In My Easter Bonnet With All The Frills Upon It...

Easter is traditionally a day to get decked out in ones new seasonal togs.  I read somewhere this week that this is to symbolize our new life in Christ.  Christ's death and resurrection allows us rebirth and new clothes are one way to show this.  I'm not sure I am ready to use the gospel as an excuse to shop, but it was an interesting notion to be sure.  

When I was a girl my mom made my sister and I new dresses for Easter.  It made me feel special and I thought she was amazingly talented.  My favorite Easter dress story was the year my brother Sam was about 3.  He watched my mom fashion beautiful dresses for my sister and I and wondered where his was. 

"I want a pretty dress!" He requested.  If you know Sam you know he is nothing if not persistent!  He finally wore Mom down and she made him a "pretty dress".  The dress was really a red sailor suit with white piping and ties, the kind where the shirt buttoned to the shorts.  It was adorable!  

This isn't THE "pretty dress", but Mom did make this one for him too...

I am including this picture because it is cute and perhaps embarrassing of Sam in his diaper and because he told me he wouldn't read my blog as there was nothing of interest in it for him!

I continue the tradition by making dresses for my girls.  Because I know boys like having things made for them as well I always include something for them.  Usually the boys get ties.  One year they also got newsboy hats.  I also try to coordinate the kids clothes somehow.  I used to make everyone match, but as their size and body types require alternatives we now shoot for coordination.  It is an interesting challenge for me. 

The fact that Easter falls so late in the Spring this year was particularly advantageous to me.  It gave me more time to prepare.  I had started way back in February with me thinking I was all on top of everything by purchasing myself a redimade dress.  When I modeled it for Breadwinner he thought it too short.  (I admit to not paying that close attention to length in the store. I especially didn't sit down in it to see how far up the leg it rode.  I also should have had a small person climb up and down my lap several times to see how it would react to that particular mauling which occurs each Sunday morning during the worship service)  I was perplexed as to what to do until the older girls picked out a material for their dresses.  It matched my dress to perfection and I could see a refashion, and another chance to use my ruffler foot, on the horizon.  

My dress pre-refashion.  The collar already had a little ruffle and I felt good about that.   I also felt good that I had purchased a dress and had one less thing over which to concern myself as I dressed my six little dollies.  Oh well...

I cut a 4'' x double the width+ of my dress.  I then used my ruffler foot to ruffle both sides of the fabric.

I cut the dress apart and added the ruffled strip.

I don't have a picture of the dress all completed.  I did try it on, although I'm sure it doesn't matter as someone will be sitting on the ruffle when I wear it.  I'm okay with that.  I always have an excuse to be wrinkled...

He Is Risen! He Is Risen Indeed!

"For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is a gift of God: lest any man should boast." Ephesians 2:8


Easter is my favorite holiday.  It vibrates with possibility and hope!  The Creator of the universe sent his only sinless son to lowly earth to pay the price for my wretchedness.  Jesus suffered and died in my place on the cross.  But, it is because He rose again that sin no more has dominion.  I serve a risen Savior.  


Every seventh day we assemble ourselves together and worship our Lord on that day traditionally set aside. One Sunday a year we specifically remember what God did to preserve His creation and make a way for us to spend eternity with Him.  


My dad always explained grace as God's Riches At Christ's Expense.  This is Dad's first Easter in heaven.  Somehow having him there makes Easter all the more poignant.  We are bound to earth for all the days the Lord allows while Dad even now reaps God's riches for all eternity.  


In John chapter 14  verses 1 through 6 Jesus details a bit of what is to come to his disciples.  They, as we sometimes do, struggled some to completely comprehend His meaning of what is in store for those who place their trust in Him.  

"Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.  In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you.  I go to prepare a place for you.  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.  And whither I go ye know, and the way, ye know."

Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way?

Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me."

Are you ready to really celebrate this Easter?  Are you ready to experience an eternity of God's riches at Christ's expense?  

Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe, sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow. 

 

Oven Rice

I am a last minute cook for the most part.  Cooking is not my favorite hat to wear.  I may as well come clean and admit I need work in this area.  Not that I'm a bad cook.  My mom was an excellent teacher and I honed my skill as a consultant for Pampered Chef for 5-6 years.  For me cooking is more of a spiritual battle than anything.  I find myself aggravated by how much time foraging for food, preparing, and feeding my troops actually entails.  I would rather be doing any number of other things, but a minimum of three times a day my presence is ordered to the kitchen.  I know I need to pray about having a better attitude concerning the process, and I have.  But then I find myself in the middle of a new ruffled project or knee deep in soft loamy topsoil and I once again resent the kitchen's call.

One way I am trying to overcome my spiritual deficiency in this area was to paint one of my upper kitchen cabinets with chalk board paint to display our weekly menu.  This circumvents the dreaded, "What's for supper?"  It also gives me a loose plan to go by.  I LOVE the weeks where the menu tells me we have a family birthday party or some other get together.  It brings joy to my heart to see that there...

This afternoon we had to run to town and didn't get home until 5:00. (Fortunately for us the kids aren't used to eating until close to 7:00 when Breadwinner calls it a day)  In the past this may have been cause for irritation as I tried to decide what to feed everyone.  Tonight I just turned on the oven and popped in some ham balls and rice, add some frozen broccoli and presto!

I am newly in love with making rice in the oven. So easy and hassle free!

Oven Rice
1 1/2 cups rice (I use brown rice)
2 1/2 cups water
1 tsp salt
1 Tbsp butter

~Boil the water and add to rice et al in 8''x8'' pan.  Cover with tin foil and bake for 1 hour at 375 degrees.  I always double this recipe and make it in a 9''x13'' pan.  Go ahead and saute a bit of onion, carrots, celery, broccoli or anything else and throw it in as well.  Easy rice pilaf.

More Quilt Binding...

A couple years ago my friend, Kate, gave me a gift certificate to a fabric store for my birthday-she knows me so well!  I used it to buy some charm squares to make a quilt.  Charm squares are precut to 5'' and come in a pack of coordinating colors.  I had never worked with precut squares before and it was a lot of fun to just sit down and start sewing without having to cut everything out first.  It took awhile for me to finish this quilt as it wasn't high priority.  I am glad I waited as I ended up using minky for the backing and my ruffler foot for the binding.  The quilt is made using a disappearing 9 patch pattern which I will talk about at a later date.

Here is how I did the ruffled binding. Quilts are always "quilted" before the binding is added.

1. For the ruffle around the edge I cut pieces 4'' wide and double (plus a bit) the length of the perimeter of the quilt.  This was folded in half and sewn with the ruffler foot on the raw edge.

 2. Pin the ruffle on top of the quilt raw edges together (this means the folded edge of the ruffle faces the middle of the quilt).  If you didn't make enough ruffle make some more and add it!  In this photo you can see the actual bias tape layered over the ruffle.

3. To make bias tape sew together 2'' wide strips and run them through your bias tape maker or use store bought bias tape.  You can purchase a bias tape maker for what it would cost to buy bias tape for this entire project.  

 4. Open out the bias tape and sew through all the layers.

5. Fold bias tape to the back side and use a wavy stitch over the bias tape.  This hides many mistakes as you are sewing crooked on purpose. :)

Enjoy!

School of Life

• Deuteronomy 6:5-7

And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. 

And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart:

And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way,and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.

I really haven't written much about our home schooling journey here.  Perhaps this is because discipling my children is something I strive to do all day long and not just from 9-noon on weekdays

.  It is not something that we do, it is something that we are.   Our philosophy of family is that it is our job to disciple the people God has entrusted to our care to lead them to the Lord and to love Him with all of their being.  It is our desire and conviction that this should be happening all day every day.  All of life is our "school" and the ultimate goal is that this leads us to love the Lord with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our strength.  

We enjoy taking the opportunities life sends our way to take further instruction from 

circumstances.  A couple weeks ago I wrote about our new mastiff puppy. 

 I saw an opportunity here to get some writing practice in for the girls while they 

learned about the responsibilities that would be required of them to teach/train the

 newest inhabitant here on Sunny Toad Farm.  They were asked to research and write

 a puppy training manual and then use it to train our new puppy.


 As you can see from former postings, our mastiff is huge.  He is daunting to those who

 pull in the yard, which is just how I like it.  We were trying to impress upon the kids 

 the strength of such an animal and the need for our new puppy to be well trained lest 

he destroy someone or something.  He was, after all, our older mastiff's full blood 

brother and therefore bound to be the same behemoth size. 

The girls were closing in on being finished with their manuals.  They were compiling them into booklet form and adding their own creative touches.  We weren't in any hurry. They were beginning to use what they had learned to get Turk used to the new rules.  In the mean time Turk trailed along behind big brother, Duke, as he patrolled the grounds.  This all came to a screeching halt almost a week after Turk came home to us.  

To keep Duke in my good graces and ensure that he always comes running when I holler I toss him meat scraps from the front porch.  Apparently Turk had not yet learned his place in the pecking order and as I tossed out some ham Duke snapped at him.  I saw the pup run headlong across the yard, heard his yelps of pain, and watched as fat drops of blood fell in his wake.  I raced out to Turk's rescue and retrieved him from his hiding spot under the French tarragon.  

For one week Turk lived in our house, formerly an animal free zone.  We bathed and bandaged his wounds multiple times a day.  We gave him shots of penicillin.  We fed him with a syringe.  One week from the day of his injury we woke to find him lying on his towel in the kitchen, dead.  We decided that the bite must have been more than a flesh wound, and had damaged his little soft skull.  

We were all sad and assuaged our grief by looking on the Internet for available Great Dane puppies.  I let the kids watch a new Lassie movie and I worked on some quilting.  And I kept wandering back in the kitchen thinking I would just check on the little fellow...

The girls didn't finish their manuals.  The reason and need no longer existed.  We try to avoid busywork.  We did discuss the circumstances that caused Turk's demise.  

We decided that the bites to his head must have been more than a flesh wound and had damaged his little soft skull.  There were many lessons to learn in the days following.  I reminded the kids that although Duke really liked Turk he was after all a dog and acted like the animal he is.  Never mess with a dog while it eats.  Bad things happen even if "I didn't mean to".  No, animals don't go to heaven.  Man was the only thing God created with a soul.  

Lately I've been reveling in the discomfort that comes to my kids as they manipulate fractions.  Not because I enjoy seeing them struggle, my mom can attest to the nights spent sitting at the dining table as Dad patiently explained ratios yet again, but because it is mundane.  A gentle respite from the harder lessons our school called life sends our way.  

Ruffled Obsession...

I really like ruffles.  I haven't always had this obsession.  It started last winter when I had a new baby and didn't get out much.  I spent some time surfing the net while we nursed discovered the wonderful world of ruffles.  I ruffled most anything by running a basting stitch down the middle of a strip of fabric and pulling one thread to gather.  I pulled shirts from Breadwinner's closet that he didn't favor and refashioned them for myself.  I cut up old t'shirts and made skirts for the girls.  My penchant for storing outgrown clothing boxed up in the basement was once again rewarded.  I fabric "shopped" without leaving the house.  

This didn't go unnoticed by Breadwinner and for Christmas this year I was gifted with a ruffling foot for my sewing machine.   I had seen them only in pictures and they look very intimidating to use.  Since I don't know anyone personally that uses this foot I checked on youtube and sure enough there was a video teaching me how to use my new toy.

For my first attempts I wanted the optimal opportunity to practice ruffling so I made 3 tier skirts for the girls.  I made 4...in one morning!   I was hooked.  Lately I have been making dresses using premade shirts and just adding skirts.  I scored some cute shirts at Target for $1 last fall before I had my ruffler foot and new they would be useful to refashion.

My 3 year old sees me sewing, looks down at her newest dress, and tells me she doesn't like it anymore and needs a new one.  She will probably end up spoiled as I oblige her, but she reminds me of my mom in her enjoyment of new fashions so I suppose she won't end up all bad.  

Here is one way I use my ruffler foot.

 


I chose 2 fabrics to complement this shirt. In all honesty, the three year old picked out the fabric on our last trip to JoAnn Fabric store.  She is in a dark pink stage.  She categorizes all colors into darks and lights lately.  I cut the width of the fabric twice the width of the shirt bottom.  The length of the top tier is 5'' and the second is 7'', which makes them 5"x44'', and 7''x44''.

I serged the narrow ends of the strips together-

-and then created the hem before I sewed the tiers together.  Usually hems are added after the garment is completed.  This is because the fabric may stretch during construction and then your hem would be uneven.  I don't worry about this for kids everyday wear.  I am not a perfectionist and figure kids move around so much no one will ever know anyway.

I made this picture big so you can hopefully see the ruffler foot and how it works.  You can use it with 1 or 2 fabrics at a time.  So you can either ruffle a fabric or ruffle it while you sew it to another fabric that remains straight.  The top fabric (the bottom tier) is basically pleated while it is sewn right sides together to the top tier which remains unpleated.

There are 3 settings on the foot.  You can gather every 0, 6th, or 12th stitch.  Length of stitch also effects the size of the gather.  I set it at 6 as my fabric was twice as wide as the shirt I was attaching it to.  I put pins each quarter of the way around the fabrics so I could make sure they were matching up as I sewed.  When they weren't coming together just right I lengthened or shortened my stitch length accordingly to change the size of the gathers.  This is why I sew instead of do woodworking.  You can't just "fudge it" with wood.  Wood is not as forgiving...

Here is the skirt before it is attached to the shirt.



  If you want a empire waist dress cut off the shirt just under the armpits.  This dress has a drop waist so I only trimmed off the bottom hem of the shirt.  Next add a 2 or 3'' strip of iron on interfacing to the shirt bottom.  This is so the knit fabric holds its shape when being sewn to the quilter's cotton tiers.

 

Sew the skirt to the shirt using the ruffler foot.  Again, mark each quarter all the way around on both pieces so they match up evenly. 

To clean everything up on the inside of the dress and make the seam stronger I serge the seams. 

 

I don't know why I don't have a picture of my little princess in her new gown.  Just know that it goes perfectly with the "dark pink" ruffled sweater Mama gave her for her birthday...

The Little Red Couch...

We love hand-me-downs.  My boys have been clothed almost exclusively by the generosity and goodness from others who have passed what they have on to us.  We missed out on this with the girls as there didn't seem to be anyone who matched up with their growth.  It is great to be able to "shop" in the boys' closet when on a Saturday evening they are picking out their Sunday finery only to find that their pants are suddenly 3'' too short!    

We don't stop at hand-me-down clothes around here.  For our first 10 years of marriage all of our furniture was second hand all having been refinished and reupholstered.  There is something about taking something that someone else doesn't want or need anymore and giving it a new life.  The little red couch came out of a grandparent's basement and was in great condition when we got it.  It folds out so little visiting friends have often used it for nap time.  The kids also like to fold each other up in it and sit on each other hot dog with bun style, as they haul the couch from room to room and up and down the stairs. When the babies are around 1 year of age they seem especially fond of the couch as it is just their size.  For these reasons and more I was disappointed when it started to rip out.  In a fit of wanting to throw away everything that was laying around, which happens about every other week, I almost carried the couch to the burn pile.  Breadwinner suggested maybe I should recover it.  After he endured my snarling he reminded me how much the kids actually use the couch and that I would be better served taking out my need to relegate to the burn pile other offending objects.  I have to take a minute to say that burning excess articles is wound tightly in the recesses of my double helix.  My dad was a notorious burner.  Ask Mom sometime about the piano.  I would tell you about the bedstead that matches my chest of drawers and dresser, but I might start crying again...

So, I set the couch aside and began to consider what material worthy of taking the place of the parading pachyderms.  Still feeling a bit snitty, I didn't want to use just any old fabric.  This is another area in which we have been blessed.  When the fabric stashes of others grow out of control they pass on the love.  I was not enamored with anything in the cupboard enough to put the energy into using it as a replacement.  Then we were the recipients of some used blackout curtains.

My sis-in-law thought maybe I would like to have them for the boys' room.  I too thought this would be grand.  They are a delicious chocolate brown that is rather suede-like.  The only problem was there were 2 curtains and 3 windows.  Even this didn't bother me too much, and the boys wouldn't care if we hung the laundry to dry on their curtain rods in lieu of window coverings.  Fortunately for me I hadn't gotten around to swapping out the existing curtains when I decided the thing to do would be to use the curtains to recover the couch.  Turns out blackout material is a dream to sew.  Hope you don't mind, Missy.  Believe me they are well loved in their new life!  

We checked online and found that the cost to replace this little gem was way more than that which we were willing to part.  The price of the foam alone would make you cringe!

I removed the original fabric to use as a template.  Only take off as much as you are ready to work with.  I do things in sections or I can't remember what gets sewn on where.  Digital photography can be a lifesaver if you have to stop and restart later so you can remember how things are supposed to look.

Here is the back and bottom cushion that flips out.  It is hard to see even though I used red thread because it was what was in the machine, but I swapped out the zippers for Velcro on the back.

The completed cushion on the couch.  Yeah, it fits!

I only took off one arm rest at a time.  Here we are just checking to see that they fit .

This was a tricky spot for me. ( Someday when I don't have to stop to escort my royal subjects to the restroom or break up the occasional insurrection I may wonder why everything used to take so much thought...)  A small rectangle of fabric sewn onto a straight side just right.  I only took off one side to use as a pattern so I could reference how to sew it back together.

I stuffed this "sausage casing" 3 or 4 times before I was finally done.  I used the original bottom piece of fabric which had a full length zipper.  When recovering never throw things out or cut them up until you are positive you will not have to use them.  It is a good idea to have a dedicated garbage bag that is discarded after you have a finished product.  That way you only have to dig through one bag rather than the whole dumpster...

The final step was to cut slits to pull through the plastic buttons that hold the cover in place.  Pliers are a reupholster's best friend!

This couch actually seats 7 when we are reading in the boys' room...