Lavender Sachets..

We have cut back our lavender  for the season and I have a whole lot of fragrant blossoms.

I have some lovely, rustic hemp fabric that I embroidered with my version of lavender stems and I made little 4 inch square bags. 

Stuffed them full. Fragrance.mmmmm!
Also will use some for cooking......put some in scones, make lavender sugar...Yummy. 

How To Make a Windsock Lantern

Summer is NOT over guys...those nice cool evenings are here, when we can go out in the garden and 'set a spell'.    I love this idea from Daisy Janie

Go on over and take a look at her tutorial.  I am going to try mine with a solar light.  You know, the kind you poke in the ground and they soak up sun in the daytime and come at night?  Will let you know how it comes out.

While you are visiting, please look at her organic fabrics....organic cotton sateen & organic cotton/hemp canvas printed with her original designs.  I am going to be using some in my shop for the organic line. 

Process Pledge or Rosie on Mutant Quilting

The response to Rosie's  post on mutant quilting has been really cool. She says "it seems I'm not alone in my interests and concerns.

I have made a process pledge.  The goal of the process pledge is to create a new sensibility in quilting blogs where we don’t just show finishes or occasionally confess about our moments of indecision, but chat openly and often about our works in progress, our inspirations, and our moments of decision. I know that many of us are already posting about our thinking on quilts and the processes involved from start to finish, let's do more!  And let's post about quilts as we work on them.  I want to see more half-done quilts, not just the finished thing with a journal entry about the process."

I started today.  Am going to post photos of the process as I go along and maybe the pattern I am using. Stay tuned....I have my camera in the sewing room right now.
 
That said....here is the pledge:

So, without further ado.  Here's the process pledge. Take it, shake it, make it yours.

I, ________________, pledge to talk more about my processes, even when I can’t quite put them in the in words or be sure I’m being totally clear.   I’m going to put my thinking and my gut feelings out there.  

Free Inklingo Pattterns...

Now, I found this app called Inklingo.....it will print ultra-fine lines on fabric with your ordinary Inkjet printer.  There is a video and tutorial over at Linda Franz's blog.  She says just, print, cut, sew. It’s that simple.  It is a pretty neat quilting idea. The site is huge and has a lot of ideas.....watch this video to see what this thingie is.....I don't have to explain it at all. 


How to sew a Grandmother’s Flower Garden Quilt

"Seeing Inklingo reminds me of the first time I saw a rotary cutter!"

"Inklingo is the quilting tool we've always wanted."

Beki lost her mojo!

My reply to Beki's post over at Artsy Crafty Babe  got so long it turned into a blog.  We run in the 90 and 100's from late June until mid September up here in the Sierra Nevada foothills in California. Not one drop of rain.  Dry garden, vegetables have just stopped cold having lost their mojo too. No firestorms yet......cringe every time the forestry planes start circling.

We are from the San Francisco bay area, so up here it may be lovely, but summers are HOT and dry.  I once asked my husband "why did you bring me to this hell-hole, anyway"......as we endured mandatory evacuation last August due to firestorm complete with tankers flying over.

Then...comes fall.  We live in the gold country.  And the 49ers who came out here brought their architecture and their trees.  It is totally stunning to see our old courthouse surrounded by trees turning every color you can imagine.  The winter....some designer snow....spring with blossoms everywhere and dogwoods too.  I guess it balances out in the end.

Granola Bars.....

I found a great granola recipe...here 'tis.  I have left  the recipe all together up top so that if you want to make this the pictures are not in the way.  Just highlight, copy and past into word or pages.

Ingredients
2 cups old-fashioned oatmeal (not quick-cook)
1 cup sliced almonds
1 cup shredded coconut, loosely packed
1/2 cup toasted wheat germ
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
2/3 cup honey
1/4 cup light brown sugar, lightly packed
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract (I used ground vanilla bean)
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 cup chopped pitted dates (had prunes on hand)
1/2 cup chopped dried apricots
1/2 cup dried cranberries

Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter an 8 by 12-inch baking dish and line it with parchment paper.
Toss the oatmeal, almonds, and coconut together on a sheet pan and bake for 10 to 12 minutes, stirring occasionally, until lightly browned. Transfer the mixture to a large mixing bowl and stir in the wheat germ.
Reduce the oven temperature to 300 degrees F.
Place the butter, honey, brown sugar, vanilla, and salt in a small saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat. Cook and stir for a minute, then pour over the toasted oatmeal mixture. Add the dates, apricots, and cranberries and stir well.
Pour the mixture into the prepared pan. Wet your fingers and lightly press the mixture evenly into the pan. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until light golden brown. Cool for at least 2 to 3 hours before cutting into squares.  Freezes very well.  I wrapped up individual squares in waxed paper and froze them.

Chopped fruit, nuts and wheat germ.

Buttered baking dish with parchement.

 

Brazilian Peppertree Honey and ground vanilla bean!

Honey, butter, brown sugar and vanilla bean and and salt in saucepan.

Oh, go ahead....take a bite!

Craft Hope

It is time to check in with Craft Hope.    Another link to the site is on the right colum of my blog.

Last year CH opened an Etsy Craft Hope for Haiti shop and we took items from our Etsy shops and they were listed in the shop.  Buyers made purchases, we shipped the item and Craft Hope collected the $$ for Doctors Without Borders - Haiti. Over $29,000 raised and over 1400 items sold!

You can go to Craft Hope's site and find a charity you want to support with your handmade items, find a tutorial if you like and get stitchin', hooking, knitting, sewing or whatever.  There is also a book all about CH.  The projecs are fun and the cause good.  Barnes & Noble.com - Image Viewer: Craft Hope, by Jade Sims, Paperback

You can read about founder,  Jade Sims.  How it works and what you can do.  If you craft::you can help.



"They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself."
— Andy Warhol

Slow Start Monday....

It is 8am, the bed is not made, the sewing room looks like a bomb went off........there is work to do,  so I go to get a cup of coffee and decide to make a caramel-vanilla latte.  Heading for my computer to read email, do etsy things, twitter and facebook.

Passed by the door to our back deck and saw my personal-hammock.  Could you resist that......

That did it...out I went, latte in hand. Sat, rocked a bit and looked at my garden and out over our property. The sun was 'just right' so I got my camera.

In front is my herb barrel and waaaay back is my personal oak tree.  Since we have three acres of forested land our 'garden' doesn't end with the fence.  We have a responsibility to manage all this plant material and sometimes I look at it and am awe-struck. 

I would be out there yet, but I need to satisfy my digital addiction. Sooooo...here it is. I just had to blog.

How to make a.......from a......

When I see these words I give 'em a click of the mouse..and a new project is born.

Look around.....there is nothing you can see that wasn't something else before.  Book was a tree, glass was sand, telephone was god-knows-what and rug was chemicals and yuck.  It is presumable (hopefully)  that all these things will one day become something else.  And so it goes. 

Over at Totally Tutorials there is a tut to make anything from anything.  New stuff from old and petty from not-so-petty.  How to take apart and re-use a thrifted garment.  These great projects to add to our never ending lists of wanna-dooos is courtesy of DottyRal.

I Found Daisy Janie..

New discovery...from my favorite hang out Flickr.....Daisy Janie ...... blog, organic fabric, etsy shop, recipes, tutorials for stuff to make, take and bake. 

oh no you didn't cover fritos in chocolate!

 Oh, yes, she did!

Janie has an organic fabric line that has me drooling.    I need to grab some of her fabrics for the organic bag line in my little corner of etsy...(you know I always leave a link behind).

I am adding Daisy Janie to my blog roll, so check it out.

.....................wondering if I could use tortilla chips instead of Fritos.  Be back with report.

Well, you can...but 'tis a wee bit messy.  Stick with the Fritos!

Random Acts of Green

Michael Bloch, of Green Living Tips posts in his recent blog....I quote with permission:

"On a recent trip out into the bush, it was a windy, cold morning with intermittent drizzle. Niki the Wonder Dog and I were comfortable enough in our heated mini-van buzzing along the highway just outside of the city when in the distance; I saw a car on the side of the road. I slowed down thinking that perhaps someone needed assistance.


Out of the gloom emerged a lonely figure; an elderly gentleman with a bag who appeared to be just picking up rubbish along the side of the road.. and no, he wasn't just picking up cans and bottles for the deposit cash.

He wasn't wearing a Greenpeace T-shirt, there was no environmental group name stencilled on his car and he certainly didn't have the media in tow. In fact, there was nothing to indicate he was a "greenie" at all aside from what he was doing - he just seemed to be someone doing his bit for the environment.

I'll never know his name, but to me he's an environmental hero. He made me stop and think about why I couldn't do something like that from time to time; a random act of green-ness - to spend 5 or 10 minutes each trip cleaning up a section of roadside; or perhaps where I stop to have my break.

It's the sort of thing we can all do.

These random acts don't have to entail you being chilled to the bone and trudging along a muddy road. It could be picking up some litter in the park or at the beach while you are there, turning off a light at work in a room not being used - just something spontaneous and "outside" your own usual green focus.

Just imagine, if every adult in the USA performed one random act of green a day, over a year that would amount to over 84 billion actions. That's a lot of litter collected or lights turned off. As I've so often mentioned, simple green actions do work."

TeamEcoEtsy

 I have been following Team EcoEtsy via the blog, twitter and facebook. Their blog is a cooperative effort of Team EcoEtsy members, providing eco-news, eco-tips, member features, eco-friendly creations, how-tos and EcoEtsy news! The eco-goodies are sold on Etsy.com, and can be found by doing a tag search for “TeamEcoEtsy".

Members of EcoEtsy work together to:

• Raise funds for non-profit organizations, through auctions, sales, etc.
• Find attractive ways to reuse packaging materials
• Find promotional materials that are Eco-friendly
• Promote Etsy through the creative reuse and labeling of packaging
• Actively participate in the Eco Etsy Yahoo group, and other web based groups for the team.
• Create a list of tips for sellers who want their shops to be more “green”
• Educate buyers and sellers on the importance of reuse

This is a group you should know about if you sell organic, support ecology, buy organic or are a resident of this planet.


To go straight from here to Eco Etsy, just click on the bird graphic over to the right.

Buy organic, fair trade, recycled – and handmade!