Today I finished a project that’s been left partially done for  . . . oh dear . . . several months now. (I totally lost track of how long it’d been.)

It all started last year when I bought 12 yards of gorgeous fabric from eBay. Its a heavyweight woven (linen/cotton) dark cream with a dark red/purple/dark green large floral pattern and its *perfect* for our Dining Room, which has dark sage green walls, blond hardwood flooring, and gets a LOT of southern light from a wall of windows and sliding glass door onto our patio.

I planned to make 4 panels — 2 for each of the windows, and cut the fabric to the appropriate length. Then I pinned the top and bottom and hung two of them to make sure they were right. At that point I discovered that the fabric was wide enough that a single panel was really enough. (And two would have made the windows look stuffed.) So we left them hung up for awhile to make sure single panels would look right.

Like I said, I lost track of the time. One thing we realized is that we definitely wanted to line the panels. The print was only on one side and they would look a lot better finished. So one of my delays was that I had to look for a good tutorial on how to line curtains. (Have I mentioned that I am entirely self-taught? It’s why I don’t make clothes.)

Here’s an illustration of the difference between a lined curtain (on the right) and an unlined one. (It’s also a good picture of the fabric — nice, isn’t it?)

With mom coming to visit, I finished the curtains today. Want to see some pictures?

1st step: Iron all the fabric.

2nd step: pin the lining to the right side of the curtain fabric on three sides.

3rd step: SEW! (and sew, and sew . . .)

4th step: Turn the fabric right side out. Finish the unsewed (top) edge. Measure 6″ from the top edge. Fold over and pin to sew. (Obviously this is for a rod pocket panel.)

5th step: Before you sew, hang the curtain up and make sure its the right length and that you aren’t sagging or something. Adjust if necessary.

6th step: Sew the top pocket.

7th step: Hang and admire!

We live in a town home — which in Washington is defined as a single family unit with at least one shared wall (a condo is multiple units within a single structure) — which makes ecological living more difficult. This is because we do not own the exterior of our house, need to get approval for interior changes, and don’t have our own landscape. But there are still a number of ways we’ve managed to ‘green’ our home.

1. Before we moved in, we painted nearly the entire house. This meant delaying our move until more than a week after we took ownership, but it made the process 1000 times easier. In response to consumer demand, household paint is becoming increasingly low vocs (volatile organic compounds which can include bezoin and formaldehyde  — its the stuff that makes paint fumes so hard to breathe).  One alternative product is milk paint, which has a velvety and surprisingly durable finish. But paint manufacturers like Benjamin Moore, Glidden, Kelly Moore, and Sherwin Williams have all created low or no VOC paints for the mass market.
2. At the same time as we were painting, we took out the wall-to-wall carpeting in the front room (a combination living room/media room/library area) and laid down bamboo. We bought the bamboo from an construction overstock retailer and hired an installer through craigslist. He was in and out in an evening, and we have an easy-to-clean, durable, floor made from sustainable wood. the other half of the first floor (the dining room/kitchen area) was already hardwood and its in decent shape. We won’t replace it (thereby reducing the amount of materials we send to the dump) unless we’re in the house 10 years.
3. As bulbs have gone out over the years, we’ve been switching to the new compact florescent bulbs. The variety is increasing each year, and manufacturers are providing more alternatives to the slow-to-light, stark white bulbs that were first offered. Because they look very different, it can be hard to tell which is the best cf bulb to use to replace an incandescent. The government has a pretty good breakdown here.
4. We’ve also switched to rechargeable batteries for our smoke alarms (all four of them) and remotes. The only thing that we can’t recharge is our telephone handsets, which remain plugged in all of the time.
5. In the wintertime we lay down rugs (100% wool, with the thickest rug pads we could get) on the hardwood floors. This single change cut out heating bills by 40%.
6. We also hang up polar fleece liners under our regular curtains — the doubled curtains keep heat transfer loss to a minimum.
7. A fleece curtain hangs across the doorway to the front room, trapping heat effectively and fooling our thermostat into thinking its warmer, quicker.
8. All of our appliances are Energy Star rated. They are also the best we can afford in a matrix of reliability, economy, performance, and durability.
9. When we recently had to replace our washer and dryer, we did so with a front loading washer –saving gallons of water every year, as well as laundry soap — and an efficient dryer with a moisture sensor. It will stop the cycle when the clothes are dry, not when a timer says they are. I’ve noticed that our clothes are cleaner, and lasting longer (the washer’s cleaning action is vastly more gentle than top-loading machines). As well, the drying cycle seems to be anywhere from 10-15 minutes shorter than with the old machine.

Creating an environmentally responsible, sustainably-based home is easier when you own it,  and the land it sits on, entirely. But its not impossible to make a positive impact on your surroundings. These changes increase your health, your families, and only benefits the environment.

I swear I had the best of intentions.  But I didn’t get very far. Technically, I didn’t even get through that first stack.

When we first returned from our trip to London (April, 2007) we organized our pictures by environment and loaded them onto a website for all to share.

That website went away (bought out by Yahoo, I believe) and since the original process was more thna a little frustrting, we haven’t bother to redo the uploading into a new format.

Our family website (pitchwife.net) has a photo gallery and I spent an hour or so today uploading the 100s of photos we took. Here’s a link: http://www.pitchwife.net/component/option,com_morfeoshow/Itemid,59/

Enjoy.

I enjoy making and giving (the giving more than the making, truth be told) homemade gifts every year. For one thing, it allows me to sidestep the consumeristic merry go round of the holiday season, for another, it allows me to give soemthing special to people I might normally be unable to express my appreciation for (like, my boss).

In past years its been lemon-scented blueberry sauce (which has often been thick enough to call jam) and stone fruit chutney. (The links are to the recipes in case you wantt o chekc them out.)

This year it is Pumpkin Butter. My recipe transforms ordinary (albeit yummy) pumpkin into a thick spread that is quite reminiscent of pumpkin pie. As the accompanying card says:

This pumpkin butter is sweet, and spicy,

but contains no fat. Enjoy!

I made enough to share with my gaming group, my delightful masseuse, some for the house (I keep the not-so-perfect ones and this year a couple of jars didn’t seal perfectly — into the fridge they go!), my family and a few (lucky) people at the office.

Here’s the recipe:

Pumpkin Butter

9 cups pumpkin, cooked, cooled, and mashed until smooth*

2 Tbl cinnamon

1 tsp cloves

1/2 tsp allspice

4 cups sugar

Place all ingredients into crockpot, stir to combine well.

Cover crockpot loosely and cook on low heat for 6-8 hours (depending on how thick you like the butter to be). I left mine to cook overnight. Note: the lid must be ajar to allow moisture to escape, this means that you may get a lot of splatter all around the crockpot. I covered the nearby area with a towel and cleanup was minimal.

Wash jars in the dishwasher, or by hand, and then place in boiling water for at least five minutes before filling. Place lids in boiling water for five minutes before using as well. (There is a device, a ‘lid lifter wand’ that is useful here — its a pencil-length piece of heat-resistant plastic with a strong magnet on the end.)

Place jars on a towel on a heavy cookie sheet. Take to crockpot and fill to within 1/4 of the top. Seat the lid and tighten the ring. Listen to the ‘pop-ding’ sound of the jar sealing itself. When completely cool, freeze (for long-term storage) or refrigerate. Shelf life is 6 months.

Since I was mailing these, I decided to also water process them for increased safety.

* Using ‘sugar’ or ‘pie’ pumkins is best.

The week before last, the weather was gorgeous: warm (70*) and just right for gardening. Which was perfect as my Gardener’s Supply order had just arrived. Yes, I know, ordering planters is an egregious waste of energy (they came from Vermont, about as far away as possible) but I literally could not find what I wanted/needed at any of the supply places around here — big box and independent both. These are recycled plastic, 16 inches deep and UV treated to keep their color. They are sturdy enough to hold the vines I want to grow to shade to front porch and pretty enough that I enjoy looking at them. As with many ‘green’ decisions, I had to balance competing priorities. Here’s what the porch looks like now:

What you see here are mainly the two jasmine plants. There are also two Clematis vines (purple flowers they will have) on either side of the jasmine on the right. Around the base I planted Allyssium already in bloom, and the fragrance is exquisite. Here’s a closer look at the two blue pots. The top one is filled with various plants from last year — flowering ivy, allyssium (can you tell that I like it?) and dianthus (which should have hot purple flowers this summer). The one on the floor has one of my two foxglove plants.

J. planted a rose bush for me. The two pots flanking it are the seemingly indestructible stargazer lilies. I say that because he planted them in 2006 and all he does is water them. I’m looking forward to the rose bush developing and blooming. Right now it’s pretty gloomy over in that corner.

Our back porch is cleaner (or at least, tidier) than it has been all winter. But it too is pretty low on plant life. I’m hoping to plant lavender and allyssium in containers and place them under the window onto the porch. The smell should really imbue the workout/craft/guest room.

My friend got his gift, and loved it (yay!). Here’s some pics so you can admire my handiwork.

The Knitting Bag — note the groovy handles.

A close up of the fabric (it’s sturdy, natural fabric — a woven cotton I think). Upholstery weight and doubled so it should hold up to years of being stuffed with projects.

Finally, a close up of the interior pocket. It runs the length of the side, and should hold needles very well.

For now, I have to keep the actual item a secret, but I just finished making technocowboy‘s birthday gift. The actual birthday was about a month ago, but the inspiration didn’t come until then, and it took me time to find the materials and work out the actual process of making it.

Which is how i basically do all of my crafts. Somehow I never seem to want to create something that has a ‘recipe’ or set of specific directions (except cooking). I’ll use a set of directions as a template (like this one one — a pleated silk purse), but then I’ll change it. Yes, even before I created one to try out. And I’m a self-taught sewer, so even though I have a sewing machine I have to spend a lot of time figuring out how things go together before I start — of it looks like crap (I’ve learned) because I didn’t think it through. I’ve ruined a number of otherwise amazing projects by not spending enough time thinking about them before I start making them.

It’s a curse, more than a gift. If I don’t make more of one thing at a time, I basically have to re-invent the wheel if I want to make another at some point in the future. Every time I think “I should keep notes, or take pictures.” But once I start I get so caught up in it that I don’t want to stop to document what I am doing.

As for this most recent project — I’ll post pictures once USPS delivers it to him.

Although I am a reviewer, I have a lot of ‘occult’ books I haven’t read in a long time, or got because they looked interesting and never read at all. (If given a choice between a juicy fantasy novel I’ve read before and a dry nonfiction new book I will consistently choose to re-read.)

I’m hereby committing to reading every book, likely alphabetically (by author), that I do not immediately remember in great detail. Some of them may end up as reviews here (and cross-posted to Facing North, of course), others just as swift blurbs that capture my immediate thoughts. A few will likely be purged. (I hate purging, however. I always feel like there was something useful that I might want later.) It’s necessary to do, however, if only because I only have so much bookshelf space (45 linear feet) and it’s nearing full.

On the stack: Andrews’ 1st 3; Ruth Barrette’s  Women’s Rites; Blair’s Goddesses for Every Season; Blamire’ Glamoury; Blawyn & Jones’ Chakra Workout; Bleakley’s Fruits of the Moon Tree; three ‘Idiot’s Guides’ (Wicca Craft, Spells and Spellcraft, and Hypnosis); Collins’ Building a Magickal Relationship; and Coyle’s Evolutionary Witchcraft.

Hmm. I wonder how long this will take.

The galley copy of my new book (Magickal Connections) arrived on Wednesday and its been consuming me. I’m not supposed to make wholesale changes (too late!), or worry too much about proofing (because there is a a professional copy editor going over it). But I’m a Virgo and I can’t help but give it a close read.

So close, in fact, that I will blow my Monday 2/5 deadline for returning the mss. I hope they don’t care too much.

The book, overall, looks really good. I like the fonts they’ve chosen and the graphics have mostly come out fine. (I wish I’d known they were going to be b/w because I would have insited that the image for ‘freeform’ be changed. The point is sort of lost without the color.) The layout is good and my idea for ‘boxes’ seems to be working well on the page.

MC is real.