Making my own clothes!

          I have been thinking about clothing myself without the second-hand option.  It's funny but I don't feel the same way about the clothes I buy and those I make.  When the children were small I made many items, pajamas with feet, frilly dresses, curtains and slip covers, even some underwear.  When my oldest son graduated from the eighth grade, I made his suit, of dark green polyester blend and it was not my best effort.  I had never been taught to tailor things and I didn't know how it should have hung from the shoulders.  However, it couldn't be noticed on a trotting horse and I'm sure he wore it only a few times.  The point is, one looked at patterns and fabric and there was no limit how much trouble one would go to in order to have the thing wanted.  But buying retail, I tend to look at the price tag first and then consider if it's ok.  Ok enough to wear.  Maybe goes with something I already have, sorta.  I don't seem to see the manufacturers of clothing as asking my opinion.  In fact, I have bought some items that sort of dismayed me but seemed trendy enough.  Buying second hand, even the trendyness goes.  So when I thought about sewing some things, I was perplexed.  I didn't know what I wanted!  I did some research on line.  I found articles about fashion, especially for older ladies, that mentioned classic styles, shawl collared jackets, 40's style tailored slacks, the little sheaths and full-skirted dresses I made in High School are back in style and flats but with little white socks now.  But I could not find outlets that sold these items.  Not in my price range anyway.  I began to go through my collection of Victoria Magazines, they don't show many fashions but what they do show are very classic.  I took a girlfriend and went to the fabric store.  Patterns were on sale for the same prices I used to pay, just $1 or $2 apiece.  I had a coupon good for 1/2 off a piece of cut fabric.  I looked at linen and linen-look, hunting for Taupe.  I had to settle for a medium brown but I like it.  Then a piece for a dress.  I already had some white linen for blouses, some green denim for shorts, some plaid for a casual top.  I spent $43.   When I got home I spread them all out on the bed to gloat over!

     It was not so easy to get back into the sewing mode.  I made the green shorts first and made a slight cutting error.  The same thing with the plaid blouse but I fixed it.  The button holes aren't as nice as I wanted but practice makes perfect, or at least better.  Now I'm working on the first white blouse and it's coming along nicely..  It makes me feel happy to be working on these things for myself.  And already I've become picky about what I'll wear of what I already have.  Also I've hemmed up good pieces left languishing for lack a little hand-sewing.  This is gonna be fun!


     Friday I took the day off and went with a friend to see the Indiana Pioneer Mothers' Memorial.  It consists of 88 acres of virgin timber just south of Paoli, Indiana.  I took pictures but it was a cloudy day and virgin woods are dark always but here is a view of the Memorial wall in the center of the woods.  Quite a walk for these old legs.  But I loved it and thought it well worth the effort.  Afterward we had lunch in Paoli, came home and took a nap!

     There are no menus this week,  I've been busy so Bill did the shopping and I've just been making easy things.  Meatballs and tiny bits of pasta tonight!

A tea to celebrate a marriage!

     My youngest daughter has quietly gotten married.  Nothing wrong with that.   I knew about it, but still I missed seeing and experiencing  a ceremony.  It's a Mother thing, of course!  But I was delighted to have them over for tea and presents later.  We had Lemon and garlic cream cheese and sliced chicken sandwiches (on Sour Dough bread for them and Rosemary crackers for me) and fresh fruits, strawberries, raspberries, pear and nectarine.  Irish Breakfast tea and  Earl Grey tea to drink.  We wish them well.
                                                                                                            

We lit the lamps though it was still daylight.                                             

      We used the "Dali Llama's teapot".





     The bride brought her Mother a gift of Lavender blossoms tied with a green ribbon.  Not to mention the bread and fruits.
 

     The happy couple received a gift of a Waterford Chrystal bud vase, among other things.   We lingered over tea almost until evening.  I teared up once but I did not cry!

Big Day!

Mother's Day is a big day, at least it is for me.  A lot of expectations.  I was a little worried when Saturday's mail brought only one card, from my best friend in Tucson.  Sunday morning there was a card from my Hubby, of course, on the breakfast table.  But almost immediately Fedex brought me a huge box of roses.  So many I couldn't get them all in one vase!  Beautiful!  Then a welcome photo of my Arizona son and his girlfriend and one of his lovely compositions via e-mail.  All day the phone rang as offspring called and chatted and wished me good and expressed their love for me.  There was a gift of meat from my favorite butcher shop.  Fancy and good-smelling cosmetics too.  The last one squeaked in at 11 pm!  I love you all!
     Eliyah and I made some more candles, much longer this time and smoother and more beautiful.

     When we moved here I relegated my butcher block on a stand to the front porch to hold the grill.  It had a big top and made a thing to bump into in our narrow kitchen.  Of late I have begun to miss it though.  So I thought I would get or make a smaller top for it and try it again in the kitchen.  Now I am not much of a carpenter, so I found I was dragging my feet.  I got some wood out but when I contemplated sawing it, well, it just seemed so hard.  However, I still had the remains of a gift certificate to Amazon so I went looking.  I was delighted to find several to choose from.  I got one which is really a bread board and has the circles for rolling various size pie crusts out, as well as rulers for cutting noodles.  It was not expensive at all and is from Kentucky, and I have always liked Kentucky!  Catskill Craftsmen sent it to me in 5 days.  It was a perfect fit!  My children all remember this in my old kitchens.

     I have really enjoyed using it again.

     Another new addition is an old blasting powder box for Miss Hickory's room.  It is darker but I have added two lights.  I think Miss Hickory likes it very much.  It is roomier!

 Notice that the icebox has a big chunk of ice on the top shelf!

Last of all I would like to complain.  Have you noticed that the dish detergent doesn't cut the grease like it used to?  Even though I change the water and rinse copiously, I always end up putting the last few things back to be washed again next time.  They look alright but when I go to dry them, they are slippery with a thin film of grease.  Now is this a good thing?  Maybe the old detergents were too harsh for our ecology?  Hard to get out of the water?  Certainly they  strip all the natural oil off the skin of your hands.  Trace amounts left on the dishes?  Or is this just a way to make more money?  I wish someone would tell me!  I remember back in the 50's when we used to use soap powder for washing dishes and it made everything very slippery.  It didn't cut the grease much either.  I welcomed the new liquid dish detergents and never questioned that it was a vast improvement.  My favorite was Joy and I bet I used it for 45 years!

 

A week filled with new information!

     One of my daughters said to me recently:  "I have been making Prayer flags out of the linens you have made me."  I may have gulped.  I have been making special glass towels for all my friends and family for a couple of years, using vintage linen and old and new lace. some hand-made, some vintage.  Sometimes I make them all by hand with careful tiny stitches.  I have this belief that hand-made gifts are the way to show people that I care for them.  I think that my Mother taught me that long ago.  I remember embroidering stocking bags for Grandmothers back in the '50's.  Of course there were always Thank You cards, but I guess I took it on faith that these little hand-made gifts made people happy. I can't imagine my 11 year old embroidery was all that beautiful.
     After I gulped, I thought, "Well after all, it was a gift.  It shouldn't matter to me how these things are used.  We either use them up or do something else with them.  So I refrained from making a negative judgement about it.  Indeed, I gradually came to like the idea of these spotless white damask and pale blue linen towels flying in the breeze on some porch.  But I must say that I felt a little less happy when I found some at a local Charity resale store.  I was surprised to find that I recognised my own stitching.  There were two and they sold for .25 apiece.  Luckily I found someone who wished to use them as table covers for a family alter and learned a little more about the uses for things and my own shortsightedness.  And I have tried not to remember who got the those particular ones.

     I am learning how to eat low carb  I am now getting advice from a professional and it has helped me immensely  I have had to add some carbohydrates.  I am starting to develop some recipes that taste good, can be eaten several ways, and don't cost the earth.  Last week I made Pulled Pork in the crock pot.  I used a boneless pork loin bought on sale for $1.98 a pound.  I made about 2 1/2 pounds and it lasted for three meals.  The marinade contained 1/4 cup soy sauce, 2 T. honey, garlic and chopped ginger, 1/3 piece of star anise 
      So here are some of this weeks menus:
Hot Pulled pork on low-carb buns, with cheese sauced broccoli and tossed salad.
Tomato soup, sliced chicken and cream cheese with garlic and olives sandwiches on dark rye bread.
Cold pulled pork sandwiches with swiss cheese, salad
Chichen Fajitas with refried beans. salad
Hot Pulled pork in pork gravey, Fauxtatoes (whipped cauliflower), salad with our own fresh radishes
Quarter Pound hamburgers and cheese and broccoli soup, chocolate.


     Last week Eliyah and I made hand-dipped candles for two days and had a lot of fun.  Even Bill got in on it.

These are hand-dipped candles twisted into "trees".  They are difficult to burn though!

 Two weeks ago I went to a popular second-hand store and tried on some t-shirts.  One of them had some sticky sesame seeds on it.  I took it off but I wasn't really sure there was anything wrong with it that a good washing wouldn't cure.  In the end I didn't buy it.  Later when I researched the "sticky" seeds, the search brought up bedbugs.  Now I believe that that store puts all it's clothing in the dryer before putting it out on the floor but I am still disturbed and thinking that I might not want to buy any more second-hand clothing.  I believe that second-hand is a responsible way to acquire things but if it spreads pests, we'll have to stop doing things that way.  I would be interested in your opinions.

Teapot used by the Dali Llama?

I have two pewter teapots which I bought at the Tibetan Monastery's garage sale years ago.  I know that the serving of tea is an important part of the Tibetan Monks' daily life.  So it is possible, I suppose, that one of these teapots could have been used to serve tea to the Dali Llama. He has visited our town more than once.  Anyway I like to think so. It seems to make the tea very soothing!  One had the knob broken and Bill fixed it and added a lovely Mother of Pearl insert.  I am drinking my favorite tea, Lapsang Souchong along with my low carbohydrate lunch.  I have had so much trouble with this low carb diet that I am planning to go to a dietician.  More about that later.

I will say that I've begun to enjoy having my favorite low carb foods whenever I want to!  Look at this breakfast!

That is a hamburger next to the omelet.  Bill has a mini-bagel and I have avocado!  Yum!


I have been playing with my doll rooms more and more.  Now, as the rejects pile up, visitors laugh and view that pile as another display!

This is the Big Bad Wolf with a cup and a clock and a table and rug, all just set over here in favor of other clocks and other tables.  He is reclining against a magnifying glass in a fabric pouch, a gift from dear friends.  He looks very comfortable doesn't he?  Notice the toothy grin!

I have had to set my new budget at $70 a week and it's starting to work out.  I had to get it out of my head that many treats had to be stocked every week.  I feared not having something good to eat.  Perhaps I am a carbohydrate addict, a term I've found in my research.  I have had some lucky sales too, to help the budget.  Aldi's had a vegetable sale this week and for $15 I was able to buy enough veggies to last for about six weeks.  Broccoli, cauliflower, and red and yellow peppers  were all frozen as soon as we got home from the store.  I blanched the cauliflower and the broccoli, but not the peppers.  You know, boiled them a couple of minutes, then plunged them in cold water, shoved them in bags and froze them immediately.  The peppers were just sliced, put on a cookie sheet and frozen and then slid into a big bag to take out however many I need.  Even for on a fresh salad.  They thaw out by the time you've got the rest of the dinner fixed.

Then when I went to Kroger's, they had pork loin roasts on sale for $1.98 a pound, I think.  I got two roasts and cut them in half to freeze.  The first one I roasted that same day and it was so good I went back and bought two more today.  And still I haven't quite spent the $70.

Funny!

     Its a funny thing, the diet of the Depression, mostly cheap carbohydrates, became the diet of the rather affluent  Cholesterol Generation.  No eggs, no red meat, no butter, no fat! And diabetes and obesity now are at an all time high.  Now the newest diet for diabetics is low carbohydrate.  No bread, potatoes, corn, sugar, flour, rice, not even peas!  From one extreme to the other.  When we went to the Doctor in the 90's we were told "change, change, change your way of eating" as if it were a sin to eat a steak cooked in butter with a side of fried eggs.  I was enthusiastic at the time and found that a diet based on carbs was a cheap diet.  For some time we spent $50 a week for the two of us.  Those days are over.  For I am being initiated into the mysteries of the low Carb diet.  And it's attendant controversy as well.  I was not enthusiastic at first, and I've found there are side effects to this diet that are almost never mentioned by Doctors.  Nausea, loss of appetite, extreme mood swings.  But I am impressed by the results, both the touted results and my own results.  Though I have struggled with it and was not always compliant, my blood sugar is down and I have lost about 18 pounds.  And I know I can keep this up.  This is different from a "never" diet.  It has some really loved foods in it.  Real cream for my coffee.  Bacon.  Real butter.  Steak, chicken, fish and pork.  Sour cream.  Cheese.  And, as my Doctor styled it:  "Leaves and stems"!  Asparagus, lettuce, cabbage, green beans, brussels sprouts, spinach, all things I like.  So this week, I'll give you our menus:
Thursday, day before shopping day:  Steak, Fauxtatoes, (made from cauliflower) and lettuce wedges with Aoli.
Friday:  Chicken Piquant with sour cream gravy, Rice for Bill, Asian vegetables.
Saturday:  After a breakfast out late in the day, we had soup and sandwiches.  Bill had tomato soup and ham and Swiss cheese on rye.  I had a wonderful peanut soup out of Dana Carpender's big Low carb book, and Rye Krisp with cream cheese, olives and ham.
Sunday: Giant meatballs in tomato sauce with pasta for Bill.  Lavish salad with Feta cheese and avocado.  One small square very dark chocolate.
Monday:  Chicken stir fry, with rice for Bill.  Hot peanut sauce on mine.
Tuesday:  Ham steaks, cole slaw, Baked potato for Bill, avocado with mayo for me.
Wednesday:  Clam chowder, made without potatoes for me, Rye Krisp with toasted cheese sandwiches.  I'll be serving raw vegetables with sour cream dip to guests that evening.

     To distract myself from diet aggravation, I have been playing with my miniatures a lot.  Upstairs in the guest bedroom is a big table covered in all the miniatures I have that are not already in service, so I have plenty to select from.

 

This is my Miss Hickory Room.  Notice that she has a Baby Hickory.  Also a pet turtle which moves his tail and head eerily at the slightest vibration.

This is the third table I've tried and I think I like it best.  On the side of the white mug it says "Ana"  That Coleman lantern actually works, you know! .

Rearranging

     I have been rearranging the house and conducting some general spring housecleaning.  The table is gone from in front of the stove.  The insulating layers are gone from the picture window and I have put the house plants there to catch a little sun.
     Last weekend we stayed at the Canyon Inn  at McCormick's Creek State Park.  There was a tool show there but I enjoyed other things.  In the Nature Center was a Bird Room, where we could sit and watch the antics of birds, squirrels and chipmunks unseen.  Then in the lobby of the Inn there is a red-eared slider in a large tank.  I am sorry I did not take a picture of him, I thought him charming.  He is a turtle!  But lest you think turtles boring I hasten to add that this one has personality.  When I peered at him, hovering over his tank he paid no attention but when the Ranger came to feed him he obviously recognized her and began to wiggle and try to climb the glass.  She fed him tadpoles and he was entertaining to watch, catching them.  He never took his eye off the one he was pursuing, backing up to make another attempt on one who was too fast for him.  He ate 21 and was satisfied at last and went to take a nap on Sunday afternoon.
     So I wanted to make a bird room of my own.  I moved furniture out and added all my house plants as a screen.  Not as many birds are coming as will once they have all discovered my largess.

No birds yet!

      I've had to rearrange my shopping too.  A low carbohydrate diet is not so easy to achieve.  And looking for direction, I got a book at the Library that was rather extreme.  But I gave it a try.  And my blood sugar went up, not down.  My Doctor was more helpful the second time around and now I am doing a "modified" low carb diet.  Whew!  Still, I've made changes.  Bought more meat, real Mayo, real cream for my coffee.  It blew the budget out of the water but I am learning ways to do it.  

 These items as well as a large quantity of meat have added $60 to our monthly expenditure.  I am beginning to find some new recipes to try.  The best so far is Asian pulled chicken, with a few snow peas and lots of mushrooms, ginger and soy sauce, hot peppers too!  A lunch time special is tuna salad with celery sticks instead of bread.  Very good.

      The last rearranging has been to my loose leaf binder where I store recipes I print off of the Internet.  Labeled dividers became necessary as well as jettisoning some high carb desserts.  And when I put the plants in the bird room I found room for more miniature displays, as you see.  Next time I'll show you what I have added in more detail!