I'm trying to talk to you...

But I just can't get it together!

I can't write about home schooling, because I'm trying to homeschool.

It's a big job. There isn't much room for sitting at the computer when you are trying to get a good schedule going.

Fabric Swap is born!

So here is how the swap works:

Post your want or need in the comments. A picture will be very helpful in many cases, so my suggestion is that you upload your photo to a photo-hosting site (Picasa will work great, Flickr would work, and I'm sure you have lots of ideas about this, which you can post in the comments) and post the URL. You can link to your blog if the picture is there.

You can also just email the person a photo if they think they can help you.{If anyone has some of this rose fabric, I would love to have more! I will trade you something you love, if I have it!}

I have the vague notion that it's not a great idea to put your email address in the comment AS an email address, because of trolling spammers. So either use the written out form (e.g. leilamarielawler (at) gmail.com) or use your clickable profile as your contact info.



Then your swapper can email you and arrange to send you your fabric. Don't feel you have to send that person something in return. A chance to give will come up! What goes around, comes around!

Subsribe to the feed for the comments on this post, and you will always be updated on what people are looking for!

You can swap other craft items as well. I personally have, literally, three lifetimes' worth of notions (mine, my mother's, and my M-I-L's). If you need a snap, you are not going to drive to Joann's to get one! I'll send it to you.

So let's do this thing! Don't be shy! Go ahead and ask! Someone somewhere will have what you need!


Here's how we got started:

When I was asking you for your advice about the Rising Sun quilt, dear Kari, in the comments, bemoaned her lack of a small scrap of fabric to complete a project.

I immediately thought -- gosh, with a stash like mine, I'm sure I have the thing for her -- and before I could act, dear Annie chimed in with her offer -- and her idea for a fabric swap here on this blog.

{Now, Annie is my out-law. Do you know what an out-law is? It's the relative of your relative's in-law. She is Rosie's husband Philip's sister. They are the children of dear friends of ours, friends whom we have known these past ten years, and now, out-laws! Annie certainly qualifies as a Daughter in Like Mother, Like Daughter terms. She and I quilt together, and her little boy Jack excels at carrying around patches in his grubby cute adorable little hands.}

So Annie and I have been thinking about how to work this here Fabric Swap, and we are just going to plunge in and see how it goes.

The beauty of the Fabric Swap is that fabric is quite shippable. It's light. It's flat. It won't break.

{Actually, this is one problem I have with online fabric stores. If I'm ordering a yard of fabric, I really don't see why it can't be popped into a Mylar mailer and sent to me with a minimum of fuss. It certainly doesn't need a box and bubble wrap!! I balk at paying exorbitant shipping rates, even though I can see that more goes into the rate than just the postage.}

But for the swap, if you are in need of a patch for your charm quilt or a small amount of a certain pattern to complete your border, your swap partner will find it quite easy and cheap to sent this to you for forty-two measly little cents!

Even a half-sized manila envelope just takes one first class stamp, as long as its contents don't weigh more than three sheets of paper!

Deck furniture, before and after.

You all are most helpful in background discernment! A million besos for helping me -- or rather, bullying me -- to choose the right color! I love how it went from "I like the ochre" to "poor mustard, I feel so sorry to say I like the ochre" to "mustard must die!!" -- did you notice that?

Mob rule. But a nice, tasteful, discerning mob, MWAH!

Monday is my day to make lists and look at my bills (not really to choose quilt colors, though it may seem so -- this is the miracle of auto-posting).

I really find that if I get the menus written up, the grocery list in order, and the week's schedule for homeschooling under control, as well as go through the previous week's mail (which is all junk except for the bills, and you don't dare just toss stuff out, because they are so sneaky in how they make the junk look like bills) and file receipts, then I'm all good for the coming week. It gives me a lot of peace, except on Mondays.

Which is why you are only reading about this now, not that it's all so fascinating that it would need to be reported on instantaneously.But the point is that I was sitting on the deck, enjoying the warm sunshine, and I realized that I had never shared with you the saga of my deck furniture. It does involve spray painting, to a certain degree, so you might find THAT interesting, anyway.

This is nothing new, by the way, unlike the list making. You see, last year -- or maybe even the year before, it's all so hazy in my mind -- in the early spring I became determined to find sturdy, comfortable seating for the deck. So that all my loved ones could sit outside, mingling, conversing, relaxing, and enjoying the temperate weather which does occasionally descend upon us.

For cheap. The furniture, I mean.

I had been looking at yard sales and Craigslist for so long, and I had resisted wicker furniture because as pretty as it is, it just will not last out exposed to all the elements. I needed iron.

And do you know how much the least, raggediest, smallest bit of iron furniture usually goes for, even second hand? At least within fifty miles of a metropolis?

And then you have to find cushions...it's all so vexing.

But this one day, up popped someone about half an hour from me selling this set:He was asking $150. It was all sturdy, the glass for the tabletops intact (just not pictured), the iron not rusty at all...that chair glides!!

I borrowed my neighbor's truck, got Will in to drive me, and could not put the money in that man's hand fast enough before he changed his mind and realized he could make a whole lot more on this set if he just took a better picture...

Now, I will confess that my first determination was that I was NOT going to redo the cushions. They are a funny kind of plastic woven material, and honestly, it rains on them and the water sort of pours through and then they dry.

No mildew, no dirt (not that you can tell since they are conveniently brown), and in good shape. Ugly, but in good shape.


So I thought, and I thought, and I decided that the key here was to change the color of the metal to match the cushions and just make it work. So that's what I did! (That little end table is from the Chief's mother's house. Worth a lick of paint.)

I used a dark bronze metallic spray paint, and it took about 6 cans, if I remember.

{People, I am here to tell you that the little trigger thingy hanging on the rack near the spray paint is worth every cent they charge for it! Stop being cheap about the wrong things! Just buy it!}


Now, you are probably saying, "Gosh, why don't you change those cushions!" But I just don't have the energy.

And they are a heap better than these, n'est-ce pas?

I'm sorry, I don't mean to offend you if you are a jungle-print aficionado, but not only are these really...not my style...they are not outdoors-worthy to the point that they seem to collect dirt out of the very air and display it prominently and with pride. However, the furniture itself is not wicker (see above) but of a wonderful man-made substance that does not show any signs of wear.

And what's more, this entire set was free.

Yes, zero dollars.

Why? Because the lovely person who gave them to me has a husband who honestly believed that no one would buy any of their furniture, because it was used. He apparently never noticed that he lived in a community full of cheap persons and that he himself has a large family and shouldn't be so silly. So he made her give away all their stuff before they moved. And not charge anything for it. And was stubborn. Funny person.
So now I have enough seating on my deck for everyone.

You may try to convince me to cover the jungle if you tell me exactly what to use and where to get it for cheap or nothing. One friend suggested shower curtains (the porous kind), which sent me off into a fruitless quest for shower curtains that are not ugly and not jungle-y.

Also, please excuse the fact that none of the tabletops is quite clean. It's because of this:

Which hangs directly overhead. By September I'm just too tired to keep cleaning off those tabletops.

Come tell me which one to choose!!

I was working on the Antique Bricks quilt because of my frustration level at my fabric never arriving, fabric I need so I can continue on my Rising Sun quilt for Rosie and Philip. Finally it came Saturday morning, so I was able to take one more baby step on the way to making a design decision.

You see, hereabouts we only have Joann's for fabric. I suppose I was very lucky to find just the right white and red for the patches...but the yellow background, oh my.

I tried sending to equilter.com for swatches, and they were indeed quite helpful in providing me with as many colors as I thought would work, one that they thought would work (after I sent them that picture {above} of what I'm trying for)......and also one that will not do at all, clearly -- but that just goes to show you how hard it is to judge from the computer!

I guess it's too much to ask that a fabric store stock all the colors and fabrics there are in the universe...sigh.

But those little swatches just didn't cut it for me. So I ordered two yards each of the two most likely colors, in the hopes that I would be able to make my choice. I waited, and waited...turns out there was some kind of mistake in my order. Argh!

At last they came, and now I can see on the proper scale what it is that I am trying to do:
I can, right?

Can you? Pay the centers of the pieces no mind. I haven't completely sewn them up, and when I do the corners will match.
Here's that picture again:Ochre?

Or Mustard?
But you really have to be here in person to tell! Can you all come over? Now? Please?

This morning is lovely.

Last night I finished up the few bits of quilting I had left here:

Do you remember this Antique Bricks quilt? I also posted about it here. It's so hard to photograph.

It's much nicer in person -- less "stained glass" looking and more scrappy.
I think I enjoy the Confetti School of Color Design, as exemplified in my kitchen rug:

I've never seen a rag rug I've liked as much as this one. Maybe Habou can chime in with the story of its provenance -- I know it was made by a lady from (0r near) the town she grew up in in upstate New York. I try to take good care of it since I already wore one out (not because it's delicate but because I was hard on it). Fortunately my mom was ready with another one, because I deeply mourned the first.

It's out here because I am waiting for Brian to finish up the installation of the new kitchen window. Since the old window was about as effective in keeping out the cold as a piece of notebook paper, I have great hopes for my poor cold bones this winter. No point in getting the rug all dirty during this process...
So maybe tonight or tomorrow I can get going on a binding for this quilt.

It's actually been a while since my Saturday mornings were a hectic version of the downtown intersection of a tourist trap -- you know, that kind of place where there is a picturesque cop blowing a whistle while doing a crazy dance to get all the clueless people where they need to go.

I'm talking about meals, cleaning the house after a week of hard use, soccer games, homework, projects, switching out clothes for the season, and preparing for Sunday -- all that Saturday stuff that I did for 25 years or so -- and the ghost of the experience is still with me, like a limb that's been cut off but still wants attention (they are called ghost limbs, right? So I'm not mixing metaphors...).

It sounds like I should be relieved, but in a way I just miss having everyone around, no matter how much work it was, or how vexed I seemed!

It's a little hard to get used to things being different. So my title is more a self-motivational speech than a statement of fact.
Nonetheless, the weather is beautiful, and Bridget and I plan to do a little cleaning, a little yard saling -- and then head for the Wachusett Kennel Club dog agility trials, just for the fun of watching the dogs jump and run.

Beet cake. Yes, b-e-e-t cake.

So.

You like carrot cake, right?

When I was telling you about my failed garden, I forgot to mention beets (how uncharacteristically lacking in thoroughness that was! Can you imagine! Maybe I should go over each separate thing in my garden again, alphabetically how about? Fun!).

I do have some beets.

My garden was a fail, pretty much.

A few zinnias from the "garden".

In the midst of not focusing on my homeschooling duties at the moment, I will reflect on how my garden just did not do that well this year.

First, I did my best to get it going before the wedding, and the spring was so unusually glorious hereabouts that I thought I might be able to get it through. But then the rains set in.

{By the way, all my darling Arizona and New Mexico friends, I am well aware that you consider me a crazed obsessive freak when it comes to mold. You picture me sprinkling the premises liberally, if not promiscuously, straight from the bleach jug, occasionally taking a swig to the chorus of a lusty drinking song, just to show that I can.

But I just have to tell you that it rained for well nigh six weeks this summer, straight (only a brief break for the wedding, thanks be to God). Then it rained a lot but not solid. So sor-ry.

Maybe if you had mushrooms growing in your bathroom -- no, not for agricultural reasons -- you'd be a freak too! Try not to judge.}

ANY way, I canned not ONE pear. I keep thinking that if dear Ma (you know, Laura fans, who I'm talking about) could see me she wouldn't be too pleased. What if we really relied on our garden for food? We'd starve, that's what. Not only can we not clear the land and build a house using only an ax, we have no pear sauce. (That's not true -- there's some from last year. But you know what I mean.)

Dinner of beef kebabs, featuring "a" tomato in the salad, some herbs in the pasta, and green peppers -- my garden's meager output, made the most of.

My beautiful heirloom Amish paste tomato plants, that I snatched the last five of at the farmstand near the Abbey, got blighted. How very pitiful and sad. And heirloom-esque in that un-genetically-modified way.

Something stole my corn, after having gotten the broccoli early on -- really, corn is hardly worth it when you live in a place where the very supermarkets sell local corn of a fabulous standard for pennies, just as yours is ripening slowly in the mistaken thought that it's not going to be snatched by some thieving critter.

However, at least I didn't have to water it.

The raspberries are engulfed in weeds and the blueberries are not to be found -- engulfed isn't the word here -- more like obliterated. My weeds, fed not only by the aforementioned rain-of-biblical-proportions but also by the mysterious yet obviously fertile properties of the leachfield above them (I can't stop to explain the geography of my yard just now), threaten to march right into the house and simply take over my life and be done with it.

For the first time ever, I got some peppers and some eggplants, but not enough to even mention, except that in the past I never got one, so maybe, yes, watering was my issue.

Beans, bad timing viz-a-viz weddings, funeral, college. Can't be everywhere. Cucumbers -- I did put up pickles, as you very well know.



There is a right smart crop of pumpkins, volunteers from the compost, which goes to show you.

I guess we have swiss chard, half-hearted cheer from most, downright boo from Bridget.

Miscellaneous herbs, which I can't even muster the energy to dry (have I mentioned my yard-sale dehydrator? Can't bother to get it in from the garage right now, no will to preserve left in me), and I will regret that in February. Carrots -- it is to laugh.

I am a farming failure. Fail.

Garlic herb cheese leftover oatmeal bread. And equally random soup.

Once you have tried a few different bread recipes, you can start to realize that you can wing it, and if you are lazy like me -- hardly able to muster up the energy to open a cookbook and certainly incapable of remembering which recipe you really like -- this is a welcome revelation.


If you have flour, liquid, salt, and yeast, you will have bread. And if you have noticed the order you do things and how the dough looks as you've mixed it according to the directions, you can easily make it all happen without precise measurements.
Today I had some herbs that I had picked a while ago, and they were sort of wilting on the counter. A vision -- or a taste-- of cheesy herb-y bread floated in my brain -- the kind of embellished sandwich bread that calls for, in addition to the basics, some form of fat and an egg.


For liquid, my stand-by -- potato water in addition to regular old water.

{Potato does something incredible to bread. Keep the water from making mashed potatoes, cook up a potato, chopped in small pieces, in the microwave, and puree with your hand blender, or use a little potato starch. It just adds that little something to the texture and the flavor...}

For flour, I used some unbleached white and a lot of white whole wheat, and then I remembered a little container of leftover steel-cut oat porridge....A quick zap with a little water and in it went!

Dissolve the yeast in about a cup and a half of warm water, add a tolerable amount of flour, make sure you use a goodly portion of salt (1 tablespoon for 7 cups of flour), and chuck in your extras to your heart's content.

As you mix (in the stand mixer), continue adding liquid (water, milk, buttermilk -- once I used the liquid from baked beans! It was good!) until you get the mix you remember from all those times you used a recipe.

Only, make your dough a little looser than you think. The first two mistakes home bakers make are

1. Not enough salt.

2. Not enough liquid -- because they want to be able to handle the dough, but actually, you shouldn't handle it much, and if you want a tender, moist bread you have to get a little sticky.

Don't forget the autolyse -- just the thing for the distracted baker -- an excuse to leave what you started for 20 minutes and go do something else...


The texture of the developing (fermenting) dough changes magically after this rest. You can see the gluten's development. What had been somewhat rough and resistant becomes docile and silky. A quick knead (I let the mixer do it, but not for long at all) and into the greased bowl it goes.
A long slow rise results in a better product than a hurried one in an overly-warm place. Yes, the dough will rise, but the chemical reaction is actually different. Your dough will be carbonated rather than fermented, and a yeasty (unpleasantly so) taste is the outcome. The heavy kneading called for in most recipes is to trap the gas, whereas the leavening in the slowly risen bread is quite different, but here my memory fails me and I would have to look it up. You will note, however, the faint whiff of alcohol after the long rise, signaling the fermentation...

Bread made this way has an amazing taste -- not flat, but rather dimensional; it also keeps well, not developing that off flavor hurried bread has the next day.

Now gently -- GENTLY -- turn and turn again for another rise. Then form into loaves. My mixer is the 6 quart one, so my 7-8 cups of flour usually yield three large loaves or in this case, four small ones and one medium one. (The latter braided, of course!)I like the little ones for this savory bread -- then I can freeze it and have it handy to round out a simple supper.
As the oven nears its preheated temperature, slash the bread. I set the oven for 350* (I have convection), but when I put the bread in, I turned it up to 400* so that it would be heating rather than cooling.
See, the oven cycles on and off, and when the buzzer tells you it's preheated, that means it has gotten to its temperature and will now start to cool off until it sinks below the point that it triggers the thermostat -- and for that great lift you want your loaves to have, the oven needs to be heating UP, not DOWN.

Set the timer for 15 minutes, then turn the heat back down to 350* for the final baking, in this case, just 10 minutes more (these were small loaves).

Is that not glorious? The braided loaf was glorious as well. The photo of it, less so -- sorry!
A freshly baked loaf makes a pot of soup a good hearty meal. (If you have big appetites to feed, make sure you offer tortilla chips with guacamole, hummus, and a bowl of nuts as well. I meant to do that tonight, but what is spacier than a homeschooling mom on the second day of school, I ask you? Not much. We seem fine, however.)

A recipe for the soup, you say? Oh fie!

I give this concoction the appetizing name of refrigerator-cleaning soup -- boil up a ham bone, take off the meat and put it back in, throw in all the little leftover veggies you have lurking about (corn, swiss chard, green beans -- all chopped up in the food processor), add some potatoes and a little orzo, and voila! Not lovely. No. But! Delicious!
Serve it up on the Goodwill dishes (love those shallow bowls!), with cheese and butter on the side, and there you have it -- a recipe-less mid-week supper!