Undoing and Recycling

I'm not sure what I want to do with this cutter quilt piece, but I did want to see all the patchwork, so I removed the binding pieces before hand washing it.

There was more patchwork hiding under that big skewed piece of binding. We'll see what it looks like once it's clean.

For my next practice piece I decided to us two vintage handkerchiefs as my foundation fabric. I don't have a problem with using old hankies (I wash everything before I stitch on it), but if the fact they might have been used bother you just look and see if the piece has tags on it. That will tell you they probably languished unused in someone's drawer for twenty or thirty years.

Here's my next practice piece, already started. Heavily printed hankies make great backing fabric; very old/thin cotton is also much like silk for practice purposes.

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Make It Yourself

As we head into December, here are ten ideas for easy handmade gifts: Cookie Exchange: If you live close to your friends invite them over for a cookie exchange. Basically everyone bakes a set amount of their favorite cookies, and these are exchanged at the gathering by lottery, sharing a little from each batch with everyone, or however you want to do it. You can also exchange recipes, too. My neighbor did this once and it was wonderful. Favorite Recipe Cookbook : For my favorite person I found a copy of my favorite cookbook from a vintage bookseller (yes, I am that old) and went through it making notes on all the recipes I used, how I tweaked them, etc. Ornament: There are probably a million free tutorials on how to make your own holiday ornaments, so do some research online. I like to make hanging pomanders , which smell heavenly and are biodegradable after the holidays. Mug Rugs: If you sew, making up a set of mug rugs is simple and easy; I add these every year to my ...

Better than Fried

I cut some chives from the kitchen garden to make garlic-chive baked fries for dinner. This is a great side dish for veggie burgers. Click here for the recipe from Taste of Home.com.

In the Kitchen Garden

Our strawberries are taking over the kitchen garden, but I don't mind. This week I want to make some strawberry banana nice cream (a vegan version of ice cream) and maybe a chocolate cake with berries and cream for the topping. There's thyme in the garden now, too, which I'll dry and jar for cooking along with the chives and the oregano. Next we'll plant cucumbers, as I use a ton of those in our salads and for snacks.

Rayen

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