Working it on Wednesday

 

My day started with homemade nut butter and jelly on my sour dough bread. It was yummy.  I had then planned to take it easy and spend time sewing.

I made one more pillow cover today. While my plan was to sew a couple, I just did the one.  My seam technique got a slight variation, and it was easier than the first one.  I basically sewed a French seam, then folded the back over the front, and stitched it into place. The pillow looks nice on the brown couch and picks up the colors in the lamp nicely too. 

There were two scraps of fabric from cutting out the two squares from each pattern.  Decor fabric is 45" wide, and my squares were 21" wide.  I've wanted to sew straps for a pair of sandals I thrifted over a month ago.  One pair was missing a strap.  These are leather and hadn't been wore at all.  While I could've done better with a longer set of scraps, what I made still works.  I can see myself wearing these with linen pants.

I've read you can make garlic and onion powder by grinding the skins, so I gave it a try using my coffee grinder. While I think this might work better if they were baked or at least dried out more, I was OK with what I ended up with.  My lemons were getting too soft, and my garlic was beginning to sprout, so I decided to make a garlic and lemon spread.  I first zested the lemons, then cut away the skin and sliced them. It was easy to pull off pith and membranes and remove the seeds.  All of this was pureed in my Vitamix. It filled one jar and there was some left over, which I added honey, more oil, herbs, salt and pepper to.  That will be a salad dressing.  I will use the first jar to make sauces -- I am thinking pasta with cream and butter, along with this lemon and garlic paste.  Or Greek soup. While I could've just used the zest and juice, I wanted the extra flavor and fiber from the flesh of the fruit.  The skins fed Dark Helmet (our big composter)!

In addition to all this, I vacuumed and mopped downstairs. I also vacuumed our stairs -- not fun! But they get a lot of traffic.  Frankie needed a walk -- even though it was cold, windy and gray.  She got a shortened outing yesterday on account of the weather, so she needed a normal walk.  I also trimmed between the pads on two of her feet. I'm getting ready to do another full groom on Friday or Saturday in preparation for Easter. I hope to work on her other feet tomorrow.

Dinner was leftover chili from two nights ago.  It was even spicier this time around -- and I cleared one more container out of the refrigerator. 

While I would have liked to get more sewing done, I never would have accomplished the other stuff.  I certainly hadn't planned on my lemon and garlic adventure -- but perishables should not be left to rot! Have you ever grinded garlic or onion skins?