Finished the Blanket

The last couple posts have told you that I am making my (not so little--he'll be 17!) brother a blanket for his birthday. This blanket was much more work than the one I made him last year but I also had a sewing machine this year. Last year's is all hand sewn.

This blanket has one side of two fleece panels (the orange and grey side) and the other side with four flannel panels (I consider this the top and the fleece is the back). It has a wide cotton binding on it. This was my first ever binding! I also did some decorative top stitching so when he washes it, the fabric doesn't shift.

For the binding, I somehow miscalculated how much I'd need so now I have extra. I used a 3 inch strip. Then I ironed the whole thing, folded it in half and starched and ironed it again. I was then going to fold up the raw edges a half inch for each side but the ironing was already a lot of work because of how long the strip is so I decided to not fold the raw edges and do a big zig zag stitch around the whole thing. I did have to do some places twice because the two sides weren't perfect and the second side didn't get any stitches (if you know what I mean). That was still less work than if I had to do it the other way.

For the panels, I sewed right sides together with a half inch seam allowance. Then when I had finished my top and bottom and everything was cut to the same size, I did a basting stitch around the edge since I knew I'd be binding it.

Then I top stitched it with fancy stitches (which ended up a lot of work since it was in the middle of the blanket, not an edge, so you had to roll up the blanket to fit under the machine and it took us like 3 people to do it right...it was a mess. I wouldn't do it again.)

The finished product is 60 x 72 inches. I wanted it really big but I still have leftover fabric because I was unsure on what size I wanted. This is perfect. It can wrap around you with space to still move your arms and it covers your toes (even David's toes, and he's 6 ft 4 so most blankets are much too short on him). He's already asking if I can make him one for Christmas (he got to test out my brother's).

Here are the pictures!

So the top one is the flannel side and the bottom one is the fleece side. You can't see the decorative stitches very well from these but I was just excited to be done. This was a bigger project than I expected (like most of them are).

Since I am going home for his birthday weekend, I will return to blogging on Monday or Tuesday. Happy Halloween!

Chocolate Chip Cake

For Cocoa's birthday, I made a (human) cake. The recipe was found here http://allrecipes.com/recipe/chocolate-chip-cake/ 

I made it in an angel food pan since we don't really have cake pans, especially those round ones they asked for. I used another user's suggestion and baked it for 45 minutes. The batter was rather thin so all the chocolate sunk to the bottom (and got stuck to the pan even though David sprayed that thing like crazy). I'm not sure how to adjust for that next time. Maybe add less milk? I'm not sure.

We also made the mistake of leaving our oven on preheat instead of bake so that leaves the broiler on so the top was burned. It didn't taste burned but it sure didn't look appetizing. It was a very good cake. The part between the burned and the chocolate was very buttery. I happen to like that flavor but it's not for everybody. This recipe did use a lot of butter though (I can't come up with one way this cake could be considered healthy--sorry. I tried.)

I would make it again but I might do it when we have more people around to help us eat it because it got dried out rather quick. It was best just straight out of the oven (but isn't everything?). I would wonder if it would come out different in the round pans but I kind of doubt it.

We even used part wheat flour, like suggested. David thought he could taste it but I didn't notice a difference. I will mention that a lot of the users thought it used too much baking powder. Also, the recipe says that you could make a glaze or something with this but I don't think it needs one. It is plenty rich and flavorful without one. 

How to Organize Your Toiletries and Medicines

Before to we moved to the master, a lot of our stuff was kept in the closet in the library. Bags (both plastic and duffel), spare sheets and towels, medicines, extra shampoo and deodorant. It was all there. We knew it wouldn't stay there when the master got done but we weren't sure where to put it in the mean time so it ended up there. The thing is, we don't have a linen closet and we have very little bathroom storage in this house.

My parents have a walk in closet, similar in size to ours, that holds all these kinds of things and I always assumed that our stuff would end up in the master closet too. Well, we have less shelves than them and we filled it up pretty quick with all of our "real" closet things (like clothes). However, when we lived in the little room, we had a big black shelf that held a lot of our clothes to make up for our small closet. Now with the closet, we don't need the shelf. We decided to make this our "linen closet" with toiletries and such on it.

We just finished organizing the top of it last night. The bottom will be extra sheets but we have to fix one of shelves first. Of course, things will have to change when Teeny gets older because there is some medicine within toddler reach but for now, this is the solution. I still wonder if we should group things in baskets or bins instead of just on the shelf but it's still a work in progress too.

So to start, (sorry that was such a long back story), you need to find the closet/area you want to hold all these things. Then, gather everything you want to put there. Next, group them all in categories that make sense to you. Our categories are towels and wash clothes, common extras (shampoo, body wash, vitamins, deodorant), teeth (extra paste, brush heads, floss), pain relief, general medicine (tums, sleep help, band aids, etc), allergies, sick, bath/pamper, and outdoor (sunscreen, bug spray, aloe vera).

They aren't really in order by anything but we tested it and the categories make the most sense to us. Of course, we might decide that shampoo and body wash really should be with bubble bath but we'll deal with that later.

Then you either put them on the shelf as is or in bins (preferably labeled). And you're done! Now you just gotta keep it neat. You could also label the shelves if you didn't want bins but still wanted everything easy to find.

Here is what our shelf looks like.

I would also recommend putting travel size things all in the same area, instead of in their proper category to make it easier to find them when you are packing. We just don't happen to have any.

So then below what you can see in the picture will be our extra sheets. Looks nice, doesn't it? Well, actually it only looks nice if you know the categories. Otherwise it just looks like stuff everywhere. I better convince David we need bins. I actually have a pattern as to how to make your own baskets that I might make for this, with labels of course. I will also mention that I believe dollar stores would sell bins that would make for good organizers so you don't have to spend a lot of money on this project.

Excitement!

On Saturday, David and his dad worked really hard (David said he's realllllly sore today) on getting our master finished. Some things are still not done, like the bathroom trim. That is on hold because we had to stain more pieces and with the cold, it can take a couple days for them to dry. They'll go in next weekend. I believe by next weekend the whole master suite will be finished. However, we decided to go ahead and put the carpet in anyway so we got to move in on Saturday  night!!! This room is about twice as big as the bedroom we had been living in. We are much less cramped with lots more closet room. It's so nice having carpet and it's really plush (we even got a good deal on it). David and his dad installed it themselves but did rent a hydraulic carpet stretcher because the knee thing wasn't working that well and they were both getting tired. I think they both worked at least a 10 hour day on Saturday so no wonder they're so sore today.

We still have to finish moving in and organizing but David's dad stayed to help us move the heavy stuff like our bed. The rest will probably slowly trickle over this week. Then we need to clean the other room so they can put up the trim and stuff in there (so it wasn't technically finished when we were in that room). So now, our old room will either become the nursery or if we finish the other bedroom in time, that one will (it's closer to our room).

Also, yesterday we helped David's mom clean out some of her fabric. We will go through her fabric closet with the big pieces at a later date but for now, we did the scraps. She had a lot and when she went through them, realized she didn't even like some of them or they weren't of use to her anymore so I got two whole trash bags full! Some of her scraps are not what I would call scraps. I'd say they're at least a quarter yard so they will definitely come in handy! Now I have to sort them into my sorting system so I've been working on that all morning.

I'm also almost done with the blanket I am making for my little brother's birthday. I just have the binding left. I'll try to post pictures and more details when I'm done. I leave on Friday so it'll have to be done by then!

What a great weekend!

Cocoa's Birthday

This Saturday (tomorrow) is the birthday we gave Cocoa. We got her on January 6th, 2013 when she was ten weeks old. We counted back the weeks and decided October 26th is the perfect day (it also happens to be my older brother's birthday so it's even easy to remember).

For those of you who haven't been following, Cocoa is our rabbit. She's a chocolate brown (obviously) Mini Rex. She lives in our third floor, the loft. She is fenced in an area and always has access to this area. We only lock her in her cage for time outs and when we didn't trust her in the beginning, we would put her in there at night. Before she got spayed, she had a really bad habit of running around too excited and she'd jump up to binky (what it's called when rabbits click their heels together for joy) and she'd end up over the fence. We have modified her fence several times and it is now 3 feet tall. She could still get over it if she wanted to but she hasn't had an incident she was spayed back in May.

When we first got her, she was young enough that she didn't even have whiskers! She's grown too but since her breed is a mini anyway, she's not all that big now. She is actually pretty well trained. She knows where to go if she wants to be pet (because her fence is so high, we can't reach her everywhere to pet. And now that I'm pregnant, I can barely reach her on her petting spots anyway because my belly doesn't let me lean over that far.) She generally goes in her litter box but we have found poop in other places. She loves to dig out her litter box too (dirty or clean) and we aren't sure how to correct this but we try.

She does come out of her area sometimes but it's only when we take her out (she doesn't naturally have access to the outside) and it's usually to cut her nails. She does come out some other times just for fun so she doesn't associate leaving her area with getting her nails cut. Sometimes she's pretty good about letting us cut her nails and sometimes she's pretty squirmy and hides her feet.

Anyway, that is Cocoa. She is cute and one year old! For those of you curious, rabbits typically live 10-15 years so she's still a baby.

Stuffed Turtle

I made a stuffed turtle! My picture doesn't do it justice but if you look at the tutorial I used, you can get a better idea. Mine has four different greens for the shell sections and then the head, feet, tail, and belly are all the same. I think it turned out really cute. It was fairly simple to make as well.

I will note that the tutorial includes the pattern but I couldn't make it print big enough. The two inch test square is more like an inch and a half so my turtle is a little smaller but everything still worked out okay. In this project, I learned how to sew and stuff tiny things (like the feet and tail) and I did struggle with it but it worked out well. I didn't pay enough attention to my seam allowances, mostly because the pieces were small and hard to work with, so on a few of my pieces you can see the seams on the outside. If I were to give this as a present, I think I'd try to fix that but since it's just for me, I'm leaving them. They bother me but they don't look awful.

Sewing the shells seemed to be the hardest part because of the curves and they didn't look like they formed a circle to me but in the end, I think that's the part that turned out the best! Definitely took me by surprise.

Now that I have made this, I feel like I could make other stuffed animals. I did like that this one didn't need any unusual supplies like to make the eyes or mouth (there are no eyes or mouth). Some things call for that but I don't think I"m ready to go out and buy that stuff yet. This is my first project I have come across in a long time that didn't even use interfacing! All you need is some scraps (I did use fat quarters but you don't need something that big), regular sewing supplies (machine, thread, rotary cutter, pins, etc), and fiberfill. That's it!

This project could easily be made in an afternoon and it turns out so cute. Here is how mine turned out (I once again apologize for the bad picture.)

So his head is on the left and you can't see his tail. What you may think is his tail is actually another leg.

Pregnancy Glucose Test

I apologize in advance for typos in this blogpost. I am on our tablet instead of our computer because I am waiting for the gas line guys to come back to relight our furnace. They replaced the line today to make it PVC and they haven't come back to finish the job yet so I'm rather stuck.  

Anyway, I had my glucose test yesterday at 28 weeks. This is a test every pregnant woman has to have in order to test for gestational diabetes. You schedule it in the morning and all you can have for breakfast is protein, like eggs, and water. Anything else and it's basically an automatic failure. Then you drink 12 oz of this really really really sugary drink that most people compare to flat orange soda. It's awful but not nearly as bad as I expected. Then you wait an hour and they draw your blood. 

Something like only 4% of pregnant women have gestational diabetes but if you do test positive, you have to go back for a 3 hour test that sounds so much worse. Luckily, I don't have it. However, I am one of the few pregnant women that gets really dizzy and light headed after consuming the glucose drink. I wasn't even sure I could drive myself home since David didn't make it to this appointment. I was fine once I had a snack after my appointment. 

They call you with the results. My number was 70 and from what I understand, that is the lowest you can be without being hypoglycemic, which is basically low blood sugar. Anything lower than 70 and you have to be treated for it. No wonder I felt so sick while waiting for my hour...!

Stove Top Potatoes

We were given a lot of red potatoes from David's grandma and we are always looking for new recipes since dirty mashed potatoes are kind of our go to. With red potatoes, I feel like you can't do as many things but the only thing I can really think of is baked potatoes. So yesterday was one of those days were I was searching for a new recipe. Potatoes can take a while to bake in the oven so I wanted something faster. Then I found this recipe. They are so good!

We didn't measure our spices, although they were probably close amounts to what the recipe called for. We also left out the onion powder since we only have minced onion for some reason. The potatoes never did get brown but we also had the problem with them sticking to the pan, even in one of our non-stick pans with butter. I think this would've made them taste even better if we didn't have that trouble. They also took longer to get soft than the 6-8 minutes. I think it was closer to 15.

Also, I'm not sure if it's because they stuck or just because potatoes can be bland by themselves but I might add more seasonings next time to account for the fact that the middle of the potatoes don't have much flavor. We cut our pieces super small (smaller than bite size actually) and still had this problem so we'll adjust for next time.

This was a very easy, quick recipe that I would rate 4 stars out of 5 but if they browned, it might get the full 5.  We served them with fish but they reminded me a lot of breakfast potatoes so you could also easily serve them with eggs. Actually, potatoes go with any main dish so it's really up to you what you want to serve them with but I would definitely be interested in trying them with breakfast.

Wet/Dry Bag

Do you remember way back when in March or earlier and I was working on making a wet/dry bag for my reusable pads? Well, I finally finished it this weekend! The project was started on my old sewing machine and it was basically my first machine project. It was also my first (and so far, only) project with a zipper. I was getting the instructions as to how to make it from David's mom. Then we kind of forgot about the project and by the time I rediscovered it, it had been months and I still didn't know the next step. It turns out, all I had left to do was sew along three of the four sides (not the zipper side for obvious reasons) and I was done. It literally took about two minutes to finish and I had been waiting months to finish it. Kind of funny. It definitely feels good to have it done though.

So the basic design is based off a bag I already have but this one has a liner (for the dirty pads) and a center piece (kind of like some wallets have) to keep the clean from the touching the dirty. The final bag only measures 8 x 5 but I think it is a handy size for even a smaller purse. I also had the option to square the bottom but decided not to since squaring the bottom on my tote bag was such a pain.

Obviously due to being pregnant, I haven't been able to try it out yet. I'm still excited for it and I think it's awfully cute. You could also use this design for anything else that you want two compartments for.

The outside takes less than a fat quarter and that's all you need if you don't want to line it. If you do want a liner, that'll also be less than a fat quarter but since I used a different fabric, I'm not sure if one fat quarter would do the job or if you'd be better off with two. The divider part also has interfacing in it (what doesn't?) to make it stiffer. It doesn't really matter what thickness you use since you'll be folding that piece in half anyway.

I'm not going to put all the details here but if you are interested, let me know and I'll see what I can help you with. This type of bag is very easy to make, not like the tote bag.

I apologize for the blurry, dark pictures. I was kind of in a hurry. Also, for the one with the center thing, it actually is the right size and doesn't bend like that naturally. I just bent it so it was easier to see.

Make Your Own Tracing Table

I have a few books of sewing patterns home from the library. In the back, they are nice enough to give me the patterns but obviously I have to trace them on real paper, not their paper, so I can use them. They aren't the right shape (because they're printed on paper. This is kind of confusing. I mean that it's like drawn on a regular piece of paper so you still have the rest of the paper around the shape) and I can't just cut them out because it's library property so I have to trace them. It was hard to see through my paper (even though I have something similar to tissue paper to trace on). The solution is a tracing table!

Basically, you just need a clear surface that you can shine light through. We happen to have an end table with a glass top and little LED puck lights. I was able to (Okay, David was able to. He set this whole thing up for me.) put my stuff on top of the table and the lights underneath and it works perfectly! Any clear surface will work so if you have leftover glass or plastic from something. And then just shine a light under it. Voila!

Sewing Curves

When we worked on our wallets, our flap was had curved corners. It was relatively easy to do at David's mom's house because she has a Bernina machine (wayyy out of my price range!) with the ability to keep her needle down and a knee lever to control the foot. It was still slow going because you literally do one stitch and then pick up the foot to turn ever so slightly, do one stitch and pick up the foot, etc until you are around the curve. Her machine also lets you go half speed which means you can sew as slow as you want (and then even slower than that!).

My machine is very low-end but still a very nice machine (I'm very happy with it. It's a Brother.) I do have a hard time going slow on it, especially when I am first starting the stitch but with practice, I'll get faster anyway. Last night, I had to sew six curves for the turtle I'm making (I'm sure there's more curves to come but I haven't gotten that far yet). I was kind of scared but decided since I had already done the wallet flap, this couldn't be much harder than that, even though it would be on my machine.

I did it! They all turned out great (except for where my fabric got stuck but that was my fault and had nothing to do with the curve. Good thing David is handy with a seam-ripper.) I think what I have learned from this is to just go slow and take your time, be sure to raise your foot (the one by t he needle, not the one attached to your leg) frequently, and if you can, to keep your needle in the down position when you stop. I will admit sometimes I did more like three or four stitches before I raised my foot (mostly because the machine was going too fast for what I wanted) and it still turned out okay. Worse case, you seam-rip it and do it again. I constantly have to remind myself that.

I think at this point, this is all the advice I can give you with my limited experience but if you do have questions, I can try to answer them or show in pictures how to do it. It's really not as intimidating as it looks.

Applying for a Passport

 Without being able to give you instructions or even a picture, I feel like I cheated you out of my last blog post so you guys can enjoy two today.

I am in the process of applying for a new passport because my family is going to Club Med in the Dominican Republic next summer. I had a passport but not only did it expire and not have my married name on it, I was under 16 when I got it so I couldn't just renew it. When I originally got my passport, it was before the price increase and before we started needing passports to go to Canada so it was a really simple, cheaper process.

I am excited for the trip but this passport business had me stressed out! For one thing, I never unpacked my old passport (needed for my new application) from when I got married and moved here so it took David and I a lot of ransacking the house to find. (We still don't have everything unpacked, especially the things that go in rooms that aren't finished yet. It's really rather annoying and I can't wait to have it all unpacked and organized.)

Then, not only do I have to apply for a passport (which I'm probably making a bigger deal than it is), I need to get Teeny (my unborn baby) a passport too. So I'll have to repeat the whole process after they're born. We will probably  need to get it expedited too (which is more money of course) because of the short amount of time (really a couple months but passports can take a LONG time to get to you) between when Teeny is due and when the trip is.

Of course I need to do all this stuff as quick as I can because I believe me and Teeny are the only family members going that don't still have a valid passport from the last family trip (it's David's family that takes pretty much everybody on a trip. It's every other year and even kid's passports last five years so unless anyone else new was born or married into the family, everyone already has theirs). This is stressing me out a lot more than it should be but at least I finished the paperwork for mine and I am getting my picture taken this weekend. Next week, I'll be able to go to the office and actually apply. Then I don't have to worry about it until Teeny's.

The one silver lining in all of this is that I am able to apply right now with the government shut down. Otherwise, this would be an even bigger mess.

Tote Bag Kit Complete!

As I mentioned in a previous post, I bought a kit for a quilted tote bag (not the canvas-y kind). I finally finished it the other night! I was so excited because each step seemed harder than the last. Although, after I purchased it, I was told that bags are actually pretty hard to make. I would've thought they'd be easy, especially when they don't have zippers, because they look pretty easy but now I can say from experience too that BAGS ARE NOT EASY TO MAKE. They're do-able. Don't let me scare you off but they will take work.

I will not be telling you how to do it because I had to pay for the kit and that doesn't seem fair to me, plus it's probably illegal to share the instructions. I also don't have a picture for you but that is just because my camera is having some issues. It's basically a big tote bag. No pockets. No zippers or fasteners. Just a bag and two handles. I think it would be perfect to taking books to the library and back.

I'm just excited to be done with it. If I could go back, I would redo my handles because as I might have mentioned before, my bobbin came unthreaded (I don't know if that's the right wording but basically my bottom stitches were loose every couple and it took me an entire strap to figure out why). But seeing as it's my first bag, I don't really mind. I'll do a better job and be on the lookout for this next time.

I think my next project is going to a blanket for my little brother (he's not all that little. He's a junior in high school but to me, he'll always be in kindergarten). I made one for him last year because there is a specific blanket we always used to fight over and I took it with me when I moved out. Now, he has his own version. When I asked him what he wanted this year, he said another blanket. I don't have instructions or anything for this blanket but it's going to be polar fleece on one side, flannel on the other. It will also have a binding (which I have never done before) but I haven't decided yet what material that will be made out of. Did I also mention it's like six different colors of fabric? I hope he likes it!

Vinegar in the Laundry

After reading good things about it online, I thought that adding vinegar to my clothes, particularly my whites, would act as a whitener and color booster. I was hoping it would help remove stains and keep my clothes whiter longer.

Since I have a front loader, I added it to both the fabric softener spot and the bleach spot because that's what it sounded like the majority of people do. The bleach spot is for what I described above and the fabric softener spot would add it in the last rinse cycle and the clothes would come out softer.

Boy, was I disappointed! None of my stains seemed to have faded at all! My clothes are the same dingy white they've been since I didn't separate my clothes in college (it was cheaper to cram everything into one or two loads instead of two or three with colors separated). So I figured it was a total bust and through them in the dryer anyway.

When I took them out of the dryer, I was surprised. Despite the fact that the vinegar in the bleach section seemed to do nothing, the vinegar in the fabric softener section did. My clothes were noticeably softer. I also noticed that this load (the only load I added vinegar to) was not nearly as static-y as my other loads. This is especially nice because we are starting to approach the winter months and static drives me crazy! I had been using balled up aluminium foil (you can read about it in a previous post) but I was looking for an alternative method.

So basically, I think I'll keep using the vinegar as a fabric softener and to make my clothes less static-y but when it's summer again and I don't have to worry about static cling, I'll probably take a hiatus from it. I'm still experimenting with other things like baking soda and hydrogen peroxide to help get out stains.

Mini Wallet

I have recently added the link to a mini wallet I want to make to my project page but since then, I have found a different wallet with more pockets that seemed cute. It became our Sunday project for this week. I still plan on making the other one but just to be clear, it's not the one on my project page.

I actually made two of this wallet because I had picked out my fabric to match a new wristlet that I was hoping to use it in but I misunderstood the way the fabrics were titled. This was the tutorial I used. To be clear, the main body fabric is actually your inside pocket color and the pockets are actually the outside main color. I was really disappointed with my first one when I realized this was the case. Luckily, I had enough fabric left over to do another one (it doesn't take that much fabric but my fabrics were all smaller than fat quarters before I did the first one).

Another important thing to note is she makes a huge deal about making sure everything is exact. This made me really scared to do it because I would consider myself a beginner. It turns out, it's not any more important than for any other project. It's always a good idea to make your seam allowances and cutting size as exact as you can be. So if this is your hold up with the project, don't worry about it unless you are really really really a beginner and can't sew in a straight line yet.

We used an interfacing that was thinner than what she called for (I'm sorry I don't know what it was. My mother in law provided that for me.) and we were happy with the stiffness of the wallet. It might've been too thick and harder to turn out if we had gone with the original suggestion. We also skipped the top stitching on the flap because we didn't deem it necessary and to me, top stitching is just annoying unless you plan on washing it.

The hardest part was sewing around the top of the inside when you have the whole thing pieced together (she says it's tricky too). If the wallet was bigger, it would've been nice to use the cuff feature on your machine (where you can wrap it around the body of the machine) but this wallet was too small for the machine we were using. So good luck with this step! It was do-able but I have never worked on anything this small before.

I also (but my mother in law didn't) back-stitched after we tore out that part of the seam to pull the wallet through. I don't know how she did it without back-stitching at the gap but I definitely would've had my stitches come out.

So in general, this tutorial was not written the way I would have done so but it's a very cute little wallet and worth making! I think the hardest part was the snaps. We did this with a tool, rather than the kind you sew on and neither of us had ever done that before. We actually did it wrong two or three times before we finally got it right!

This is the front of the wallet closed. My snap is a little tight on this wallet (hence the puckering around it) but my other one (which was the wrong colored one) turned out better. So to be clear, my gray fabric is actually what the tutorial calls the pocket fabric.

This is the back. Between the gray and the yellow fabric is a pocket. This is one the tutorial suggests using for coins but we didn't want to deal with the hassle of the velcro after our snap fiasco. The yellow fabric is the main body fabric (according to the tutorial).

This is the open wallet. I did struggle on sewing this one a little more than my first one so my yellow fabric is a bit puckered but it didn't seem worth it to me to resew that seam, especially because it's typically under the flap. There is a pocket between the yellow and gray (that I would've sewn the bottom of because you could technically have things slip from this pocket to your back pocket). There is another pocket that is technically between two yellow fabrics but for this picture's sake, it's behind the yellow you can see.

Isn't this a cute wallet? Three little pockets that would be perfect for cards, cash, band aids, hair ties, applicator-less tampons or liners, etc!

Reading 100s of Books in a Year

I am currently on my 66th book this year. It is a novel and the characters are obviously works of fiction but they are a family of readers, one daughter in particular. She is in her thirties (not a little kid) and easily reads HUNDREDS of books in a year! I was astonished by this because I thought my goal of 85 books this year was rather lofty. I assume some people can get higher than that (I probably could too if reading didn't always make me so sleepy no matter the subject matter) but this just sounded outrageous.

I decided to look up the record to see how possible this is. My research found that the record is 534 by a man in China. Is anyone else just absolutely amazed by this???? I'm not sure what constitutes as a book for this record. I suppose I could read that many little kid books in a year (if I don't go crazy first) but something tells me that these are legit, hundreds of pages per book.

There are speed reading techniques and classes which would allow someone to read more books in a year but I do wonder how much information you absorb with those. I feel like it's more similar to skimming but I really don't know much about them.

On the other side of the spectrum, there is a statistic floating around out there (from the Washington Post) that claims that one in four Americans have not read a single book in the past year (well, 2007). I would hope this number has decreased as the years have passed but seeing as the people who did read (part of the 75%) were mostly women and older people (I don't know the age cut off for that), I'm not entirely sure it would have dropped. I don't know that many men who like to read. Even David doesn't read all that much but I can tell you, he has read at least one book this year (don't worry, the real number is more than one). I suppose it is TV and the internet that have taken over instead of reading. You would think that this would put e-readers out of business but someone must be buying them. Maybe it's those women and older people.

I know next year my reading goal is going to be much lower (because I'll be a new mom) but I hope to read 100 books in a year (or more) at some point in my life and I hope that the 25% catches up.

Sewing Patterns and Kits

I have a hard time finding new things to make unless I specifically know what I want to make. This sounds kind of weird if you don't understand what I mean. For instance, if I know I want to make a table runner, I can find lots of patterns and ones I like. But if I am just looking for my next project, it's hard to find something that specific that I want to make. Because of this, I have found it easier to look through pattern books. I'm not sure if there's really a difference but I can always find something I want to make in a book that I can't always find searching online.

I recently found the sewing section at my local library and they had a book about suggested things to make before your baby (or someone else's, like for a baby shower) arrives! I now have about ten new ideas of things I want to make. This is in addition to the pattern I bought a few days ago that also makes a lot of baby stuff (I'm always surprised how many things you can make by buying one pattern. No wonder they're so expensive--at least I think so.)

When I was down on inspiration, David bought me a kit to make a tote bag. It includes instructions and all the fabric you'll need. You just need to cut it and sew it. I was very excited especially because lately, all the things I want to make require things I don't have. Well, it turns out that these aren't as easy as I thought they would be. I'm not sure why but I had it in my head that if it's part of a kit, it must be easier than following a pattern or something. It's definitely not.

First, the finished cut fabric size was bigger than my cutting mat so that was a struggle to figure out how to make it work. (Good thing they give you some wiggle room so there are scraps leftover). Then, I'm not sure how it happened but my bobbin (in my machine) came unclipped from the needle thing (obviously, I know all the technical terms). This caused my tension to get all messed up, which of course I didn't immediately realize. I don't think it's bad enough that I need to redo it but it doesn't look as nice either.

I'm about halfway done now and I'm surprised I even made it that far because the instructions, even though they came with pictures, are quite confusing.

So I think they are good in theory, but patterns may be better. Plus, then you have more of a choice of what fabric to make it out of. Maybe I'll try another one when I am not as confused by sewing instructions.

Tomatoes and Bluetooth Speaker

We started growing our tomato plant back in December and I've blogged about it a few times since. Well, on Monday, one of the tomatoes was finally ready to eat! It was huge (I would say double in size of what a cherry tomato you could get in the store) and really tasty! I was excited because this tomato seemed as though it was never going to be ready. It was green for a good month. But now we have 7 more tomatoes growing, and at a faster rate. Hopefully our plant keeps doing well!

The second thing I am very happy about is our bluetooth speaker for our tablet. We watch a lot of recorded TV shows and movies on our tablet but most of the time, the volume just doesn't go high enough, especially when we are eating and crunching. We tried several different programs without much difference and we finally decided we just had to live with it. Then, this weekend, Menard's had the speakers on sale for 10 dollars. We decided it was cheap enough to try out because we were out of ideas. This speaker has been amazing!

It's small enough that it can fit just about anywhere and doesn't need to be all that close to the tablet. We put the tablet on our pouf and the speaker on an end table and it works out just fine. The speaker we chose (sorry I don't know specifics. I do know it's made by Sylvania but that's about it) has two speakers (in one device thing) and it has a pause button on top, which we love more than the average person probably would. We're kind of lazy so with the speaker right next to us, it's easier to pause than to get up to touch pause on the tablet itself.

This particular model also has a mic so you can hook it up with your phone and then your phone calls can be really loud too! I don't know when we would ever use this feature but David seemed excited about it.

Master Bed, Bath, and Closet

Due to technical difficulties, I was unable to post yesterday. On Sunday, the family project was something I will be giving as a Christmas present and would not like to ruin the surprise.

I can tell you about the updates to our master bedroom though! Two weeks ago, we had finished painting the entire bedroom so then this past weekend, we were able to put the ceiling fan up. We could've done it last week but since the fan wasn't bought new (I believe it was free on Craigslist but maybe not) it was missing a connector piece. We bought the piece and got excited to put it up one evening but then we realized there was a problem with the electrical box being too high up in the drywall so we had to figure out a solution to that too. We decided to wait til this weekend when David's parents could help us more. It's up now and it looks really nice. This is the last place in the house we will have a ceiling fan. Most of the rooms have dome lights.

We also got the bathroom painted this past weekend. David and I were a little nervous to do it since it's the same color as the other upstairs bathroom and we only had a quarter gallon left of paint but it ended up being enough! The plywood to help reinforce the floor got nailed in too (we had to do this in the closet, bath, and bedroom but we had only finished the bedroom). We also painted the floor (to prep for the tiled floor). The shower surround and toilet were bought a while ago and the tub is installed but we are still trying to find a vanity. They aren't cheap!

In the closest, we put up the light (that we got for free off Craigslist!) and started putting up our shelving. Our shelves will have to be at odd heights because one of our walls has a slant that comes down about 3 feet but we've got a drawn-up plan that we think will work out. We hadn't bought very many shelves previously because we wanted to wait and see what it would look like so on Sunday (with our regular shopping), we went back to Menard's and got just about everything. I'm really excited to get our closet done.

Also this weekend and last weekend, David's dad worked on getting the door frames and doors installed for the closet, bath, and bedroom. This is one of those tasks that seems like it shouldn't take hours and hours but it does. There's a lot involved with making sure it's square and everything (so the door hangs right. The rest of our house isn't very square) that just makes it tedious. Somehow, David's dad ends up with these jobs and we get the fun things like painting.

So even though the original two dates that we thought we'd have the suite done by (end of August then end of September) have now came and went, we are still excited and there seems to be a good chance we can move in before Thanksgiving. That's my thinking but we'll see what his parents say because we still have trim, carpeting, bathroom flooring, bathroom fixtures (like toilet, vanity, and surround), and shelving in the closet. That might be everything. It doesn't sound like a lot but even just finding the right trim (we're using the stuff we saved from the original house) can be an all day project. So we'll see!

Sewing Feet

I was given a bunch of Brother sewing machine accessories (for those of you wondering, my newest machine is a Brother LX2500) from David's aunt because she no longer has a Brother machine and sewing machines are pretty specific about what accessories fit. I was grateful and excited but when I opened the bag, I only knew what one thing was (a second spool holder). I assumed a lot of it was cool and useful but I just had no idea what I was looking at.

Well, the other day I finally looked it up. It was kind of hard to tell sometimes if the picture they were showing me was mine or not but the letters on the feet helped. This website was a tremendous help and almost everything I had was on there. I think the most useful foot (to me) I got was the blind stitch foot because it will make for a perfect stitch (that my cheap--not fancy, machine knows how to do!) for the curtains I'll be making in the living room. I also have lots of things for buttons and buttonholes but haven't really learned those yet. I usually sew my buttons on my hand and only just recently learned you can machine sew them on.

The only thing I really truly didn't know what was it was after reading through the website was my quilting guide bar. Seeing this thing just baffled me. I even tried to describe it to my mother-in-law (the quilter) and she didn't know what I was talking about until David sent her a picture. I'm still not exactly clear on what you use it for (something about parallel lines?) but since I don't really quilt, I'll probably never use it anyway.

I think the only useful foot that I now don't have is a quarter inch foot. Of course, as I sew more things, my needs will change but this one is very convenient at David's mom's house when we sew there on Sundays because then you never have to worry about following the line on your machine, you just follow the edge of the foot.

And I've already used the walking foot for working on my leaves! That is a big foot but it sure makes things easier when working with lots of layers or thick layers of fabric. If you don't have one, I do think you should for sure add it to your collection.

So now I'm even more excited about my machine because of all my feet but also because I changed the thread in it for the first time yesterday all by myself! (I had previously done it mostly by myself and was pretty proud then but I did need help getting it around the needle guide bar. This time I didn't--although that step sure is tricky!).

Chicken Sloppy Joes

I am still trying to come up with creative ways to use up our leftover chicken. It's already cooked, which eliminates a lot of recipes. Last night, I really wanted barbecue. We don't buy barbecue sauce (I'm not sure why. We just never have nor do we make our own) so the next closest thing we came up with was sloppy joe sauce with added liquid smoke for tang. Next time, I'd add more liquid smoke but it's strong and normally, we add too much so we only added a few drops. 

Also, every time we make sloppy joes, we add in more chopped peppers. The sauce already comes with a few fragments but this way we can sneak in another vegetable (plus we had carrots on the side). I loved this recipe. I put mine in a wrap since we had a limited number of slices of bread. David had his open faced with bread (and french fries on top. He always does that with sloppy joes. I think it's weird but I guess it's not that different from like chili fries) He didn't like it as much as the ground beef but he'd eat it again. It certainly is a different texture but maybe that's why I liked it so much. I'm starting to like ground beef more but I'm still not completely sold on its texture. 

Now I have to come up with another chicken recipe for tonight since the chicken has already been in the fridge for a while. We're going to be eating chicken all weeks it appears but the way we received the chicken from David's parents was a whole chicken per bag (frozen) so you can't really break that up any smaller. And we still have another one too! They're supposed to last us until next year, which would work out better if they were frozen in smaller increments because now we have to eat a whole chicken like as soon as possible. We're going to be chickened-out. 

Sleeping Eye Mask and 2nd Leaf

Also over this weekend, I made an eye mask (the type used for sleeping). I had some elastic left over from my bag bag project and I wasn't sure what to do with it, especially since I had such a hard time getting it in the casing. This was the perfect solution because I didn't have to run it through anything and it was almost the exact amount I needed (I may have an inch or two leftover..). This was a really simple project that took me about a half hour. I found the instructions here but it did take some deciphering to figure out what to do (I, for some reason, can't really read other people's instructions (even with pictures) and know what to do after the first read-through. The elastic step really made me pause for a while but looking back, there was no reason to be so confused.)

I had some soft cotton fabric for the outsides and then I used a black felt for the inside. I only top stitched it once (and I stitched the opening closed too because the top stitch wasn't close enough to the edge for that) and I admit, it's not very good but it was my first time top stitching anything.

It really blocks out light well but I haven't used it for sleeping yet. You could make a casing for the elastic if you'd rather but I think it's just fine this way.

In case you were interested, I finished the leaf for David's coworker last night. I did make a few mistakes this time, such as forgetting to make my browns (the veins) thinner than the rest of the strips and then I ran out of that fancy brown to use for the stem so I had to use plain brown (although I do like it this way). However, I did not do one side upside down this time so it does make the v's I was talking about before. I also had to use a different fabric for the back since I ran out of the other stuff but I think this goes with the requested fall theme.

I also top stitched it along the veins and down the stem. I still need to do that on mine but now that I have my walking foot, I can do that pretty quickly. This top stitching turned out better than my sleeping mask top stitching.

Asian Chicken Casserole

I was looking for a recipe that would use cream of celery soup because I bought it for a recipe that I ended up not making so I needed a way to use it up. I figured the easiest way to do this was a casserole. We had some chicken in the freezer so I basically typed all my ingredients into google and it came up with this recipe. I ended up making some changes to it to fit our tastes and pantry but it came out delicious! It did take about 2 hours to make (not including the 36 hours it took to thaw our chicken--I wonder if our freezer is too cold?) but next time, I think I would make this ahead of time and pop it in the oven when we are ready to eat.

Here is our ingredient list:

• 1 10.5oz can condensed cream of celery soup
• attempted a 1/3 cup of water (we weren't even close to measuring this)
• 2 tablespoons reduced sodium soy sauce
• half bag of peas and carrots (we kept them frozen but we should've used less plain water then)
• 2 cups chopped cooked chicken (We had frozen chicken from the bone so below I'll tell you what we did to get it cooked)
• 2 cups cooked brown rice (about 1 cup dry)
• French fried onions

Then we just followed the directions from the site. You stir everything but the onions together into a 2 quart casserole dish. Bake at 350 for 25 minutes. Stir,  top with the onions and bake or 5 more minutes.

Next time, I will add french fried onions to the mixture as well as the top (like you do in green bean casserole) because I felt like there weren't enough. I was really worried that this wouldn't have enough flavor since the only seasoning is the soy sauce (which is really strong. You may want to cut back on that a little) but the celery soup really came through. I liked how creamy this was. If you have cooked chicken already and use white rice instead of brown, this recipe would go SO much faster!

To cook the chicken, I let it thaw in the fridge first. I thought this would only take 12 hours but we ended up with still frozen chicken after 36 hours so we just made it the next day. Then we prepared a stock (actually, we just added a bouillon cube to water but you could prepare a homemade one if you have those kinds of things on hand) and let it simmer to blend in all the flavors. When it came to a boil, we added the chicken, covered the pot and took it off the stove for 20 minutes (our chicken had bones in. If you do boneless chicken, you only have to cook it for like 10 minutes). This poaches the chicken and is an especially useful method for when you're going to use the cooked chicken in something (such as a casserole) since you don't want the chicken to dry out after you put it in the oven. Then we just cut it off the bone and put it in the casserole!