Merry Christmas

Just wanted to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas, may your day be filled with love and laughter, and a very Happy New Year.

From our cabin to yours.

 Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

Hugs, Sandy & Robert

Major Snow Storm

We had our first major snow storm this week and it dumped somewhere between  12 and 14 inches of the fluffy white crap.

8:30 am Monday 12/14/2015

4:30 pm Monday 12/14/2015

8:30 am Tuesday 12/15/2015

8:30 am Wednesday 12/16/2015

The storm has passed and beautiful clear blue skies appear.

Montana isn't called Big Sky Country for nothin'.

Oh, how I just love all this beautiful fluffy white snow.......NOT!!

This is the most we have had in one storm since we moved here in the 90's.

That's it for today, so until next post .....

Take Care & Happy Winter
Hugs, Sandy 

Two Gifts To You For My Birthday

Today is my birthday so in honor of another year older, here are two winter gifts to stitch.

"Frosty Friends"

"Frosty Friends Holiday Greetins"

Hope you enjoy them. 

Take Care & Happy Stitchin'

Hugs, Sandy

Happy Halloween

Wanted to make sure I wished everyone a Happy Halloween before the clock strikes midnight here in Montana.

And just in time for Halloween Lil' Batty arrived.

I paired him up with a few wee pumpkins to fly around.

Oh the joys of using up fabric scraps for tiny pumpkins. 

Batty is made from a fairly stiff piece of felt with yellow bead eyes and variegated black thread buttonhole stitched around the edges with a bit of stuffing for some puff. 

I have two other sizes to stitch up for a whole Batty family.

Take Care & Happy Halloween

Hugs, Sandy

A Prim Christmas Ornament

I came up with a small primitive style ornament to share with y'all.

"Prim Christmas Wishes"

This design should print out at 7 x 5 inches using landscape mode. I left space above the date so you can add your initials if you want. This one should be a quick stitch and would make a cute ornament, knob hanger, pin pillow or ..............

Here is a smaller version for those of you who have had trouble printing the other chart.
 

Here is the color way I chose.

I have a couple of other designs that I'm considering sharing but haven't finished them quite yet, so we'll see what happens. 

Well, that's it for today, need to get back out to the garden and finish pickin' the tomatoes so they can ripen inside the house and harvest and bring in the rest of the herbs. 

So until next post .........

Take Care & Happy Stitchin'

 Hugs, Sandy

A Bit Of Crafting

Haven't been doing any Cross Stitch or Hardanger in the last few weeks, but I have been picking up a needle and doing a little bit of hand sewing and machine sewing. 

Decided to make a few more Autumn/Fall bits.

 A couple of tall skinny pumpkins, lots of hand sewing and one machine sewn seam.

My Monster had a bandanna that he ripped so I decided to make a Halloween Pumpkin out of it, keeping with the black and white theme of the bandanna.

 'Boo Baby'

I figured with all of the pumpkins I've made I needed to try making a Ghost to go with them. Here he is all Primed out in canvas fabric with a coffee stain and dye.

 Boo Baby flying through the pumpkin patch. He's only eight inches long and seven inches tall. I think I'll need to make a few more in a couple of different sizes maybe even a few different shapes. 

I need to figure out a bat and a crow pattern to go with the pumpkins too.

We don't get any Trick or Treater's here at the Cabin very small town and an area with little to no street lights equals people taking their kids to the main street areas of town or the bigger towns near by not out into the rural areas, so I hardly ever decorate with Halloween in mind.

That's it for today everyone, thank you for stopping by the Cabin and having a look around.

Until next visit.......

Take Care & Happy Craftin'

Hugs, Sandy

Home Canned Pickled Beets

We had an early morning frost on Thursday that killed off what was left of the cucumbers and peppers and made all of the tomatoes very sad looking. So, because of this we harvested all of our beets and the rest of the peppers and cucumbers and over 30 pounds of tomatoes on Friday. 

I set up our trusty Squeezo'......

and proceeded to throw in the little yellow pear tomatoes in whole with a small screen size to run them through and jar up the pulp for later, I ended up with 2 quarts.
We then switched screens and went on to seed and core the Roma's before running them through and freezing the pulp (2 gallon bags worth) until we harvest the rest for a big day of canning spaghetti sauce.
I'll do more tomatoes today or tomorrow and check the garden for any more ripe ones. Then I'll probably have to harvest the green ones and let them ripen inside for even more sauce, unless I can find some good canning recipes for green tomatoes.  
Anyone have some suggestions?  

We ended up canning 15 pints of beautiful pickled beets on Sunday.

Well, that's it from the Cabin for today, think I might do a bit of craftin'.

So until next time ........

Take Care and Happy Harvestin'

Hug's Sandy

Making A New Favorite Snack

Two weeks back I found out that I LOVE Hummus. 

We were in Costco and they had the Sabra Organic Hummus with Red Peppers at a taste booth or traffic congester as I like to call them, so I thought what the heck might as well try something new. I LOVED it!!!!, so I bought the tub of hummus and had it gone in the first week : (

Didn't want to continue to pay almost $10 for a snack that would only last a week, so I went on the internet and found recipes for the yummy treat then proceeded to make my own using the basics of different recipes as my template to come up with my own from what I had on hand.

Homemade Garlic Hummus

   

2 - 15.5 ounce cans Garbanzo Beans - drained and skins left on

2 T. Lemon Juice - I used bottled

1 to 2 T. Garlic - I used pre-minced

4 T. Extra Virgin Olive Oil

1 t. Kosher Salt

1 t. ground Cumin

1/2 to 1 t. Paprika

1/2 t. Onion Powder

1/4 c. Red Bell Pepper - chopped

2 to 3 T. Water

I put the Garbanzo Beans (Chickpeas) into the food processor and pulsed them around until they were coarse ground then I added everything except the peppers and water and processed until smooth, stopping occasionally to scrape the sides of the bowl. 

Then add the water a little at a time until you get the thickness that you want, then add the peppers and process to mix them in, next time I will stir them in by hand so I end up with little pepper chunks instead of the barely there that I got from processing. 

I added a little Paprika and a swirl of olive oil on top for looks.

Most of the recipes called for Tahini, but I didn't have any or enough Sesame Seed to make my own, but it was an optional ingredient so I didn't worry about it.

It's really good with Wheat Thins or baby Carrots, I didn't like it with Triscuits.

If you like Hummus, give making your own a try, it's really yummy and quick.

Take Care Everyone

Hugs, Sandy

A Little Touch of Autumn

Decided to make a fall wreath for the front porch this morning, so I took a trip through my fall crafting supplies. 

I came up with a handmade vine wreath, some silk fall leaf sprigs, a couple of handmade flowers, a couple of handmade pumpkins, a fall cross stitch piece and a couple of scarecrows that I picked up at Walmart a couple of years ago and this is what came from my crafty mind.

"Autumn Wreath"

Can't see the vine wreath, but I might change that later. I didn't use any glue, just slipped the scarecrows and the leaves into the vine wreath then tied the flowers, pumpkins and stitched pillow on with crochet cotton by taking a stitch through the back or bottom. Really easy to make changes that way in case I change my mind about it next fall.

Happy Fall Everyone

Hugs, Sandy 

Goodness From The Garden

Since it was cold and rainy all weekend long the hubs and I decided to do some more canning.

After he went out to garden twice and came back with at least 30 pounds of tomatoes and over a dozen cucumbers we decided on more spaghetti sauce and pickles.

On Saturday we made...... 

6 quarts of Spaghetti Sauce.

 

Unlike last time we didn't blanch and peel the tomatoes, I just seeded them and he ran them through the Squeeze-O food mill. Worked much better and was quicker. I can truly call this organic since it was made from home grown tomatoes, peppers, onions, and herbs. 

 

On Sunday we made......

7 quarts of Bread & Butter Pickles

I don't think we will be needing any pickles for a while as this brings our total to a whopping 58 quarts and 3 pints. 

36 quarts of Bread & Butter

15 quarts of Dill spears

7 quarts of Sweet spears

3 pints of sweet pickle relish

There are still lots of tomatoes that will need harvesting and a few more cucumbers, then we need to harvest the beets and make pickled beets or beet relish. There are more peppers out there as well that I'll chop up and add to the freezer to use later. So much home grown goodness, gotta love it.

Well that's all for today, so until next time.......

Take Care & Happy Fall Everyone

Hugs, Sandy

One Last Halloween Gift

Wow, I think this is the most gift charts and posts that I've done in a single month. 

This will be my final Halloween chart then it will be on to Christmas and winter if my designing mojo holds up.

"Hardanger Spider's Web"

6" x 6" (78 x78) on 28 count evenweave

Again I didn't write any directions for this one, I suck at Hardanger directions, but you can go to Nordic Needles Stitch Dictionary and find quite a few examples and directions for the stitches. I added Doves Eyes and Reverse Branch just as an example, I really want to see where your vision takes the chart.

I charted it for white or DMC 762 for the web, straight stitch for the outside webbing being couched down with petite crystal or clear seed beads as dew drops, and black for the spiders. 

I know there are other websites that you can get directions from but I can't seem to find them among my bookmarks, so if you have other sources I'd love to hear about them so I can add them to the post.

More Stitch Tutorials

http://www.needlework-tips-and-techniques.com/learn-hardanger.html
http://www.lynxlace.com/Hardangertutorial.html
http://maryjoanstitching.blogspot.ca/2011/01/hardanger.html

Thank you for the links Marl.

That's it for September everyone, I hope you enjoy the chart and as always, I would love to see your finished pieces. So until next time, thank you so much for stopping by the cabin and leaving your thoughts behind.

Take Care Everyone & Happy Stitchin'

Hugs, Sandy 

Making Homemade Brown Sugar

I wanted to make my Brown Sugar Honey Mustard marinade/glaze for salmon a few day back but when I went to the pantry I was out of brown sugar. 

I didn't want to have to wait for the hubs to pick some up on his way home from work and couldn't drive to the store 10 miles away, still waiting on a part for the Jeep.

So what was I to do? I made my own and it tastes just as good if not better than store bought and is much cheaper.

 Homemade Brown Sugar

 

Looks yummy doesn't it, and it's sooooo easy. 

 All you need is regular granulated sugar and molasses. 

I put 2 cups of sugar into my Kitchen-Ade with the wire whip attachment turned it on to about a 2 - 4 setting and started to drizzle in the molasses a teaspoon at a time until I got the color and flavor I wanted. It only took about 10 minutes total. The dark bits are molasses and can be mashed in with a spoon and mixed more so they are absorbed better, but I personally like the rustic look of it.

You can use a hand mixer or a food processor if that's what you have, the results will be the same, yummy brown sugar for less than store bought. And just like store bought you need to keep this in an airtight container to keep it soft.

Brown Sugar Honey Mustard Marinade

1 T. packed Brown Sugar

1 T. Butter - melted

1 T. Olive oil (vegetable oil works to)

1 T. Honey

1 T. Soy Sauce

1 T. Dijon Mustard

1 clove garlic - minced

2 t. toasted Sesame Seeds

 

In a small bowl mix everything together well except the Sesame Seeds.

Pour marinade over the salmon cover and refrigerate for at least 15 minutes but no longer than 1 hour.  

Remove from the fridge, uncover and broil with the salmon 4 to 6 inches away from the heat for 15 to 20 minutes brushing with excess marinade a couple of times. Remove from broiler sprinkle with the toasted Sesame Seeds and serve. Makes enough for 1 pound of salmon.  

Hope you try these out sometime there just so yummy.

Thanks for stopping by the cabin.

Take Care Everyone & Happy Fall

Hugs, Sandy

A Fall Hardanger Gift

I designed a trio of Hardanger pumpkins for you to stitch up. 

I purposely only charted out the Kloster Blocks, Back stitching and Cross Stitch, I wanted anyone who decides to stitch this piece to put their own stamp on it. Algerian Eyelets, Woven Bars, Wrapped Bars, Doves Eyes, Picots, Woven Divided Branch, the choices are yours and many. So pick out your favorite pumpkin pearl cottons and floss and stitch away.

This one is for fall. 

And for those of you with a tiny bit of spooky in you .......

This one has two cute little spiders for Halloween.

I would really love to see how you end up stitchin' one of these smalls. Each one is only around 6" x 3" when finished. If you need help with the stitches the Nordic Needle Stitch Dictionary has lots of stitch explanations and diagrams. 

Other Links for Hardanger
http://www.needlework-tips-and-techniques.com/learn-hardanger.html
http://www.lynxlace.com/Hardangertutorial.html
http://maryjoanstitching.blogspot.ca/2011/01/hardanger.html

Thanks for the links Marl.

Thanks for stopping by I hope you enjoy the chart.
So until next time .........

Take Care & Happy Stitchin'

 Hugs, Sandy

A Halloween Gift From Me to You

Decided to design a couple of Halloween gifties for all my followers.

Hope you like them and as always I would love to see a pic if you happen to stitch one of them up.

Introducing "Spooky Halloween" and "Scary Halloween"

I think they would make cute pincushions, pillow's, wall hanging's or even stitched on a Trick or Treat bag.

Here's the chart, you might have to fiddle with the size a bit. 

I have it set to print at 8.5 x 10.

And the color list. Everything is stitched using two (2) strands of floss except the black back stitching which is one (1) strand. Each one is about 6 5/8" x 3 1/2" on 14/28 count .

That's it for today, so until next time ..........

Take Care & Happy Stitchin'

 Hugs, Sandy

More Canning from our Garden

I went out into the weed patch that is my garden on Saturday and harvested a large basket of cucumbers, don't know what I'm going to do with them yet, and a 5 gallon bucket of assorted tomatoes. There were beefsteak tomatoes, Roma tomatoes and a medium small red that I can't remember the name of. Plus a small basket of little Yellow Pear tomatoes for salads and snacking.

After all of our hard work of harvesting, peeling, coring and seeding, then cooking for 20 minutes and then putting them through the trusty 'Squeezo' food mill not to mention chopping peppers and onion and sauteing those and harvesting herbs then back into the pot to cook for another 4 to 6 hours to thicken it up, we got a whopping.............

Four Quarts of very yummy Spaghetti Sauce.

Recipe from the Kerr Canning Book.

My hubs said if want to do that again he would rather buy tomato puree instead of going through all the peeling, coring and seeding. 

Of course he did most of the peeling and I did most of the coring and seeding, on the bright side all of our tomatoes are heirloom varieties so I now have three jars of tomato seeds going through the fermenting process to save the seeds. This is my first time trying this, so I hope it works. I'm following directions from gnowfglins.com.

Well that's it for today, so until next time..........

Take Care Everyone

Hugs, Sandy

I'm Still Around

Just want to let everyone know that I'm still around, been busy with the garden and other summer type activities like camping and day trips and now getting our jeep back in drive able condition. 

I've canned another 28 quarts of pickles and four pints of pickle relish, so now we have bread and butter, dill and sweet pickles in the basement pantry. I think I'll have enough cucumbers for another batch then I think the patch will be done for the season. I've also used a lot of cucumbers for salads and snacking. Now I just have to come up with some great salsa and sauce recipes for canning our tomatoes and can't forget the beets that I'll need to can in the next couple of weeks.

This was our camp site for our first camping trip at Basin Creek in Montana. It was beautiful right along the creek (that I couldn't keep Jack out of), but had lots of flies buzzing around so no eating outside and only being around 8000 feet it was still in the 80's during the day.

The hub's and Jack doing a little gold panning in Basin Creek. The creek had a lot of mica in it but no gold that he could find.

This was my view from inside the trailer on our second camping trip up in the Big Horn Mountains of Wyoming at the Tie Flume Camp Ground. No bugs and at 10,000 feet the temps were in the upper 60's every day, so nice. We left a day early because it snowed a bit that night and Jack was having tummy trouble from the canned dog food and had me up every two hours.

 Cody chillin' in the shade at Tie Flume camp ground.

On the way home from this trip we lost our rear drive line just outside of Graybull, Wyoming, so after pulling it off we had to limp home at 50 to 55 mph down the highway for about 80 to 90 miles.

Here's Jack just chillin' in his baby pool. He gives new meaning to the term 'Dog Days of Summer'. He would literately run down the porch steps across the yard and hop into the pool dipping himself up and down like a tea bag a few times and then lay down.

This is all the stitching that I've done lately. I started in August at the camp ground then stitched a bit more at home. So of course I've missed several of the TUSAL and 2015 Smalls SAL updates since I haven't had anything to show.

Well, that's it for now, hopefully I'll have more to report later on. 

So until next time......

Take Care Everyone

 Hugs, Sandy

 

Got Myself Into A Pickle

Wholly Cheese and Weasels !!!! I got into such a "Pickle" this weekend, and by "Pickle" I mean 22 quarts of home canned Bread and Butter Pickles to grace our pantry shelves and two quarts plus giant sized mayo jugs of refrigerator pickles.

First 12 Quarts canned on August 8th, then.....

10 Quarts canned on August 9th and

two quarts refrigerator pickles. 

Didn't take pics of the jugs since they are the white Kraft mayo jugs that I get at Costco so you can't see the pickles. All of this came from at least eight dozen cucumbers from our garden and there are still lots more getting ready to be harvested. I'm not complaining though, the less I need from the store the better and these are 100% pesticide free.

Wish our tomatoes would start to ripen up, we harvested all of the radishes, but sadly most of them had white larva eating away at them only got about a dozen good ones. Been harvesting Italian sweet peppers and cutting and freezing them for later use. Will harvest the rest of the Basil, Dill, Oregano, Rosemary and Mint this weekend if it doesn't rain again.

I can't believe I didn't update at all in July. 

Not that I really had anything to show for the month, I did stitch a bit, but that is locked away in our pop-up camp trailer until the hubs decides to open it up again. And I had two sewing finishes also locked inside the pop-up. Went on a three day camping trip and two day trips that I need to sort out the pictures for where does the time go.

Well that's it for today. Until next time ......

Take Care Everyone &

Happy Canning and Stitchin'

Hugs, Sandy

Primitive Fabric Pumpkin Tutorial

Primitive Fabric Pumpkins

What You Need:

Pumpkin
1/4 to 1/2 yard Fabric of choice (enough to fit circle template)
Fiber-Fill to stuff pumpkin
Crochet Cotton or strong thread to gather top of pumpkin

Weight Bag
1/4 yard fabric for weight bag and a 6"-8" circle template or a Ziploc baggie
dry rice, dry beans or sand to fill weight bag
(weight bag is optional)

Leaves
Felt for leaves
Embroidery Floss to stitch leaves
Batting or stuffing for leaves (optional)
Leaf Template

Stem and Vines
Piece of branch trimmed from your tree
Jute Twine (two ply for stem, three ply for vines)
Craft/White Glue

Extras
Marker, Glue Gun, Sewing Machine, Fabric Flowers

What To Do:

1. Prepare your fabric. If your going to be tea or coffee staining or hand-dyeing your fabric it needs to be washed first. If not, there is no need to wash as the pumpkins are not washable, toys or child safe (to many little bits and jute).
You will need to iron the fabric to remove wrinkles or fold lines.

2. If using one, now is the time to make your weighted bag. Cut out two 6" or 8" circles of scrap fabric, nothing fancy it won't be seen. Using a sewing machine, stitch using a 1/4" to 1/2" seam leaving a 2" opening. Add the rice, beans, sand, etc. then finish stitching the opening closed.

3. Mark and cut out your circle for the pumpkin. Remember the pumpkin will be around half the size of your original circle. A 16" circle will make about an 8" pumpkin.

4. Using a doubled length of crochet cotton knotted on the end, baste 1/4" to 1/2" from the edge, all the way around. Start to lightly gather the opening.

5. If using one add the weighted bag with a layer of stuffing under neath. start to add stuffing to the pumpkin while gathering the top.

6. When you have the pumpkin stuffed gather the top as closed as possible without breaking the thread (you may need an extra pair of hands for this). At this point you can add extra stuffing to even out the sides to get the look you want. I use either my finger a wooden chopstick or a crochet hook to get the extra stuffing where I need it.

7. Using a Pearl Cotton or other heavy thread and a long needle (mine's 3-1/2") make the wedge shapes as shown by running your needle either from the top or bottom middle through the pumpkin and back out, pulling snugly to make the indentations. I start at the bottom so I can tie off the thread at the top where it will be covered later. There should be 8 wedge shapes when your done. Tie off the thread. You can add a button or felt circle to hide where the threads gather at the bottom.

8. Gather up your supplies to embellish your pumpkin. Stem, Jute, Felt Leaves and hand made Fabric Flowers. I use two ply jute to wrap the stems (optional) and three ply for the vines. I cut leaf shapes out of felt (two for each leaf) then buttonhole stitch around the edge and lightly stuff, then hand stitch the veins for the leaves.

9. Using a glue gun add a generous amount of hot glue to the center of the opening and add the stem, holding until set. Using the thee ply jute, cut a couple of lengths for the vines, knot one end and unravel the plies then glue in place.
To make a Jute covered stem: Cut a piece of branch to slightly fit the opening. Add a layer of white/tacky glue to the top of your stem. Using a long piece of jute, make a flat tight coil in hand and carefully attach to the top of the stem, hold for a minute or two for it to set. Cover half of stem with glue and start to wind the jute around the stem adding more glue and wrapping until you get to the bottom. Leave about an inch of jute and secure with glue to the bottom of the stem.

10. Glue the leaves in place.
To make the felt leaves: Cut two felt leaf shapes. Put them together, one on top of the other and stitch around the outside edges. I used a buttonhole stitch, but you can use a whip stitch, satin stitch or even a back stitch starting 1/8" to 1/4" from the edge. Leave a 2" opening and add a small amount of stuffing for more dimension or add a layer of batting between the felt layers before you start to stitch, this is optional. Finish off the edge. Next I stitched veins in the leaves using a back stitch. Tie the thread off on the back of the leaves and your ready to glue them on. There are tons of leaf templates on the internet, just search "pumpkin leaf template" or do like I did and just look at leaf pictures and free hand your own. I made several different ones and increased and decreased the size.

11. Using hot glue, attach the flowers. Your pumpkin is now ready for it's new home.

Hope you enjoy the tutorial and can make some really cute Primitive Pumpkins of your own.

Take Care & Happy Stitchin'

Hugs, Sandy