I finally finished that hutch!

Remember this ugly orangish wood hutch? Well, I finally decided what to do with it. What I wanted was a sofa table, not a hutch. I got such a good deal on it that I originally planned on putting table part behind my sofa and figure out what to do with the shelves later. Well.... then it was too tall for behind the sofa. After months of debating back and forth about what to do or just sell it I decided on Saturday to paint it.

Here is the finished product. I restained the top and then painted the bottom an added a glaze. I think I'm going to like it. The top is now housing a fleet of Tonka trucks.

Now, I have some lamps that need refinishing. They are currently an ugly 70s brown. I had wanted to pain them teal, but I'm thinking that will be too much when placed on top of my "new" table. So do I do black or white? The fireplace in this room is white and I have a few picture frames that are black.

Tomatoes

I don't ever want to look at another tomato again. Yesterday I had 25 lbs of tomatoes that needed to be used. It took about 7 hours. What did I get? 8 pints of salsa and 6 quarts of spaghetti sauce. And I did something to my back when I was pulling the spaghetti sauce out of the canner. I think I just turned the wrong way or something. Was all this worth it? NO!!!!!!! Maybe I'll think differently on a night when I don't have time to cook. I had my husband pick up some refrigerated tortellini on his way home from work. I made different pasta sauce for that. Jeff wanted to try what I had just bottled. NO WAY!!!! We aren't going to be digging into this for a long time. I wish tomatoes came already peeled.

For my Sous-Chefs

It's been a busy week so far. The first day of second grade for my oldest, more canning, dental appointments, back to school night and FSA stuff (I'm the co-chair for our office). I did manage to get some sewing done last week though.Sorry, I can't move the pictures around and I'm too lazy to retype stuff. This is the apron I made for my oldest. My boys always want to help me cook and are quite the mess makers so they needed aprons.

I love boy fabric. It seems like it's becoming more available now too!

I decided to make one for me while I was at it. I still need to make one for my four year old, but I just couldn't resist this fabric any longer. Ignore the way it looks totally misshapen on my floor.

Remember the dilly beans I posted last time? Well.... I realized an hour ago I need to make more. They are suppose to sit for 2 weeks before you eat them. We opened some today and I was thinking my 4 year old would maybe eat 4 or 5 with lunch. Nope. Between he and my 15 month old they ate the whole jar. They are a little on the spicy side. Why knew a 15 month old would like them so much?

Canning

I will admit it. I'm one of those strange people who like canning. I don't really like cooked fruit or jam (except very rarely on hot homemade bread), but my kids like jam. I like to can different things. This week I've done pickles and dilly beans. I forgot to take a picture of the dilly beans until they were already on the shelf in the storage room (next to the Western Family canned pineapple). Behind the beans is jalapeno jelly, which I love on crackers or tortilla chips with cream cheese. I can't wait to make more later this season when the jalapeno peppers are ready! I also am excited to try a few new things like red and yellow pepper jelly and possibly peach chutney later this season.

I'm not really sure why I like canning. It does make me feel domestic. I only canned one thing last year ( I had a newborn + the swine flu), strawberry jam. Last year was the first full summer in this house and when I put the canner on the stove I realized I had a problem. The canner is too high for the microwave. It was on a Saturday when my husband was home and I realized I needed two extra hands. Two to pull the canning pot out and my two to put the caning basket in and out of the hot water bath. This year I have been using the burner on the BBQ but that presents another problem...... it takes FOREVER to boil and then when I put the cans in it takes another 10+ minutes to get to boiling again. Any suggestions?

Anyway, since no sewing has taken place at my house (think 15 month old) I thought I'd post my recipe for dilly beans.

Dilly Beans

2 lbs green beans snapped and washed
4 cloves garlic
1 tsp cayenne pepper
4 sprigs dill
2 1/2 cups cider vinegar
2 1/2 cups water
4 TBL course salt

In 4 one pint jars put one clove garlic, 1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper and one sprig dill. Turn jars on their sides to add green beans. In heavy pot boil vinegar, water and salt. Add to jars leaving 1/4 inch head space. Process for 10 minutes in boiling water bath.

Yield: 4 pints

The past few days I've had two sous-chefs that help me snap beans. I see aprons in their near future!!!!

We All Sew

I'm being featured on weallsew.com this week as a favorite blog. Make sure to check them out for lots of great sewing ideas!

In a Sewy Mood

I finished painting my sewing/laundry room yesterday afternoon. Today I'm doing about 2 weeks worth of laundry. I hate laundry. I don't mind the putting in the washer and then transferring it to the dryer, but I hate folding and putting it away.

Having not really sewn in about 6 weeks I'm itching to get back to it. We still need to put new linoleum down in there, but I can start putting fabric back in the cupboards and drawers and start setting things up.

Of course, I have about 10 quilts in progress and fabric to make ties for my boys when I figure out what I'm going to line them with. However, I also have fabric for a few quilts that I haven't started I'd like to get working on. Plus I've seen several quick projects recently I would like to do. One of them is this:

Petal Pillow Tutorial

Don't you love it! I want to make one for a chair I have in my entry.

I also bought this Amy Butler fabric at the top of the page. Blogger won't let me pull it down. I'm thinking it would be a super cute apron. I need some fabric for ruffles first though.

I also have a pillow pattern (but no fabric yet) for a super cute pillow for my daughter's room that has flowers made of ric rac + tons of ric rac trim. Can't wait to do that one!

Now.... to finish the final clean up of the laundry room so I can get started.

It's about TIME!!!!!!

It's about time I finished a quilt, don't you think? I made this one for my newest niece. I've had it quilted for about 6 weeks, then the laundry room situation happened and it didn't get bound. My niece was due on the 18th of this month, but surprised us by coming last Thursday. I hurried and bound it on my garage sale, $20 Bernina and took it up to the hospital.

I love the velvet ric rac. This is it after it's been washed once. No rolling!

I ran out of backing so I had to piece a little.

I think this is the last quilt I will be making as a gift, at least until my kids are older. I'll be working on other things, but with three little kids, one of them not quite 13 months I can't handle having deadlines to finish. It was a nice thought though!