So I decided to first darn it with a complimentary thread. This closed up the hole. Then I sewed a head, legs and a pair of fairy wings. It is so tiny that I didn't bother with any facial features.
My daughter came to me with a little hole in her favourite shirt. It was right in front and any attempt to mend it would be quite obvious.
So I decided to first darn it with a complimentary thread. This closed up the hole. Then I sewed a head, legs and a pair of fairy wings. It is so tiny that I didn't bother with any facial features.
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We live in an old house. I think it was built around 1885 and it has seen a lot of wear and tear over the years. We have been slowly renovating as the money is available. (We believe in only spending cash on hand for renovations and not racking up credit cards, so it is pretty slow going.) The first year we lived here, I fixed the cracks and painted the walls in my kid's bedrooms. My daughter's room went from this: to this (we are still planning to redo the molding): And my son's room went from this: to this: We then had to seriously fix the roof and inside renovations got put on hold. Fortunately we found a metal roofing company who would roof our house in stages so we could afford it. (The back of the house still needs to be finished.) I fixed and painted up one downstairs room (it should be the living room) and it became my store. We moved our bathroom from under the stairs (yes, you heard that correctly) to an empty room without purpose. It's nearly done - YAY! Now I can fix upstairs again. I began working on the hallway and filled in the cracks with drywall mud (it's actually called Drywall Compound). Then it had to dry overnight. Once the mud turns from grey to white you know it's dry. Then I used some 100 grit sandpaper wrapped around a block of wood to sand it smooth. There were some really huge places where the plaster had fallen off the wall and I had to re-mud those areas. I use an old bed sheet to catch most of the drywall dust that I sand off the wall because apparently it will harm a vacuum cleaner to suck up drywall dust. I think my dad told me once that the dust is so fine that it goes right through the filter into the motor, but I might be wrong - it was a long time ago. I painted some primer over the area I had worked on, just to see if I had missed any cracks or dents in the wall because it is really hard to see the parts that have been worked on after a while with patchy white plaster showing through the pale peach walls layered with white drywall mud. Now it is all patchy-white, but I could see the holes again. I re-mudded those bits and will sand the mud smooth today. Here's a hint for anyone working with drywall mud: sand the wall as soon as the mud has turned white and is dry. If you wait a long time, your sanding time will be longer because the mud will be harder. I like to work as efficiently and easily as possible so I mud on the first day, and sand on the second day (except if the mud is still grey then I go around the grey areas).
I manage to weed my vegetable patch once a week which keeps the big weeds down. Today is weeding day. I noticed a clump of Lamb's Quarters (a weed) in the beans. I didn't pull it up though. I think we'll have some for supper tonight. Every time I see lamb's quarters, I think back to my childhood to a time when that was the only green we ate for a time. I grew up half a world away in South Africa and most of my childhood was spent during a 10-year drought. As a farmer's daughter, I knew exactly what the impact of a drought was. We grew all our food, but there was no water to spare on the vegetable garden so nothing grew very well. The only thing that grew really well was the weeds. Picking weeds under the broiling sun was not a chore anyone was eager to do so we had to weed either early in the morning or late in the afternoon. Then one day as the sun was sinking my mom's employee casually pointed out that we could eat "umfino". The next day she showed her how to cook up lamb's quarters in mashed potatoes like spinach. It really is delicious! 1. Peel and cube potatoes (about 1" cubes are fine) 2. Place potatoes into a pot suitable for mashing - I use my biggest pot - and pour in some water so that the water level is half-way up the potatoes. 3. Rip the leaves off the thicker stalks (the thinner stalks are fine to put in), wash them and lay them on top of the potatoes. 4. Cover the potatoes and boil on medium-high until soft - about 15 to 20 min. The leaves will have wilted by now. Keep an eye on your cooking so that you don't burn your potatoes. 5. Mash the potatoes with some butter (or margarine) and milk to make it super creamy. This recipe can make as little or as much as you wish. As a rule of thumb I usually prepare one medium potato per person. Young, tender plants are tastier than older plants about to go to seed. Of course don't use weeds that have been sprayed with poisons! Edible Wild Food has a page on identifying lamb's quarters: http://www.ediblewildfood.com/lambs-quarters.aspx
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AuthorJulie is a Mom working from home. She runs her own yarn business, homeschools her two kids, and gardens in her spare time. Archives
August 2015
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