evergreen wreath

The kiddo's school has a yearly fundraiser selling locally made (not by us) wreaths. I bought one last year and I bought one this year, and I'm fine with it. The wreaths are pretty and they smell good, and the school gets a nice chunk of the proceeds too, unlike with those magazine and candy sales I did as a kid.

Here's the thing: wreaths are relatively easy to make, and very inexpensive if you have access to evergreens. If you want more than one wreath for your house and school fundraisers are too expensive, give it a go. Here's one I made.

I used rosemary branches, some angry, pokey evergreen branches from a tree out back. and some little cedar twigs that got blown down in a windstorm.

 

The wire wreath form is from last year's wreath.  It's called a soft clamp wreath frame, if you need to order one. I just used some pliers to pull open the prongs last year, composting the old evergreens and storing the wreath form to recycle this year.

Add branches.

  

Use pliers to cinch everything together.

Tuck additional branches in to cover the wires, and hang it on a nail, ribbon or hook.

My wreaths sometimes look a little asymmetrical, which I like. If you don't, trim yours till it looks right to you.

Okay! That's all from here. Kid's got the flu so I'm off to do another load of laundry. Be well!

thanksgiving pretzels

My kiddo has a deep, abiding love for our red KitchenAid mixer. I hadn't planned to do much baking for Thanksgiving, but he made a special request to bake today, so we got the mixer down and pulled out the old BHG New Cook Book intending to make rolls . . . and somehow ended up deciding on pretzels instead.

And since kiddo wants everything to be green lately, he asked for food coloring to be added while we were kneading the dough.

Recipe similar to the one in the cook book can be found on the Better Homes & Gardens website.

Combine 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour and a package of active dry yeast in mixer bowl.

In saucepan, heat 1 1/2 cups of 1% milk, 2 tablespoons olive oil, and 1 teaspoon salt and whisk until warm (between 120 and 130 degrees F).

Add warm milk mixture to flour + yeast in mixer bowl; beat on medium speed for 30 seconds. Scrape down sides of bowl. Beat on high speed for 3 minutes.

Add up to 3 cups of all-purpose flour. (I used my white paddle attachment rather than the whisk attachment to my mixer for this step.)

Turn onto floured surface, add food coloring, and knead for 6—8 minutes. Roll into a ball then place in a greased bowl. Make sure top of ball is greased too, then cover with a towel and let rise for 75—90 minutes (till double in size).

Preheat oven to 475 degrees F. Punch dough down, then leave on a floured surface and let rest for 10 minutes.

Start a pot to boiling 3 quarts of water + 2 tablespoons of salt.

Roll dough into a 12x20 inch rectangle, then use a pizza cutter to cut 20 half-inch strips.

Twist into pretzel shapes, then bake on greased baking sheets for 4 minutes. Reduce oven temp to 350 degrees F.

Boil partially-baked pretzels in water for 2 minutes, flipping once, then drain on a towel. After putting back on baking sheet, brush with beaten egg white and sprinkle with coarse salt. Bake at 350 degrees F for 20 minutes, until golden brown.

Taa-dum! These are best hot from the oven.

Here's hoping your Thanksgiving was a happy one, American readers! Happy Thursday, everyone else!

Thanks for reading.

pajama pants from old pajama pants

My husband picked up a cute set of Nick and Nora flannel pajamas for me at Christmastime a few years ago, featuring flamingos and Airstream trailers in the snow. Loved them. I wore them even when it wasn't Christmas, even when it was early summer.




But, as happens with flannel, they wore out, wore through (in some places), and basically started looking kinda trashy. Considering that I wore something featuring both flamingos and trailers, you can imagine how bad I let these get before finally making that call.

With plenty of soft places left that remained hole-free, I thought these probably needed a second life as a pair of (much smaller) pajama pants for the bebe.

Using a pair of his existing pants as a pattern, I cut the shape of one leg from a part of the old pants. I cut the new leg on the old side seam, so that I'd have a little less sewing to do; the old leg's side seam became the new leg's side seam. I did the same thing for the second leg.




Here's a shot of the new pajama leg unfolded and spread out.




The next step was to fold it back over (this time with the patterned surfaces together), then stitch along the inside leg seam. That's the part that runs from the crotch to the cuff.




I used an overcast stitch on the first pass, then did a straight stitch to reinforce. I turned one leg right-side out, then tucked it into the other leg with edges matched up. This became the center seam, also overcast then straight stitched.




At last, I turned the entire pair of pants inside out, hemmed the cuffs, created a casing for the elastic, and finished them off, just in time for bed! The bebe loves them, and they're holding up well so far! Here's hoping for a nice second life for these pj's!


(p.s. you can make these photos bigger by clicking on them . . . but you probably knew that!)


Pin It