Rendering Lard, Fatty Pigness

I love pies, I love pie crusts. So does Mr.Sir, he practically begs me for pumpkin pie year round. I just strongly dislike rolling out pie crusts. I will just squish it into the pan before I clean off the counter to roll out one pie crust. So what I do is I will make 5 or 6 crusts and freeze them. After making a few crust with oil recipes and one with a lard recipe. I am a believer in Lard. Lard is a super fattening ingredient but if you are having pie, you are splurging on calories anyways so might as well make it good. Everything in moderation.

I went to Wal-Mart to buy lard for my pie crusts , found a box and brought it home. Mr. Sir read the box and said "Uh, Honey? Why did you buy hyrdogenated lard?" I had no idea, I just saw the word "Lard". I was using lard for the flakeyness and to avoid hydrogenated oils to begin with, yet here I was buying hydrogenated lard. So Mr. Sir and I agreed that we would try the real stuff.



When we went to pick up our beef from the butcher I asked to buy some lard. He gave me this big bag full of white and pink stuff. I've never seen unrendered lard before.



I got home and used this tutorial on how to render it by My Humble Kitchen. Mr. Sir helped me chop it up and we stuck it in the crockpot.

After a couple of hours, I strained out the cracklings and poured it into mason jars.



 4.6 pounds of unrendered lard got me a quart and half a pint of snow white lard. It is going to last me ages, but its the good stuff!

 Mnmmm Pie

Live and Love

Cloth Baby Wipes

Mr. Sir and I decided to cloth diaper the wee one when it comes along. (less than 6 weeks now!) and it makes sense to use cloth wipes along with the cloth diapers. We will be doing the laundry anyways, so why not add a little more to the load.

I had an old stained white sheet laying around that had really soft, comfortable flannel. I cut the pieces into 14 x 7 pieces and then folded them in half.

 Then I traced around the corners to make it easier to serge. That way they were all the same. After that, it was time to serge, serge, serge.

 I serged around the corners (ignore the stray thread that I forgot to nab before I took the picture). The edges I didn't tidy as much as I could have, I figured they will be wiping poo, they don't need to be pretty.

I got about 44-7x7 cloth wipes out of the sheet and 5-3x7 wipes out of the extra fabric. I know that we will need way more than that, but it will make a good supplement to the disposable wipes that we will use also.

I plan on mixing a water/coconut oil/ tea tree oil solution and keeping the wipes in a wipes warmer to make it easy to use.

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Knit as a Cube

I have been working on a project for a while now. Since I found out I was pregnant to be precise. It started as something else but like all good projects, it evolved.

At the time I needed some simple knitting to work on, something that I could do a row or two and just stuff in my bag. So I started knitting 10x10 blocks. Just random patterns, or no pattern at all. I just needed something to keep my hands busy. As I worked, I decided to turn it into a toy for my baby.

It turned into this; a squishy, pillow, cube toy. Yes, it is a little misshapen, but that is okay, makes it fun to throw at misbehaving husbands.
Live and Love!

Instructions:
Knit 6 -10x10 blocks, and then sew together in a cube.
Before sewing the last side together, keep 2 inches open to stuff it with and then close.
Easy peasy.

Upcycled Shirt-Purse Tutorial.

So, I had this striped long sleeve shirt that was one of my absolute favorite shirts but after a while it got these really gross looking pit stains that I couldn't remove. (tmi, I know but its the reason I chose this shirt and is why I am calling it 'upcycled') So I decided that it would make an adorable purse. With these directions you can make your own shirt-purse.

 1.Choose a shirt and cut off the sleeves at the shoulder seams.


2. Cut off however tall you want your purse to be, plus seam allowances.

3. If you want a neckline pocket, square off the neckline.

4. I used a knit interfacing on the back of my shirt fabric to give my purse more body. I didn't bother putting it in the outside pocket.

5. I turned my neckline inside out (right sides together) and sewed the seams so that I would have nice clean edges. Once your edges are sewed together for the neckline pocket flip it right sides out and on one half of your purse front, use a ruler to center it or just place it wherever. You can now sew it onto the purse, I used a tight zig zag stitch as kind of decoration, it scalloped the neckline piece a little bit because of the knit, but not too bad. I then sewed the back half of my neckline down. I just followed the seam right under the black collar fabric.

6. I chose a blue cotton lining for the inside. I laid the striped shirt fabric on top of my lining fabric to get the size right and cut out my lining. My bag follows the shape of my shirt so I couldn't just cut out a square. I then folded my lining in half and sewed across the bottom and the open side to close 2 of the 3 open sides leaving the top open.

7. With the lining folded in half, I found the center of the top of the purse and installed my magnetic clasp with a little piece of cardboard for stability. I then sewed the shirt fabric the same as the lining leaving the top edge open.

8.With both my shirt and lining fabric inside out, I just lined up the folded lining piece on top of the knit piece with the fold on top of the fold. I then sewed again along my 'open' edges that I had just sewed shut, I sewed right on top of my previous sewing through all 4 layers of fabric (2 layers of shirt and 2 of lining). This is so the lining will stay down inside the purse. Then when I was finished I reached down into my shirt and pulled the bottom corner out so the shirt is right side out. It should pull the lining with it and the lining should have the right side inside the purse.

9. Then I double folded the top edge down and sewed along the top edge of the purse.

10. After I turned the purse inside out and sewed a triangle on the bottom corners to create a box look on the outside. 

11. Next I took my sleeves and cut the shoulder part off of each of them so it was one long tube and sewed both sleeves together. I pinned the sleeves to the outside of the purse. I wanted people to be able to tell that those were the sleeves.



12. I then embroidered my initials to a piece of lining fabric and used a decorative stitch on my machine to sew it to the outside of where the clasp is on the purse.

Back

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A Castle For Two- Card Table Playhouse Tutorial

This year for Christmas I made my twin nephews a card table playhouse. So here is my little tutorial on how make a Card Table Playhouse.

Step 1: Decide your theme and colors. I went with a medieval theme. I designed it out on a piece of paper and estimated how much of each color I would need so I wouldn't buy too much felt. Total I spent about $14 on felt on sale at JoAnn's plus a little bit that I had set aside from something else.
Step 2: Draw it out on paper. Know what you want to do before you start cutting. This is what probably helped me out the most through the process, being able to go back and see what I had started with.
Step 3: Next you do the measurements. KNOW THE SIZE OF YOUR TABLE. Seriously, can't stress it enough. Now if you know your measurements for example say your table is 34Lx34Wx28H, you want the 4 sides to be 35x29. The top should be 35 by 35. Use 1/2 in seam allowances, if you don't trust yourself add an inch to each side and make them 1 in. SA.
Step 4: Cut out the four sides and the top of the table using your measurements.
Step 5: Decide on your decals. Use the drawing you did in step 2 to help you draw them out. You can make them on paper and then trace it onto the felt, I drew mine by hand onto the felt. While drawing on the felt I did everything mirrored and used a Crayola marker on the wrong side of my decal to draw it all out before I cut. That way if I messed up drawing it is okay because I am sewing that side down. Cut your decals out of felt.

Step 6: Lay your decals onto each side of the playhouse where you want it sewed, then pin them down and sew away. I just sewed all the decals on with 1/8" inches from the edge of my decal, you can use a 1/4" if you don't like getting that close to the edge.
Step 7: Decide where you want your door to be. I sewed my door down before I cut the hole out, mostly because I am always worried I am gonna cut something wrong. Then cut out the windows. Some people reinforce the window with felt which is what I should have done. Instead I serged around the edge of the window, but it didn't hold like I thought it would. (Seriously, reinforcing the windows is smart, my nephews like to use the window's as secret doors.)
Step 8: Sew your sides together with that 1/2 in SA I was talking about. Then pin the roof onto the walls and sew one side at a time, right sides together, corners will get tricky but just keep sewing to the edge before you start the next side.

Each boy gets a princess to rescue after they slay the dragon.

Step 9: All Done!
Step 10: Live and Love

Two swords for two boys.

On the inside of my castle behind the swords in the stone, I added a fireplace to keep the boy's warm during those cold winter sieges. If adding something to the inside, be sure that you are putting something on the outside bigger than the inside decal or you will be able to see it on the outside.