Category Archives: Home Updates

Baby bibs, Oh, Baby! …..

Charity, Sewing

There seems to  be  a baby-boom on soon-to-be,  or newly  arrived, little bundles of love.  I had so much fun making these sweet little bibs.  My sweetie thought they  were so cute, he had me make some for a friend who is a retired police officer.

By  the time I was done, I ended up with 43 assorted colors and styles.   Each requires 2 pieces – which I cut with my AccuQuilt die.  With the die, I am able to cut 3 bibs at a time in just a few minutes.  The bibs come off the die ready to sew, no need to even pin.  I sewed around the outer edges, leaving a 1″ opening to turn right side out.   Before turning, I clipped all the curves so they would lay nicely when pressed.   To turn the bibs, I used my new favorite tool – hemostats – which made short time of turning small spaces.  I used my ball-point turning tool for pressing the edges outward, while pressing flat with the iron.  Each  opening was pinned and then I sewed a topstitch round the outer edges. The final piece, adding Velcro button tabs. I found heat setting the adhesive buttons with the iron affixes the buttons well to the bibs.  The Velcro is a safer option for baby for quick ‘break-away’, rather than a button.  Below are pictures of the process, followed by the finished little gifts.

 

Saturday..bread & sauce day

Baking

Today was all about making bread and marinara  sauce.  In between I worked to finish prepping all the masks I am making.   Have white bread, cinnamon swirl bread, hamburger buns, and hot dog buns.   With the quarantine, looks like I will be returning to Friday bread days.  (This makes my sweetie VERY happy!)

Have enough sauce for the freezer, so homemade pizzas will definitely be on the list!

Stash busting….fun hotpads or mug rugs

Embroidery, Kitchen

Well, nothing like a quarantine to provide time for working on projects.   Unless of course you are  now teaching remotely without any tools or training!  Lucky for me this is my second career – my accounting, project management, and systems background skills are all in play!

What is hard to balance – for an A type personality who has worked really hard to leave work-at-work and home-at-home – is worlds colliding.

The students are VERY thankful for something that feels predictable and normal. Teaching this way actually takes even more time.  A single 10 minute video needs to be scripted, recorded, saved and compressed, exported then posted to the platform students are able to access.  It easily takes 30 minutes for an 8 min lesson.

To ensure the greatest flexibility and accessibility, providing videos allows students to access their lessons on their available time.  Using video conferencing needs to really balance students’ ability to connect with their peers – the only way if you are truly sheltering – while making the most to ensure learning can happen for the week.

It also needs to allow students and families to manage what works best for them, many families are in crisis.  Adding more stress to their already ‘weirdly strange world’ is not what I want for my students.  I love them and miss them every single day.

My sweetie worries about me because I honestly do work from 6AM through 9PM every day of the week currently.

Today I took the afternoon to step away….I love winter, snow, and Christmas.  So…..I made frolicking snowmen.  They can been used as hot pads (they have insul brite) or happy little mug rugs.

 

Christmas Decorating …

Holidays

The creative, introverted, caring person I am craves nesting and decorating my home.  Home to me is not a ‘showcase’ home but a place that is warm and welcoming.  I want every person that comes into my home to feel that ‘they are at home, loved, and cared about’.    As an introvert, my home is my haven – a place for peace and joy – despite the world outside my home.   When I decorate – it is me putting all my love and hope into everything I touch.  Every item has a special memory of those that I love.

Happy Thanksgiving….

Baking

May your day be filled with good friends, family, and those that you love. In our busy, ever out of control world, it is nice to remember what is important – those that we love. Today step off the carousel and remember it is not perfect food nor an over abundance of food we celebrate. Simple, clean food, and time to gather is the order of the day.

Woke up at 5:30 AM – to the ‘puppy alarm clock’. Let them outside, fed them breakfast, and made a cup of coffee. I pulled the turkey out of the fridge – all 18.5 pounds. It is roasting in the oven. Since it is only the three of us this year, our sides are garlic red mashed potatoes, and fresh green beans sautéed in bacon and onion. Simple and comforting food.

Time to bake some cookies!!

Baking

It is nice to be able to bake but it has been a really longtime since I made cookies. I love cooking and baking but for two empty nesters that are busy professionals it seems silly. It is not like the days when our youngest was in high school. We always had him and 7 of his friends literally at our house for dinner almost every evening and most weekends.

Making huge meals, several loaves of bread, cheese, cakes, ice cream, pasta, and pastries was the norm – all from scratch. I often made large gift boxes for all my sweeties friends and colleagues at work – filled with homemade candy, cookies, and jam.

Teaching has taken over my life and filled all those spaces!   Today I savored my time away from the classroom and actually baked.  I made two of our son’s favorites and a third my sweeties favorite. The house smells heavenly! Molasses, snickerdoodles, and almond biscotti.