Whole Wheat Buttermilk Biscuits

I made wheat biscuits this morning to eat with strawberry preserves ;).

Let me give you my *secret* recipe.

1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup unbleached all purpose flour
4 teas of baking powder
3 tbl of sugar
1/2 teas kosher salt

1 1/2 sticks of butter (or a little less)

1 egg + buttermilk to fill up 1 cup.
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1.) Turn on oven to 450

2.) Mix dry ingredients

3.) Cut in cold butter (the easiest way to do this is cut the butter in to about 1 inch pieces then mix in)

4.) Crack egg into liquid measuring cup.

5.) Pour in milk till volume of milk and egg equals one cup

6.) Stir milk and egg very well.

7.) Slowly stir in milk and egg until you get the correct consistency: wet, but not sticky. You will also have to use your hand to knead. *This is the most difficult step - as you want to make sure your mixture is well-mixed - but not over kneaded.* Also, you should still have chunks of butter in your biscuits.

8.) Flatten dough, cut out biscuits, and put on baking sheet. *If I am being fancy - I will flatten out the dough to be thinner than usual and cut out two pieces for each biscuit and layer them.

9.)Brush the tops with the remainder of your milk/egg mixture.

10.) Bake for 9-10 minutes.

11.) Slather with jam or honey or maple syrup. Share with family ;)

NOTE: This recipe is more than my family of 3 can eat in one breakfast - so I usually just save them in the fridge and re-warm them in the toaster over over the next few days.

How to make Strawberry Jam...well preserves

1.) Go strawberry picking EARLY in the season. (Don't wait like us and go the very last week of the season!)

It took us forever to get just 5lbs of strawberries!

2.) Do not take your two year old son. Well, at least not MY 2 year old son.
He got annoyed about 20 minutes after being there.

3.) Pick as much as you can.
4.) Take off all the stems and clean your strawberries really well.
5.) Soak your strawberries in sugar overnight. (~9 cups of strawberries to 6 cups of sugar).

6.) Cook your strawberry/sugar mixture on high. When it starts to boil, turn your temp down to about medium low and turn on a timer for 20 minutes.
*start heating up water in a very large pot *

7.) Also, your strawberries may start foaming up. Add about a tablespoon or two of butter and the foam should calm down.

7.) Stir for the entire 20 min.

8.) Put mixture into clean glass mason jars and tighten the tops on them. Boil the jars for at least 10 min - in the very large pot you started in step 6. (make sure the water in the pot will cover the entire jar.)

9.) Take jars out and let them 'pop'. If they don't pop - refrigerate and use within 3 weeks. I have never had a jar to not pop - even when I reuse tops - which is not recommended!

10.) Give away to family and friends and enjoy the wonderful compliments! Don't forget to keep a jar or two for yourself!

Update:
Note: To keep your strawberries as bright as they can be, squeeze a lemon (not the seeds!) in it while it is cooking. Which as you can see, I didn't do - that is why my strawberries are fushia.

Also, if you want your preserves to have an even consistency, put your strawberries in a food processor (which I also, didn't do) - But I DID use a potato masher to mash them up a bit. :)

BLEACH-out Booty bag tutorial

So, I know that almost everyone who knows how to sew (or do anything crafty, really) knows how to convert some blue jeans into a blue jean bag by cutting out the crotch and sewing it together. Also called the booty-bag. Back when I learned out to do it, I was so stoked, I collected all types from friends, family, and goodwill.


As you can see, it got to be pretty ridiculous.

I also, got super sick of making those bags. They just all looked kinda dorky to me. Maybe it is my crafty ADD (I HATE to make the exact same thing too many times) or maybe it's because I really didn't have a standard when I was collecting jeans. Because I have actually seen some really cute booty bags - but they probably started out as cute jeans. Anyway, I found this new technique to make them look less dorky.

So, since I was going to create a tutorial on bleaching out the denim bag, I sometimes call it tie-bleaching, I may as well, start from scratch. (i.e. the jeans). Just in case there is one person out there that doesn't know how to do it, yet.

They started out as this:


Well, actually this:


Because I used the legs to make another bag. There is a tutorial for that one, too: http://sensitivesnapdragon.blogspot.com/2010/08/blue-jean-slouch-tute.html

First, turn the jeans inside out and cut the legs off all the way up to the crotch


Then I cut at the crotch in the front and the back to reduce bulking. You can go ahead and sew this back down, or wait till the very end like I do.




Sew across the bottom an turn right side out.


Make the straps. I was pretty low on leg, b/c I used it to make that other bag. So, I had to scrounge some pieces together to form some type of rectangular shape.. But was happy that I was able to use these scraps. Waste not, want not!


Fold the sides in.


Then fold together. And top stitch!


Then, I pinned the straps on positioned the way I wanted. I did NOT cut them, b/c I was scared I wouldn't have enough. I cut at the very end.


Sew the straps in a rectangular pattern to make sure they are strong.



Then, I finished the bag! Well the sewing at least.


See? Dorky.

Now grab a chunk of the bag and put a rubber band around it very tightly. Do this several times in a random pattern all over your bag. Well, it doesn't have to be random if you want your pattern to not be. I love randomness.


Then I prepared to bleach it out. Do this OUTSIDE. I did it in the bathroom several times and I think I was poisoned every time. I couldn't smell anything for 30 minutes. Even when I turned on the fan. So, please take my advice and take it outside. These are your materials.

Bleach, a cup that you will NEVER drink out of, a pitcher of water, and a bucket.

Place your bag (or skirt, or jacket, or jeans) in the bucket.


Make a bleach water mix: 1 part bleach and 4 or 5 parts water. Somtimes I use 1 part bleach and 2 parts water. This is going to depend on how bleached out you want your bag, how much dye is already in your bag, and how patient you are! (Which I am not, so I tend to use a lot more bleach than I need)


Do this several times until your bag is mostly wet. Let let it sit until it bleaches to your satisfaction. I let it sit for about 30 minutes. (this will also depend on the aforementioned factors, patience being one of them!)



The bottom is going to be more bleached than the top because it has been sitting in your mixture all this time. But that is okay. It will contribute to the randomness of the design.

If you want a less randomly bleached bag, you may want to pour the bleach water out before you let your bag sit in it.

Now, very carefully, take your bucket of bleach water and your bag to the washing machine and pour all contents inside. Put your washer on the rinse cycle. Once or twice. Leaving the rubber bands on. Then take the rubber bands off and wash with detergent. You will want to get that icky bleach smell out!

Then dry, cut the strings, including the straps that are too long. And sew up any holes that you see.




And you are DONE! A lot less, dorky, huh?

blue jean bag tutorial

So, this transformation was so super simple that I had to make a tutorial. (and I missed the deadline for the tutorial challenge on Craftster- and I was wanting to get my tutorial fix!)

So, Here is the final product:


And here is how it started out:

Okay. So, they were never MY old jeans. My husband wore them back when he thought it was cool to wear jeans 3 sizes too big.

and


I forgot who gave me this dress, but I had so much hope for it. I love bright colors and I love tie-dye but for whatever reason, this dress looks hideous on me - so hideous that I couldn't bear to put it on - even for this photo.
And please excuse my son. It was his bedtime, but he was trying to stay up and help me sew.

I had been meaning to turn it into a skirt that would fit right - but I didn't know what to do with the top part. (I hated to waste it!).

So, the first thing that I did was cut a section out of each of the legs. This will serve as the body and the strap of the bag.


Then I cut along a seam in each of the legs. I chose to leave the seam that was most noticeable because I like that look. You might want to cut at the other seam if you don't.


Then I put the two pieces right-sides together and cut out enough for a wide strap.


Then I folded over a seam for the top of the bag and pinned it, and sewed it together.


Then I sewed the strap together (right sides together). I left the ends un-sewed so that I could pull it right side out.




You may want to iron it at this point, so that it would look neater than mine.

Now, you can start working on the lining. I used the top from the dress mentioned earlier. Because I used the top part, I didn't have to sew the sides together. I just sewed the bottom and the folded top down.



It probably would have been a good idea to use the same colored thread - but I like to cut out as many steps as possible.

Then you just put your lining inside your purse, with the straps where you want them to hang and sew together! Again, you may want to use a color to match the inside for your bobbin thread and a color to match the outside for you main thread.



And that is the bag!

I added a few crocheted flowers to make the bag look less Halloween-y. But next time I will consider adding buttons.



Please let me know if you have any questions! I will be happy to answer any!

Oh, and also, you can use the rest of the jeans (the top part) to make the other kind of blue jean bag. I probably will - then bleach it out. I hate to waste .


I will do that tutorial in my next post.

Watermelon Earrings

So, a friend of mine that I am teaching to crochet wanted to learn to make circular, crocheted earrings. Because they are so commonly made, I wanted to put a little something extra to them. I made them into watermelon slices!



It is, like all of my projects, super simple. Here is the pattern: ayanared.com/Watermelon_Earrings.pdf

And the video, where I show you step-by-step.