aging improves the taste. 

I made a big batch for long term storage so I processed my jars in a water bath canner for 10 minutes.  My batch made 9 pints. 

I have enough tangerines, oranges, and lemons to make 18 more pints.  Some will be given to neighbors.

Perfect circles and DIY feminine pads

A few days ago I was talking to a neighbor about the economy.  She and her husband are a young couple.    They've been struggling with finances because she's now unemployed and he's on disability.  I've taken her under my wing and teaching her some of the things I do to save money.  We've been talking about alternative cleaning supplies and cooking from scratch.  She wants to learn to sew and how to can foods.  I'm very happy to teach her what I am able to do and at the same time she's teaching me a few things that only young people seem to know these days.  Things that my senior mind doesn't understand.... like how to get digital cable channels on my tv.     

I was explaining my thoughts to her about saving money.  If it can be bought, it can be made from scratch.  She would ask about something and I would explain the alternative DIY item.  Well, the subject of feminine pads came up and how expensive buying them has become.  After explaining how when I was young we didn't buy pads, we made pads from scraps of fabric, she decided to give that a try.  How did it work? 

Well, things are much different today than when I was as young.  We used safety pins to hold our pads in our bloomers.  I came up with an alternative she's happy to learn about and try.  I thought someone else might be interested too.  This has become my neighbor's first sewing lesson. 

I went through my sewing stuff and came up with what we needed.  We needed something that liquid would not soak through.  I had this curtain liner fabric.  It has a plastic side and a flannel side.  Other types of  fabrics to use could be old shower curtains or maybe the fabric from an old umbrella.  I cut two 7 1/2" squares which is all that's needed. 

I also had these t-shirt fabric scraps we could use.   I cut two 7 1/2" squares of this.

Ok, time to teach her how to sew a perfect circle.  This technique will work great for someone who doesn't know how to sew.  I got the duct tape and a single flat thumb tack. 

Push the thumb tack through a piece of the tape from the sticky side.

Go to the sewing machine.  Remove the presser foot.  Put a ruler next to the needle, measure out from the needle 3 1/2", and put a pencil mark there.

Take the thumb tack and place it on the pencil mark.

Stick it down like this and put the presser foot back on.

Get the t-shirt fabric square, fold it into quarters, put a small dot at the center point. 

Now pair the t-shirt fabric with the curtain fabric, flannel side in. 

Push the fabric squares onto the thumb tack at where we made the center dot.  Put the fabric under the presser foot and sew.

This makes a perfect circle of sewing.... but stop sewing leaving about a two inch gap.

Trim off the extra fabric leaving about 1/4".

Turn inside out, fold in the unsewn part, and sew about 1/8" from the edge all the way around.  The thumb tack won't help with this because the size has changed.  We could have moved the thumb tack but we didn't. 

Now fold this circle in half and make a mark on the fold at both sides.  This is where you can either sew a piece of velcro or place a snap.  We chose velcro.

 

Put one piece of velcro on the top side at one mark and the other piece on the under side at the other mark and sewed these on.

Fold it matching the velcro or snaps if you use those.  It should look like this.  Those are the wings.

Now make 4 marks on this at the folded edges.  About 1/2" from the outside edge.

The four marks should look like this.

Now we needed some elastic.  Well, it need not necessarily be elastic.  It could be simply a piece of folded binding or even just a strip of fabric.   I just happen to have elastic handy so we used it.

We cut two pieces of elastic for each circle.  Just a smidgen larger than the distance of the marks.

She sewed these with a zig-zag stitch, going back and forth a couple of times.

Now it looks like this when the velcro is matched up.   This is the pad holder. 

The pad itself is whatever a person wants to use.  For her, we used some scrap cotton batting put through a wash and dry first to shrink it before cutting to size.  The pad can actually be any scrap fabrics.  Left over t-shirt fabric, ugly quilt fabrics, flannel, muslin, old sheets, old bath towels..... just give it some thought.  The fabric should be absorbant and soft. 

The pads we made from scrap batting were cut in different size pieces.  2" by 7" for light days.  Doubled to 4" by 7" for heavier days and 12" by 7" for the heaviest days.  This used up some of the smallest pieces of scrap batting that previously were hanging around doing nothing.  These can also be disposable if she doesn't want to wash them.  She plans to wash her pads even though I've assured her I always have an abudance of small strips of batting.  Everytime I trim a quilt to add binding I get more small strips.  Well, anyway, that's why I pre-washed the batting.  It needed to be pre-shrunk before cutting the pieces. 

If using other types of fabric you would need to think about the thickness and absorbancy for different types of flow.  Cut the fabric to the right sizes for folding.   Why folded instead of sewn into the shape?  For washing and drying convenience.  A thick folded and sewn fabric takes much longer to dry than one not folded.

 We made her two pad holders in case one should need to be washed during her cycle.  It can be hand washed or put into the next load of laundry.  It dries quickly. 

If anyone does emergency preparedness you might want to make some of these for your emergency kits.  I'm sure the women in disaster areas, like earthquakes or floods or hurricanes or wind storms, would love to have some of these when stores are no longer open.  Hmm... I wonder if anyone thinks of making these to send to disaster areas instead of just sending comfort quilts?  Do disaster teams take pads to hand out along with water and food?  Does anyone know?  Please tell me by leaving a comment.

As usual, this tutorial post is printable if you want to print it and share it with your friends.  Just click on the print button.

Homemade school glue

A few days ago I was looking through some of my old cookbooks trying to find a recipe for Caramel pudding.  I stumbled across this recipe for making paper paste.  I thought others might be interested in the recipe too.  It can be used thick for a homemade version of paper paste or it can be thinned to be more like liquid school glue.  Did you know school glue is nothing more than corn starch? 

For this recipe put 1 1/2 cups water, 1/2 cup cornstarch, 4 tablespoons white corn syrup, and 2 teaspoons vinegar into a pot.  Cook this over low heat, while stirring constantly, until it becomes thick.   Sort of like a pudding that's just a tad too thick.  Remove from the heat.

While it's still hot add 1 1/2 cups more water and 1/2 cup more cornstarch.  Stir this together without cooking until it becomes creamy.  Like a thin pudding.

As it cools it will thicken up to about what a paper paste would look like.  Put this into a container to use for any type of craft needing paste.

To make it into a pourable school glue simply add more water, one teaspoon at a time, stirring to keep it creamy.   Stop adding water when it gets to a pourable stage.  I'm going to save a dish liquid bottle to store the more liquid version.  I'm planning to use this recipe when making my cardboard furniture too. 

UPDATE:  This homemade glue should be kept in the fridge and used within a few days.  I left mine covered and sitting on the counter to see if it could last.  This is what I got after a couple of weeks.  It started to grow green hair.  It's excellent for pasting paper. 

I also found this to be an excellent recipe for making paint for Ladybug.  Just divide the glue into some small containers and add a few drops of food colors.  She spent almost an hour playing with the paint.