All Posts by Suzanne Cox

Crazy Cat Quilt by Buggy Barn

Near as I can figure, it was 3 and 1/2 years ago that my sister invited me to attend a Quilt Show with her. I invited my mother-in-law along and we made a day of it. So many quilts to see but my eyes landed on one in particular.
The Crazy Cat Quilt by Buggy Barn. The lady who made the quilt was deaf yet she still communicated with us. Her quilt just stood out above all the others! The color scheme was perfect and the cute fabrics she choose fit in with the cat theme. I was inspired! I wanted to have that quilt and I knew the only way I was going to get it would be to make it myself.

My mother-in-law bought the pattern book from Buggy Barn and gifted it to me for my next birthday. I needed the perfect fabric though. I knew that I had fallen in love with the quilt because the fabrics were put together so well. We shopped and shopped. Nothing appealed to me. And so the quilt went on the back burner for the first of several times.

One day I realized I had several fat quarters that I loved sitting in the cupboard. They were all from the same line and matched the color scheme I had envisioned. And so it began…on December 4th, 2014, the cats were cut and over the next several months, I pieced them together. They went under the bed to rest on several occassions.

When they were finished, I had to go to the store to buy fabric for the flowers. Craft Warehouse had just the fabric. I had been feeling like my colors were too dull. The fabrics for the flowers really brightened things up nicely!

With the quilt blocks all finished and pieced together, I had finished the most enjoyable part of the project. The thought of quilting the thing intimidated me. I had only done little baby quilts up to this point. And only the jig saw puzzle stitching. Trying to make a decision for designs to quilt on here baffled me. And, I hadn’t found a backing fabric I liked yet. On the back burner it goes again.

My mother-in-law asked about the quilt from time to time which reminded me I wanted to finish it up. I searched Pinterest high and low for backing fabric. I fell in love with this one fabric from Red Rooster so much so I just had to have it! My quilt would not be complete without that fabric! After hours of searching the internet I learned that it was an old pattern, no longer being printed or sold. Ugh! I knew I couldn’t find fabric I loved as much as that. One day when my mother-in-law was over I showed her the fabric on pinterest. I had given up hope of being able to have that fabric. But she went home and got busy! Next thing I knew she was calling me on the phone saying “I found you’re fabric! It’s at a quilt shop in Nebraska!! They’ve got 5 yards, how much did you want?” Dumb founded I said “Buy it all!!……how in the world di you find it!?” I guess a quilt lady knows what to look for just as a musician knows how to find that certain sheet music they’re after. I still couldn’t believe it. We both half expected to get an email notice that they had made an inventory error and actually did not have the fabric afterall. But it showed up in the mail! Now this was motivation!! I set out to FINISH that quilt.

We won’t mention how long it took me, but finish it I did!! This is quite an accomplishment for a girl like me. Sewing is totally not my thing….until I want something specific. Something I can only make myself.

Trying Crab for the First Time

It was after a surprise date Jonathan planned for us last Thanksgiving that I decided it was important for me to try new things more often! Being able to say “I’ve never done that” or “I’ve never tasted that” or “I’ve never been there” used to make me proud. Now it makes me step back and think, “is there a reason I haven’t done that?” If there isn’t anything wrong with doing it, then I’d rather choose a fuller life and experience everything I can in the time I have in this world.

8 pounds of Dungeness Crab

A few weeks back, my co-op did a buy on Dungeness Crab. Having heard Jonathan say he liked crab, I decided it was an opportunity for me to try something new! I went ahead and ordered 8lbs of live crab, thinking that would be plenty. I recently started a new fitness program and diet plan, so I was glad for a little variety in the protein department as well.

When I picked up my order, I was surprised to find out I was going to have to crack the meat out of the shells myself. I still can’t believe Crab is often served in that form; cooked, but whole. The thought of having those pinchers sitting on my plate, and the long jointed legs sprawled across the dish is completely un-appetizing in EVERY way!

A Crabby Job

It took Jonathan and I nearly an hour of working together to tediously crack those crabs apart and pull the delicate meat from the crevices. What a job! Kitty Macchiato was fascinated with the new scent in the house and wanted to jump up on the counter and participate in this new experience. She was thrilled when we occasionally spilled a bite on the floor.

I was a little devastated when we finished our work and only had a small pile of meat ready for cooking/eating. Jonathan pulled out my food scale and we discovered there was only a measly little 3lbs of edible meat from 8 lbs of live crab! This nearly tripled my $ per pound that I had paid for the meat. Now I understand that I did get a good deal, but I don’t think I would have paid that price had I understood just how little food I was actually going to end up with in the end!

The Taste Test

The next day, I surfed the internet a bit looking at different crab recipes. I finally settled on a crab salad recipe with raving reviews. We both agreed it sounded better than crab cakes or quiche, so I mixed the ingredients together and we sat down to a lunch of crab salad, crackers, and cheese.

Now, the texture wasn’t unbearable….but I can’t say I liked it! The flavors left much to be desired. While we were eating it, Jonathan mentioned that he thought it should have a bit more punch in the way of spice, perhaps some salsa or something. The next day, I decided to see if salsa would help it out at all. We had crab salad, lettuce, and salsa roll ups for lunch the next day. This was a huge improvement to plain crab salad on crackers and I actually kind of enjoyed the new flavors in that way.

Over all, I think it’s important to note that crab is a side dish, not a main course! It is typically served as an appetizer or hors d’oeuvre. Crab is a delicacy, both in how much you want to eat at a time, and in price for sure! I don’t think I’ll be splurging on that again anytime soon!! I should have trusted my instincts that said “I don’t like crab” even though I had never tasted it”. LOL!

Check. I have officially tasted crab.

What’s your favorite shell fish? Tasty way to prepare crab meat? Let me know in the comments. I do still have 2lbs of crab meat in the freezer that I need to use sometime!

Goals for a Beautiful 2017

As I looked back over 2016, I was surprised to see the progress we made on many of our goals. Trying not to be overly ambitious, I had made a Pinterest Board last year with a handful of things I wanted to improve. These were not “To-Do” items, or big dreams. They were just simple every day things I wanted to be conscious of to improv my lifestlye. I called them “Happy Goals”.

My husband is not such a fan of checklists as I am, and tends to keep most of his ideas in his mind. Sometimes I feel like we can’t get on the same page this way. However, more often than not, due to every day decisions and conversations, our goals line up better than I could have imagined.

One of my favorite bloggers, Unveiled Wife, made a post in late December suggesting that you and your husband make a date night out of a Goal Setting Session for 2017. I knew this wouldn’t work for us. It’s just not how we roll! So instead of trying to get my hubby to do something I knew he wouldn’t want to do, I set about my own goal setting for my life in perspective of our life and where I already knew his values and ideals were set.

I never expected him to “set goals”, I just did it for me, knowing I needed to have these things written down in order to actively try to improve myself. About 2 weeks after I finished ironing out my ambitions for the year, he shocked my socks off by presenting me with a life balance wheel he had drawn up, colored, and written all over stating that he wanted to work towards that kind of lifestyle. As I read each item or inspirational quote, I recognized that the goals I had written out and these items he had listed were all part of the same big picture and we were both headed in the same direction!

And so I must encourage you, don’t feel like you have to do everything like other couples or people do. Find what works for you. Through our day to day life, conversations here and there, and efforts on both sides, my husband and I wound up at the same conclusions and goals, without specifically talking about them together. We did talk about them, as we talked and lived life together.

This year, I decided I wanted to make life more beautiful in 2017. More joy, healthier lifestyle, contentment, more trust, and more adventure. A full and intentional life. Instead of saying I want to accomplish this big thing, I am saying I am going to keep putting intentional effort forward. Now yes, I do have some big things in mind, but I’m not setting them fast in stone, because I have already seen how much room there needs to be for flexibility in life. Even so, if we don’t move in a direction, we will never get anywhere.

I grabbed The Everyday Planner by Nina Hendrick to use as my daily planner. I record everything in my planner. My schedule, to do lists, goals, dreams, thoughts, notes…literally everything. It is my everything in one place mind dump! I can’t clear my head and move on until I write things down.

The Everyday Planner has a few pages dedicated to goal planning at the beginning of the year. It took me a good 3 weeks to think about things, write notes, and organize what I wanted to strive for in 2017 and then another week or so to write my goals into the planner throughout the year. Nina Hendrick has a special page each month to write your big goals for the month as well which I really appreciate. These reminders as the year goes along will help me stay on track. Each day includes 3 lines for your main goals for the day as well. One thing I am trying to do in 2017 is to plan my weeks and this helps me out a lot.

My big picture mission for 2017 is to get in shape, become more emotionally stable, put my home and role as a wife first, create passive income with work that I enjoy, be more adventurous, do more creative projects, and live more independently than we are now. Yes, I have some specifics in there, but I think it’s important not to set yourself up for failure when life takes a sharp turn in a new direction. The goals I am stating here are general and strive for a fuller lifestyle. Whether we end up in a farmhouse fixer upper on 20 acres (which would be AWESOME), or with a tiny home by the beach, these big picture items remain the same and leave room for that necessary flexibility in life.

What is your big picture mission for 2017? A lot of people were talking about their “one word” or “phrase” for 2017. I thought they were being kinda silly, but once I got all my thoughts organized, I found that this phrase pretty much sums up my goals for 2017:

“Live more out of intent”

Soap with On Guard

I was inspired to make my own bar soap a long time ago. Rumors about Lye always scared me away. I started seeing recipes for “Homemade soap without Lye” so I looked into that. This is usually Castile soap. I attended a Farmers Market in a nearby town and met a lady who made all types of soap, including Liquid Castile Soap. I purchased her last bottle of this soap and started talking to her about soap making. She couldn’t over emphasize how easy it was, saying she used to be afraid of using lye too, but it isn’t as bad as people make it sound. She admitted that she has gotten pretty relaxed while using it and actually wears shorts and flip flops while making her soaps! Then she showed me a couple minor burns she had gotten from the Lye. I’m not sure WHY exactly, but somehow that helped me overcome my fear of lye. Seeing first hand what a burn from lye looks like, and talking to someone who had actually used it and gotten comfortable using it helped me face this fear.

coming up with a recipe

The Castile Soap left much to be desired, in my opinion. I didn’t feel like it was a good degreaser and I didn’t like how it smelled. So I started researching homemade soap making. After tons of reading, Pinterest, and YouTube videos, I finally felt knowledgable enough to make my own soap. The first time took me 5 hours from start to finish as I was carefully reading and re-reading my directions to be SURE I got everything exactly right. I followed the cold processing method from The King’s Roost for my first batch: Basic Cold Process Soap Making.

This time around I decided to use some Shea Butter I had leftover from when I made Lotion Bars and Chapstick with my sister. After sifting through several recipes, I decided to modify the Lots of Lather recipe for a really hard bar of soap from The Soap Queen. Using this Lye Calculator, I put in the amounts for the different types of fats I had so that I could safely calculate exactly how much Lye I should be using.

a few words about lye

Lye is poisonous and should be handled with care. It can burn you easily, so it is important to do some research so you know what you are dealing with. I recommend covering your skin and eyes with protective gear before you bring out the lye. Also keep it away from food and drink. I keep my soap making pot, containers, and utensils separate from my regular cooking dishes.

KOH Flakes for Liquid Soap

When making hard bar soap, you want to use Sodium Hydroxide (NaOH). For soft liquid soap, you would use Potassium Hydroxide (KOH). It is important to know which type of Lye you are using because each will be calculated a little differently depending on the fats you are using. It is also important to weigh your fats and lye using ounces or even grams for a precise measurement.

Sodium Hydroxide for hard soap

No matter how many times I have read it, I still re-read it every time I am making soap. Always add lye to WATER (Never water to lye!) 

It’s helpful to know that Vinegar deactivates Lye. So if you accidentally get some lye on your skin while you’re working, have a spray bottle of vinegar handy and squirt it immediately! This was very comforting to know the first time I made soap!! You will also use the vinegar to spray down your work surface, and mixing containers/utensils.

measure your soap ingredients into a large pot

With my special soap making pot ready to go, I measured my fats and lye using my digital food scale from Portland’s Kitchen Kaboodle store. It is recommended to measure in grams, though I went ahead and measured in ounces for this recipe.

Somehow we missed the picture of 7 ounces of Castor Oil as well. After carefully measuring these, they were combined in my shiny red pot and moved to the stove to heat to 100 – 120 degrees. In the mean time, I used my special lye containers to measure the lye and water and then mix them together adding the lye to the water and NOT the other way around. Adding the water to the lye can cause a sudden, and dangerous reaction.

gearing up before working with lye

Before I touch or open the bottle of lye, I cover as much of my skin and eyes as possible. Yes, those are ski googles. 🙂 They make great protective eye wear! Gloves, long sleeves, long pants, shoes…if you can cover it, do so. I know I’m not very excited about getting burned by a stray piece of lye!

With the lye and ice water measured according to the recipe, I carry them outside before combining them as they create a toxic vapor that is not best to breathe. You should mix your lye into the water either outside or in a well ventilated area such as under the hood vent on your stove. I prefer to keep it simple and do it outside.

The lye will quickly dissolve in the water and heat up rather quickly. I was surprised by this the first time I made soap. I knew there would be some kind of a chemical reaction but I didn’t know exactly what to expect.

While the lye is dissolving in the water, I melt the oils together over medium heat. You want to get the oils between 100 – 120 degrees. I like it to be at about 112 – 116 degrees. Once the oil gets hot, it climbs in temperature fast so keep a close eye on it. If you are using a gas stove, like the one I have at home, when you turn the burner off, the heat is off. But when using an electric stove (Like I used this time at my MIL’s house), you need to take the pot off the burner in order to get it to stop raising in temperature, even if you turned the burner off.

time to add the lye to the oils

At this point, I am ready to combine the lye mixture with the oils. I always get a little nervous of splashing at this point. I am still wearing all my protective gear as well. The bowls I use to mix the lye with the water are small enough that I am able to lower the lye down inside my soap making pot before pouring.

You want to stir as you pour and get it all mixed up evenly. Next you are going to use an emersion blender to mix the soap until you get what’s called “trace”. The first time I made soap I didn’t own an emersion blender. I read that you could just stir it by hand, or mix it with a regular mixer, or use a drill with a mixer inserted…(yes, I tried that)…or just go buy an emersion blender already! LOL. You have no idea how long it took me to get trace that first time I made soap! Probably part of the reason it took me over 5 hours to make my batch of soap. One of my husbands favorite things to say is, if you’re going to do something, you’ve got to have the right tools for the job. And he is right! It is worth it to get one of these stick blenders!

understanding trace

So what is all this soap talk about trace? Well, it’s basically the point where the lye and oils are fully blended and truly turned into soap. You will notice the color of the soap mixture change from a darker liquid to a more lemony pudding that is thick. You’ve reached trace as soon as you can stop the blender, stir the mixture and leave a “trace” as you lift the blender out of the pot. Here are a few pictures to show you what I’m talking about.

I’m always tempted to over blend and make it too thick. I’ve learned not to stress over it too much, it is really obvious once you have reached trace. It is at this point that I usually add whatever essential oils I will be using. I wait until the lye is mixed in and activated with the oils to make soap before adding essential oils. Because the lye is so hot when I first combine them, I don’t want to just burn up all the natural goodness of the essential oils. So I usually add about 30 drops of each oil I want to use, and then blend it just a little bit more to make sure the essential oils are mixed in evenly.

why I chose On Guard

What do you use soap for? Cleaning dirty things off your hands, right? Germs, dirt, etc. Well, On Guard is a great anti bacterial oil so I really liked the idea of getting a little dose of On Guard goodness EVERY time I wash my hands. I work with kids during the week and am often reaching for the On Guard after a full day, just to give my immune system a boost and avoid getting sick.

I also love the citrus scent of On Guard! It is so fresh. However, I was pretty disappointed with this batch of soap because I can’t smell the On Guard AT ALL in the finished product. 🙁 I may not have put enough in for it to be noticeable. But I’m still hoping that it’s enough to add the anti bacterial effect!

pouring the soap into molds

Ahh, finally! It’s time to use those super cute soap molds!! I did make a fairly small batch of soap this time, but I still didn’t have quite enough soap molds for all of my soap mixture. So I just used a couple old ziplock freezer containers and they worked great!

My favorite of these soap molds is my silicone soap mold. I’m a huge fan of silicone to start with (I love how it feels and I think it’s amazing stuff!), and the soap came out of this mold SO easily! The other mold I have here is made of stiff plastic and I had a terrible time getting those bars of soap to come back out of there in one piece. The ziplock containers were easy enough, I just loosened the soap around the edges with a knife, and the chunk of soap came right out. Then I cut the brick into 4 even bars.

an attempt to dye my soap

One of these days I’m going to figure out how to dye my soap naturally! I know there are kits out there with dye, and there is always the regular food dye, but it is full of chemicals. This time I spent a pretty penny for some natural food coloring from Whole Foods. It did blend in, but I combined blue and red with the already yellow soap mixture and ended up only achieving a darker yellowish brown. Let me know in the comments if you have any dye ideas for me to try in my next batch of soap! I’d love to hear your ideas!!

Well, there you have it folks. Another batch of soap made of simple, wholesome ingredients. Here are a couple more pictures to conclude the process. You can see the darker, food colored soap in the picture below on the left.

How to Fix a Zipper with Broken Teeth

Flannel is oh so cozy in winter, wouldn’t you agree? About two years ago, my husband splurged on me and bought me a pair of Carhartt Flannel lined jeans. I was so thrilled with how warm they were. I’ve never gotten used to wearing leggings, though I’m starting to venture down that road now. Just as I was getting used to my warm cozy jeans, after only 2 weeks of wearing them, the zipper broke! Since it was my fault the zipper broke, I didn’t feel right returning them to the store. I also didn’t feel right about throwing out a $60 pair of brand new jeans!! So I tossed them in the mending pile thinking I’d figure out how to fix them in the near future.

Around my house, things can stay in the mending pile for quite some time! In this case, my flannel jeans had to wait about 2 years before they were rescued! I pulled them out a couple times, to ask sewing advise from my MIL, or to try and come up with a solution. They always ended up back in the mending pile.

Last week, as the weather turned very cold, I decided it was time. I was either going to fix those jeans, or send them on their way, and I was really hoping for the prior!

What was the trouble? Two teeth had broken off the zipper, about an inch up from the bottom and the zipper pull was now only attached on one side.

Before diving in and doing anything too crazy…(I had thoughts of making the fly button instead of zipping)…I decided to do some research online. After finding just a couple people with a similar problem, and reading their solution, I felt confident to tackle this jeans repair.

Step 1 – Encouraging the Zipper Pull off the chain.

First thing to do was get the zipper pull OFF the pants. This proved easier than I was expecting because there was no stopper at the top of the left side of the chain. Lucky for me! One less step. Normally you would find a stopper (pictured right) on both sides of the zipper tape.

There are a couple things you can do to encourage the zipper pull off the chain.

• Use pliers to open one side of the mouth of the zipper pull
• Loosen a few stitches in the hem with a seam ripper
• Take a couple of the teeth off the top, with the intention of putting the stoppers back on just a little lower.

Step 2 – Taking the Stopper off

Next I had to remove the stopper from the right side of the zipper chain. Quite the little challenge! You need to bend the stopper a little to open it up.

After having played around with this, I now know that the best thing to do is place the stopper upright (U shape) in the mouth of the pliers and gently squeeze to widen the opening. Then it will slip right off the zipper tape.

Be careful not to damage the fabric around the stopper. If you pull at it or work too roughly with the pliers, you can weaken the fabric and loosen the weave which would make your zipper floppy.

Step 3 – Putting the teeth back together

With the zipper pull and the stopper removed, I proceeded to carefully piece the teeth of the zipper back together manually. This was also a frustrating task because, try as I might, keeping these together while playing around with the fabric, stitching, etc., was nearly impossible. I had to re-do this step at least 5 times before my repair job was completed. (Yes, my thumbs were feeling very sore and irritated by the time I was done.)

All this practice taught me the easiest way to push the teeth back together is to lay the zipper on a hard surface. The arm of a sewing machine proved very useful in this case. That is, in fact, the only thing my sewing machine ended up being useful for in this project.

Stack the two sides of the zipper on top of each other, overlapping almost too much, and then press them firmly together with your thumb.

Step 4 – Sew heavily to create new bottom stopper

To ensure I didn’t loose all the effort I just put in “zipping” the two sides together, I went ahead and created my new bottom stopper just above the broken teeth. Yes, this means loosing an inch of space in the zipper. This is unfortunate since woman’s jeans don’t really leave much room to spare, but to me it was a much better alternative than giving up on this lovely new pair of jeans.

My first attempt was to do this with my sewing machine. I’m not a big fan of hand sewing! I can cross stitch all day long, but somehow hand sewing is a different story. But this mending project required a good old fashioned needle and thread and some strong stitching. Back and forth repeatedly and making sure to stitch wide enough that the zipper wouldn’t just slide over the top of it.

(If I was to do this project again, I would go ahead and purchase a new bottom stop like pictured and linked above.)

Step 5 – Working the zipper pull back onto the chain.

With the zipper “zipped” back together and secured above the missing teeth, I started working the zipper pull back onto the chain. This time I really thought I was going to need to do some seam ripping to make room above the teeth to work the pull back onto the tape. But the more I fiddled with it and thought about, I decided that if I had gotten the zipper pull off without removing any stitching, I should be able to get it back on the same way.

Unfortunately I had to allow the zipper to pull back apart so that I had room to work the pull onto the left side. Better than using a seam ripper though! After bending the fabrics out of the way as much as I could, I somewhat forcefully worked the zipper back on to one side.

With it back on one side, I pressed the zipper back together once again, and then prayed I could get that zipper pull to grab the other side and connect back to normal. It is very tight, no room to work, and just takes a whole basket of patience!! Keeping the teeth together I just kept playing with it until it finally slipped into place. Hooray!

At this point I knew my jeans would be in working order shortly!

Step 6 – Putting the stopper back on

Don’t drop this itty bitty stopper on the floor! (I did it twice…) Simply put the stopper back in place above the zipper teeth, and gently squeeze it together with the pliers. This keeps the zipper pull from coming off the top of the chain. It should tightly clamp onto the fabric at the top of the zipper. If you have a hard time getting it back on, you may need to open the mouth up even more than needed to remove it.

This project took me about an hour from start to finish, pliers, scissors, needle and thread, and a whole lot of PATIENCE! But I am so thrilled to have my Carhartt flannel jeans fixed and ready to wear.

What kind of zipper troubles have you run into? How did you fix them? I’d love to hear your zipper solutions in the comments!

Suzie’s Pumpkin Pie

In my world, pie always wins over cake. My husband and I share the same favorite pie, Pumpkin. When we were newly married, we only liked Libby’s Pumpkin Pie. All other brands, and all homemade pumpkin pies were not to be compared to Libby’s. Click to continue reading