KSCC Little Butter Keeper

I don't know why I do it. After cooking bacon I just have that compulsion to pour all that deliciously disgusting fat into a little tin or jar and store it away in my fridge. Usually until it gets full then I clean it out and start it all over again. I never actually use the fat! Gross!!

It does make good bird-feeder suet with some seeds in it over the winter. I have also heard it makes amazing pork chops, but me, & my heart, are far too worried to try. So I keep squirreling the stuff away.

The point of my story here, is that I had a mason jar of the stuff sitting on my stove, when I noticed it had cracked evenly all around the middle. Divided completely in half! So my little squirrel instincts kicked in again, and I thought to myself, I'm not throwing this out! What can I do with it?

I removed the offending bacon fat, and washed the jar. Then sanded down the sides.
And now... I have a perfectly lovely keeper of a fat I really love!

You can slice a mason jar using wine-bottle cutting techniques (I believe this just involves a strong wire and some time) if you want to make one. I think it's quite cute!

Egg Shell Pots

Little project for a Thursday, quick and easy and cheap with the dozen eggs we get every day!

A number of the eggs I collect every day are unsellable, either their really dirty or cracked. These go straight to either the dogs or the piggies, which they're more the happy to gobble down!

So to start with I blew out the eggs, this does take a bit of practice. It's a fun project for older children, but you have to blow fairly hard and treat the egg shell gently so doesn't work well with young kids.

You can see the little tool I used in the upper corner on the egg carton, it's a skewer for trussing a turkey. Nice and sharp easy to hold. So you pop a hole in either side of the egg using a quick darting motion, and breaking up the yolk while you do this, then just blow the contents into a bowl.

Then I took off the tops of the shells, quite easy to do just being careful and taking a bit at a time. 

Then it was time to call in the boys! Playing in dirt is always so much fun!

Seeds were a bit of a challenge, I didn't want to put anything in that was going to grow too large too quickly, and that meant these were pretty small seeds. Fine for my 4 year old with a lot of help, 2 year old wasn't able to handle this job, but was happy just to play in the dirt!

Sitting in the sun with a bowl of beets I'm hoping to pre-germinate and get in the ground, as well as some cherry tomatoes!

The egg-shells can be planted straight out into the garden, I would break up the bottom of the shell a little right before sticking them in the ground. But the shell will help to fertilize and provide extra calcium for the seedlings. If I was still getting 80g jumbo eggs, this would probably be a great way to start tomatoes! 

Is it wrong to chose a certain product over another because of the fantastic container they come in? Love these things!!

Home-made Barometer

I've been watching those Edwardian Farm videos, and one showed how to make a turn of the century (Uh, the last one...) really cheap barometer.

It basically involves exactly what you see. Some water and food colouring in a jar, with a long-neck bottle stuck in it. Supposedly as the pressure rises so will the liquid in the long-neck bottle. This probably wasn't the best day to try this out since we're having a snow storm, but hopefully when the barometer rises we'll see if this works!

Project number 2 is a lesson in not leaving you saddle out in the barn...

I have no idea if it's food for the Suede, but Resolve carpet cleaner can now add turkey crap to the list of "other" things it gets out.

This is a wintec western saddle, which is great because synthetic tack is a little more forgiving in the un-regulated temperature of our barn and really requires no maintenance. I'd love to have nice leather stuff, but it is way more expensive too.

KSCC (sorta) Light table

This one has absolutely nothing to do with the farm, and everything to do with my other, other day job.
I like to keep busy!

But the purpose of the light table is to help with basically tracing things. So if I need to make another copy of some doodles I've been doing, but I want to keep the original, I throw it on the table and get my work done.

It's very DIY but hubs built it for me so it's awesome! I even requested a 15% angle and he measured it out for me. What a tool-geek!!

Bad rough copy,
but this is on the light table with another
piece of paper over it so I can fix it up

FAIL KSCC: Doggy Bed

Thomas laying on the underside

The dogs love this mat, and we love having a spot for them to lay down in the living room. However, it's super slippery on the bottom and I thought I'd use some drawer cloth to keep it in place...

Well it was a good idea.

It really only works if you step right on one of the non-slip clothes.




Maybe for next time I'll try adding some bigger squares of cloth. One of them is only about 44c at Loblaws where I got it. But I think I'm just doomed to go skittering across my living-room on this mat forever.

KSCC: Notepads

This is one of the simplest things you can do to help reduce waste. I try to double-side print everything I can to save paper but sometimes you get an odd or single page. I save up all our one-sided computer print outs and when I get a few, it's a simple as cutting the pages into quarters & stapling them together. And I've got dozens of these around the house so I've always got something to write on. (I would suggest never using anything with sensitive or private information on it, in case you loose the page).

When I was in high school our environmental club did this one year (having students place one-sided paper waste in bins in each computer room) and then sent them out to a company that made actual note-pads with glue. They were great & I had tons of them for years & years, but staples and cheaper and easier at home.  

Equine study I had finished reading

KSCC: Holiday Presents

Well actually, I'm working on Christmas presents... so I can't talk about that.

Instead, I'm going to talk about a great source of inspiration: Etsy.com.

Now if you haven't checked this out yet, you're missing out on a sort of creative artistic ebay like site. Maybe if Ravelry and Ebay had a baby...

Anyway, gobs & gobs of amazing creative hand-made, vintage, beautiful creations. I can spend hours on there looking at all the amazing work (but of course then I wouldn't get any work done!). If you're not a very artsy/crafty person there is lots of stuff to buy, you can support small artists & hobbiest while giving your friends or family something truly unique. If you are artsy Etsy can also be a great source of inspiration!

Meredith Dada

Meridith Dada on etsy makes these exquisite little beaded birds. If you wanted to make one, gluing the beads on to a form would be time-consuming, but it looks like a lot of fun.

I used to make all sorts of bead animals just with beads & string. It's like knitting fair isle.

RococcoCo

I love these up-cycled prints on old pages, this is one of my favourites. I think they'd look really nice framed in series and grouped together. Be a little cautious when purchasing, RococcoCos are original artwork, but I've seen others that are free photoshop brushes printed out, not really worth the money.

Art Whims

These simple but elegant little snowmen, are so creative! Cutting out and painting some very basic wooden ones can make great placeholders or even gift tags that can be used year after year.





There are tons of great stockings (you can get kits from places like knitpicks) you can have customized for the kids. I also love the painted ball ornaments, with glitter or metallic coloured paint you can turn a really simple and cheap ornament into something beautiful.

Okay I've got some work to do!

KSCC Draft Dogers

It's getting colder out! We've had the wood stove going for at least half of October, mostly because it's so much easier to keep it going then to re-start it. So I'll split up one log into lots of pieces and keep is going with just a little wood over the day. Then stuff it full come sun-down.

Was thinking of making something for the doors when I found this: http://www.ehow.com/how_17253_make-draft-dodger.html

LOVE IT! And so easy from an old tie, our doors are not very high so I won't need any thing larger either. You can knit them or sew them larger as well. We'll be using ones by the garage & outside doors we don't use, as well as down to the basement.

Hot Water Bottle Cozie

So my husband accused me of being an old lady the other day (I'm 26 for the record) because I bought a hot water bottle. My response was "No I'm not! It warms up the bed really nicely when it's cold, I just need to knit it a cover and we're set!". At that point I conceded that I am in fact, an old lady. 

Either way I just started this one Coco Knits because it looks really simple and quick. It's probably going to take me awhile to find the spare time, but I tend to get things we need done much faster then fun projects.

And for the record, I love my hot water bottle. It's very cozy right down at your cold feet, and even hubs is coming around to it. <$6 at Wmart, and much cheaper then an electric blanket or cranking up the heat.

KSCC: Victory Barnyard

Purple Kitty - Victory Barnyard

Okay, seriously, how cute are these patterns!?
I know I've mentioned Purple Kitty before, these are all free vintage patterns. 

Vintage patterns can be a little bit tricky for a new knitter because you need to adjust for gauge and differences in wool. The best way to learn about things like gauge and how to use them is to check out the free Knit Picks podcast. I have to warn you though, they have beautiful yarns and gorgeous needles, all of which are very hard to resist (I didn't last long, Wool of the Andes is what I used on the kids baby blankets, soft and beautiful and it can survive at least one accidental washing).

Unlike trying to adapt a dress or sweater from a vintage pattern, if you mess up your gauge on a toy, it still fits. So they are a great place to start!

KSCC: Holiday Kids Crafts

First School and Dltk-Kids are my favourite place for kids crafts. They have tons of amazing print-out pre-school activities (secular and non). All free to download, print & keep your kids occupied on a rainy day! The dinosaurs are a favourite in this house. I have the entire site scrap-booked*, so I can still visit it if our over-the-air internet goes down in a wind-storm.

(*See KSCC: Saving Patterns, for information on how to save entire websites)

Doing something special, even for silly holidays (like Inernational Cookie Day) is really fun with the kids.

Of course we've got the major holidays too, and being Canadian, Thanksgiving is this weekend. We've made a classic hand-print turkey for the table, and I found these neat Waxed Leaf and Turkey Napkin Holder.

Waxed Leafs
(link above - use your own best judgment whether your kids are ready for this craft)

This is a good craft for kids if you do it with them, and takes steps to make sure you keep the wax safe.

Heat up the wax in a double boiler, then pour into a small can nestled in a larger can full of hot water. This will keep the wax warm and liquid but your little ones away from the heat (unless they knock it over).

Going outside to collect leaves is the best part for littlest guys to participate in. Once you've got some nice fall leaves, bring them in, you're dipping them in the hot wax then laying them out on a piece of wax paper. We collected some really nice colourful leaves, as well as some brown ones to make a really varied pile of leaves.

I used about 8 tea lights instead of buying paraffin, paraffin would have given me a clear wax coat (we have a few opaque blobby bits) but I don't usually keep it in the house. I also added a few drops of pumpkin smells from one of those oil/tea light scent diffusers.

I really like this craft, added a lot of colour to the table with out buying a bag of plastic leaves, and much cleaner then just leaves off the ground from outside. Melting wax is also a great way to re-make stubby crayons and make candles.

KSCC Pattern Finds

I haven't bought a knitting pattern book in years (although I do have my eye on a couple cute toy-books). This is why: 

Ravelry. If you aren't on you do not know what you're missing! Thousands of patterns, and an amazing K/C community of a fibre-a-holics. You can even find people who are working on/have finished the same projects you are doing, so if you run into a snag, you can find someone to help!

Purple Kitty is amazing, they have tons of free vintage KSCC patterns! Most of them are super cute, there are few jackets I've been dieing to do for the kids. Definitely worth a search through the records!

Knitty, oh Knitty. I had to stop reading their seasonal output until I get a few more projects finished, because there is always at least one that I have to make each time they publish. There is always a count-down to the new Knitty patterns, and they never disappoint. All free!

Right now I'm working on a knitty pattern: Cigar Gloves.
These would be the gloves I promised my husband 2 years ago when I started them... still a WIP.

KSCC Saving Patterns

Despite my desire to grow our own healthy food, and live out in the country with the clean and quiet air, I'm about as far from a Luddite as you can get. I'm a huge nerd and really couldn't cope without my high-speed internet.

I love free-use, open-source software like Firefox. If you're still using I.E. you have no idea what you're missing! Firefox is free to use and download, very simple to navigate, and unlike internet explorer, you can remove it later if you don't like it.

Mine has an extension on it called Scrapbook. It works sort of like your bookmarks do, but it saves the entire site. So you can go and visit it offline later, or if that site goes down you can still access the information. I use this all the time for my KSCC patterns. Saves me from printing out tons and tons of patterns (gotta save the forests!), and I never loose a pattern because someone forgot to pay their server fees.

If you don't want to add Scrapbook, you can print patterns and crafts "to file". You do this by going into print, then select "print to file" instead of whatever printer you use. This allows you to save the pattern as a file on your computer. I believe windows always saves the file as a ".doc" but if you've got the option ".pdf" is the best because it's the most used. 

For paper patterns I always back them up in the computer with my scanner. You don't need an expensive or fancy scanner if you're mostly doing documents (although I have digital copies of my old photos too). That way I don't have bits of paper floating around to loose, spill coffee on, have the kids doodle on; and they are way easier to find! I just name all my patterns with something descriptive like "knit page boy hat" and use the search function when I feel like making one later.

Just remember if you're saving patterns for your own personal use you're not going to have any problems. But you've got to check copyright rules before distributing them to friends (even if you're giving them away for free) and you should never charge people for something you got for free even if you put it on a disk or something.

Cook: Home-made is Best

I usually go with the processor method, but mine
is busted, so volcano it is!

If you've never had home-made pasta you just don't know what you are missing! It's much easier to make then you think it's going to be, and is very high reward!

There are 2 methods I use to make the dough:

The Volcano

This is where you place your flour directly on your counter-top, then make a little depression in the centre and put your eggs in that. Then use your fork/finger to incorporate the eggs and flour and create your dough.

The Processor

This method is much faster and easier to clean up! You can put all your pasta ingredients into your food processor, then just quick little pulses to combine it all together. As long as you don't over-work the dough it will remain soft and yummy.


Rolling it out.
Once you've let your dough rest you need to roll it out flat.

The Rolling Pin

This method is really labour intensive, and again, messy. You start from the middle and roll outwards, turning the dough as you go to stretch it nice and thin. You can use a pizza cutter, or just a knife to cut out the pasta.

Pasta Press

I had quite the epic journey to find my pasta press! Apparently a lot of home-cooking shops don't sell them. If you're lucky enough to own a Cuisinart mixer you can get an attachment pretty easily, but a free-standing reasonably prices pasta press was very hard to find. I ended up paying about $40 for one that mounts to the counter, the bracket broke within the year.

The press was definitely worth the money though! It's much easier to create nice thin pasta and the back part of mine cuts spaghetti.


I really recommend everyone try to make pasta at least once, because the taste is going to turn you!!

KSCC: Keep it Organized.

 Pretty sure it's not just knitters with sticky-fingered kids that have this problem, but most of us. It's just worse when you've got little kids who want to touch all the soft fibre (who can blame them?)

Some weeks I really spend more time undoing
knots then knitting

The wound ball

Learning how to wind a proper ball is definitely one of the knitting basics you should know but don't always get taught. There are YouTube videos (great way to learn new knitting techniques) but it's very simple. Leave a little tail, then wind around two of your fingers until you get enough to start winding around in the other direction. As long as you make sure you leave the tail clear for pulling later, you'll have a perfect little ball for your kids to unravel around your main floor in no time!

There are commercial ball-winders you can purchase, but I've always found them more expensive then I want to pay for doing something I actually enjoy and don't have to do often.

Once they are in little balls I keep my wool in zip-lock baggies in a big tub. Not the most environmentally friendly method, but it keeps me from spending hours untangling.

KSCC: Sewn Knitting-Needle Holder

I wish I had the link to the page that had inspired me to do this. I started on this project probably 2 years ago now. I'm not great at finishing projects in a reasonable time frame, but I sure do love to start new ones! With a quiet rainy day and only our littlest son to sit behind me on the chair while I sewed, I managed to knock this project off my list.

It's fairly simple, I started with a big piece of old jean for the back. You'll probably notice the holder is not a perfect square, it follows the taper of the leg. I did this so that when you rolled it, the most outside piece would be the longest; so that it looked neat all rolled up (not with uneven bits sticking out).

For the pocket-part I chose a piece of fabric to attach to the jean, and created a pocket on the front. Then I ran my machine along the front of the pocket to create many smaller pockets. If I was going to do this project again, I would dart the small pockets like a pleat, so that there is more room in each one for the needles. 

I've had this fabric for years. I love it enough I've always wanted to do something little and fun like this, but don't love it enough for curtains (for instance). It's perfect here! There isn't any padding or anything in the holder, just the fabric. It still nice and fairly heavy-weight because of the jean.

I added another piece of fabric (sewn together so that there are two good sides) onto the top to keep the needles in when the holder is moved around. Then I simply created some ribbon with extra fabric to close it!

Any beginner sewer could accomplish this, it's mostly making a complicated pillow case! It probably would have taken me an afternoon to finish if I could ever find an entire afternoon for one project.

I'm going to have to make something else to hold my circular needles, and I'd like to make a second holder for my small sets of double pointed needles.