With What I Have

My goal this year is to work with what I have.  I have plenty of yarn, fabric, and food stored up here to last through a long while of inspired projects.  (Yes, I lump my love of cooking with my love of sewing and crochet.  After all, cooking is an art too!)  So, we'll see how far this gets me. 

Today, I'm making black bean chili.  A Big Huge Pot of black bean chili.  I really don't have a recipe for this.  I soaked 3 cups of dried black beans last night.  I'll put them on the stove to cook as soon as I'm done finishing this post.  After a couple hours, I'll toss in some...

diced onions (stored for the winter from our garden)
garlic (also stored for the winter from our garden)
a couple quarts of tomato puree (yep, canned from our garden)
some frozen diced peppers (also from our garden)
about 1/2 cup brown rice (not from anywhere near our garden)
some spices including cumin, chili powder, salt
dried parsley (from our garden)

and I'll let this cook all afternoon until dinner.  To go with it, I'll whip up a batch of corn bread in my cast iron skillet.  I usually use the Betty Crocker recipe for this, using soy milk instead of cow's milk.

I'm fighting through a cold right now.  Not sure how productive I'll be on any other fronts.  If I am up for it, I may work on the rest of my pillows for the living room.  You can see the beginnings of my efforts here and here.  When I don't feel like moving, I'll break out the scarf I'm working on for Nick.  It was supposed to be a Christmas present, but it's just a wee bit late.  I'm nearing the halfway point though!  I'll post about that when it's done.

Hope you all have a lovely day today.  It's snowing big, huge, beautiful flakes here in NE Ohio right now.  It's a perfect day for warm things.  I'm off to start my chili.

Pillow Week Kick-Off

I went to JoAnn's yesterday to choose some fabrics and pillow forms for the Pillow Challenge Week put out there by Erin at House on Hill Road.  I was super excited by what I found!!!

I found these 100% bamboo fiber filled pillow forms!!  I got 2 - 18"x18" and 2 - 12"x16".  That's one more than I was hoping for, but....

I found these fabrics by Debbie Mumm.  Look at how fun and fitting they are.

How could I resist a fabric that has organic and heirloom seed packets and potted herbs all over it!?!?!

Or this one with fun shopping bags on it?!!?  (Sorry, somehow these pictures got a bit washed out.  The actual fabric is a tad bit darker.  I was in too much of a hurry to take better pics.)

I'm definitely ready to start on something tomorrow.  And I have several other projects in mind for the remainder of the fabric.

Pinking Up My Life

My little Sweetpea's favorite color is pink.  I have never been much of a fan of pink.  But, she is bringing it into my life.  Solidly.  I used pink in my favorite owl bag, bought a hot pink bandanna to wear as a do-rag, and now have done this!!

Pink garden benches!!!  Two of them.  Don't they look so bright and cheery?  Don't they make you want to sit on them all the live long day and not do any work in the garden?  Don't they just make you want to make a berry smoothie?!  That's what Sweetpea calls this color - berry smoothie.  It's technically called Crushed Berries, but all her names for it have worked so far - berry smoothie, smashed strawberries, berries mushed...

I'm so glad to have finally finished this project.  I had fun doing it.  The only before picture I really have is this one.

It's not a very good picture of it.  But I think you can see how the pale peach paint was crumbling off.  So I stripped, sanded, filled in some holes, and slapped 2 coats of paint on the bottoms and 3 coats on the tops.  Viola!  Happy Pink Benches.

Bench #1 in it's ever so inviting spot.

And from the back.

And bench #2 in it's happy place.

They are in place and awaiting tired bums, baskets of seeds, cups of lemonade, and whatever else happens to come by.