Homemaking « mama urchin

Archive for the 'Homemaking' Category

Harvesting

Published June 29, 2010 Homemaking , In the Garden 4 Comments

Just this last week we’ve started harvesting some veggies from our garden. It started with the onions, sort of on a whim, last Friday and we pulled them all. Weeds were seriously encroaching into the bed and the tops had pretty much died back. I bought two packs of onion sets back around St Patrick’s Day on a whim for something like $2. One was for regular sized onions and one for little ones. Ours definitely were on the small sized but hey, onions from our own garden! And tonight we dug out our potatoes. The tops had totally died back. I was very skeptical about what we would find since I forgot to order potato sets and had just cut up some organic potatoes I had in the pantry at planting time. We also discovered a fairly sizable zucchini and three ripe tomatoes. Many more tomatoes will be following shortly as well as a whole bunch of yellow squash. What’s growing in your gardens?

Making Me Happy Today

Published May 11, 2009 Cooking , Crafted by Friends , Homemaking , In the Garden , In the Kitchen , In the Mailbox 7 Comments

:: wearing matching outfits with my girl on Mother’s Day ::

:: first berries of the season, and consequently the first canning session of the season as well ::

:: herbs in pots on my deck ::

:: a vegetable garden that is planted and ready to grow ::

Almost May

Published April 25, 2009 Homemaking , In the Garden , Through The Lens 8 Comments

My goodness, where did April go? Seriously. The month is almost over and I don’t feel like I’ve finished much of anything. In fact I haven’t even started my mystery blanket — the project for April — from the Knitter’s Almanac. Enough bellyaching and time to get back at it. Hopefully on Monday I’ll have some finished stuff to show you. In the meantime, you can enjoy the fruits of another Mama’s labor. She’s been outside my study window and on Thursday that little guy hatched. I think his little brother might join us today.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day

Published March 17, 2009 Homemaking , In the Garden 2 Comments

In Like A Lion

Published March 2, 2009 Homemaking , In the Garden 5 Comments

I know in many parts of the US March is a big month for snowfall. Around here we get more in February and March usually brings the Spring rain. This morning though, we woke to this:

Looks like we’ll be enjoying a day of snowmen, hot cocoa, and time by the fire. I’m thinking of making shortbread if we have enough butter. In the meantime let’s take care of some business, shall we:

winners…. I know that’s what you want to hear about. They are comment numbers 9, 20, and 42: Melissa, Chilton, and Anina. Congrats and Chilton email me your address so I can get a box in the mail to you. I’ve got the other addresses already.
thank you to each of you who commented about my bloggy birthday. It turns out you like hearing me prattle on so I guess that’s what I’ll continue to do. Thanks for taking the time to let me know, it’s put a great big smile on my face.
it’s green week hosted by Emily and I’ll be finding spots of green — inside, given the current weather — to share over on flickr. Don’t worry I’ll share them all here at the end of the week.

Now it’s time to bundle up and build a snowman.

Yellow

Published February 20, 2009 Homemaking , In the Corners , Through The Lens 6 Comments

Did you know about yellow week?

Flight of the Tooth Fairy

Published November 6, 2008 Crafted by Friends , Homemaking , In the Corners , In the Mailbox 10 Comments

It’s actually been almost a month since Katie came to me and said Mama, something happened to my tooth. The dentist told us last Spring that her bottom two teeth were loose but we hadn’t noticed any looseness until just the day before it came out. She was trying to open a lid with her teeth — not something we encourage, for sure — and out it came. Luckily, I was prepared with this:

A fairy portal by the absolutely wonderful Kim — seriously I cannot tell you how great she is. We did not want our fairy portals — you know I had to get one for Tristan too for when the time comes — to be mounted next to the baseboard like Kim’s regular doors. Instead we wanted to mount them higher on the wall — away from little hands. Fairies fly, right? So that is why Kim made us a circular door. Katie was thrilled when she discovered it in the morning. We told her she must be pretty special to have the tooth fairy build a door into her room. Now she’s just trying to figure out how to get the next tooth out.

Wool as Home Dec

Published October 20, 2008 Fiber Crafts , Gifts , Homemaking , In the Corners , In the Mailbox , Knitting , Swaps 6 Comments
Tags: greyalpacamitts, lsssuhat, plainbrownsocks

Thanks for indulging me with Autumn Is… I have a few more posts to get to before we start heading into Winter. Now though, let’s talk yarn and sticks. The temps here took quite a dip at the end of last week and it is feeling very brisk around here. This morning we even had a real frost. Time to start thinking in wool. And what better way to feed the wool-obsessed brain than with a bowl of it on the coffee table.

Some people pay for those little orbs made of raffia and sticks to display in a bowl. Me, I just go diving in my stash. It must be working because I have been getting some knitting done. That little bit you can see there next to the bowl is an almost complete first sock for a friend. Not shown is a the first completed mitt of a pair for someone else. Don’t worry ladies, I’m rotating these two projects so I show no favoritism. Hopefully those two will have warm feet and hands, respectively, by election day.

This hat is also 1 of 2 as a thank you for another friend who generously sent me a big box of goodies. Denise and her crew are devoted fans of LSSU hockey so the hat is in that team’s colors. Seen here, modeled by Tristan, I want to see how it fits her boys to see if I need to make the next one bigger or smaller. The pattern is thorpe and the yarn is malabrigo. The next one might be yellow with blue on the edges, what do we think about that?

Autumn Is… Acorns

Published October 16, 2008 Cooking , Homemaking , In the Garden , In the Kitchen 9 Comments
Tags: autumnis

The kind the squirrels eat:

and the kind for us:

Polka Dots with FOE

Published September 16, 2008 Fiber Crafts , Homemaking , In the Garden , Sewing 9 Comments

You know, I’ve been meaning to try using fold-over elastic (FOE) for a while. Ottobre patterns often call for it and there’s no secret about Amy‘s and Melissa‘s love for it. I’m so lazy and I hate gathering — like at a neckline — so I often substitute a casing and pull some elastic through. I figure elastic in children’s clothing is a positive. The thing is though, pulling elastic through a casing is also on the list of things I get annoyed doing, it’s just generally less annoying than gathering.

This outfit is all about the elastic. The pants are elastic waist with a casing. The bottoms are trimmed with crochet lace — I bought a whole bunch of it on clearance. The top is the same top as this one but with FOE on the neckline and sleeves. It’s super-fancy expensive seersucker FOE — the only brown at my fabric store — and has less stretch than normal FOE. That would be the reason the neckline is big. Oh well, this fabric has been hanging around for over a year, I’m just glad it’s finally in a wearable form. This morning we woke up to cooler temps so with any luck we’ll have wearable weather soon too.