Friday Favorite: Getting Crafty
Now that winter is here, I finally have some time to dust off my sewing machine and get crafting. I never have time to sew the rest of the year. I’ve been wanting to make a few quilts for a long time. In fact, I’ve been saving pieces of clothing for years for this. Last week I cut out the strips and sewed them all together.
Then I set to work on my second quilt, one that will hold all of the patches we’ve collected throughout our travels. I just finished sewing the top on this one last night. It’s made of old pants that I’ve saved. The fun part is that most of these pants were worn during our travels to these places.
Next up I have to quilt them. I’ll use old flannel sheets for the inside of the quilt and old sheets for the backing. The best part of these quilts is that they were FREE. All the fabric was saved items that were past the point of mending. Quilting really is a great way to use up those things that can no longer be used in their previous forms.
Do you have anything you do in the winter that you don’t do in summertime?
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007 Day are Here Again
Well, the 007 days of Christmas have once again arrived here at Chiot’s Run. Mr Chiots and I are huge James Bond fans so each year between Christmas and New Year’s Day we watch as many Bond movies as we can. Last year we got the 50 year anniversary boxed set as a Christmas gift for each other, it’s a great way to get all the movies.
It’s fun to have crazy traditions that don’t really have anything to do with the actual holidays. We love that at this time of the year we have a little down time and watching movies forces us to take some much needed physical rest.
Do you have any holiday traditions that are out of the ordinary?
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Roasted Chickpeas
Last night we went to a holiday party. We were supposed to take a snack of some sort. Knowing there’d be the usual snack items already there, I decided to make roasted chickpeas. Mine were dried beans that I soaked overnight then cooked. I tossed them with coconut oil and roasted them in a 400 oven for about 40 minutes (or until most of them are crispy). I then removed them from the oven, poured them in a bowl and tossed them with ghee, honey and various spices like smoked paprika and cinnamon. Back into the oven they went for 5-10 minutes. They should all end up crispy and delicious, a little like pretzels.
Sometimes I also love to add smoke chipotle to add some nice heat, but usually avoid that when I’m taking them elsewhere as most folks don’t enjoy that level of spiciness. One of these days I’m going to add mustard powder instead of paprika because I think honey mustard ones would be heavenly!
What crazy snack foods are you taking to holiday parties?
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Ick
I must admit, I’m not a fan of carpet. Back in Ohio, we had managed to remove every last scrap of carpet from our house and replaced it with hardwood. It was perfect, easy to clean and it could be mopped. It was nice to know that all the dirt was gone after a day of cleaning. Carpet gives me the heeby jeebies, I just don’t like that I can’t mop the floor every week. Add chickens into the mix and it really grosses me out. I know I’m always stepping in chicken poop outside, we try to take off our shoes before we come in, but sometimes it’s just not possible. This carpet is right inside the front door.
Thankfully, I have an old carpet cleaner my mom gave me. It’s old, but it works really well still. I used this thing to clean the carpets at our old house and here I am using it again. I’m certainly glad I didn’t get rid of it when we ripped out all the carpet.
As you can see, the carpet was far from clean – YUCK. At least some of the dirt will be gone after this cleaning. I’m using the carpet cleaning mix from The Naturally Clean Home. The recipe is as follows:
Heavy Duty Carpet Cleaner
3/4 cup of very hot water
1/2 cup white vinegar
1 Tablespoon of hydrogen peroxide (omit for dark colored carpet)
1 Tablespoon of liquid castile soap
1 Tablespoon of citric acid powder (I used borax instead)
Combine all ingredients in mason jar. Blend well, pour into your steam cleaner and clean the carpet.
I’m still debating ripping it out and simply painting the subfloor for a few years, but the resident aged chiots doesn’t like hard flooring surfaces much anymore. This carpeted room is her safety zone where she has great traction. We’re still debating, I certainly can’t wait for the carpet to be gone!
Do you love or hate carpet?
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The Last Cookie
Around there, the last cookie always gets stale sitting in the container. Both of us leave the cookie for the other person, not wanting to be the one to eat the last one.
Every now and then, it’s split in half before it goes stale, then we both get to enjoy it.
Does this ever happen in your house?
