Homemaking on the Homestead

I use to have a clothesline and loved hanging my laundry out. I made a simple little bag to hold my clothes pins. You don't need a lot of sewing skills for this fast easy project!  Make a Simple Clothes Pin Bag for your Clothes Line! Summertime is time to hang out the laundry! I love my clothesline but was always struggling with how to deal with the clothes pins. Well I have solved that problem and want to pass this on to all you clothes line ladies!!   This is a VERY simple project to make! If you don’t sew, do not despair because you can hand stitch this one! Supplies: 1 child’s size button up the front shirt,  about size 2T or 3T 1 coat hanger Thread to match the fabric Lay the shirt on the table and button up the front of the shirt. Turn the shirt inside out and sew the bottom of the shirt closed. Turn the shirt right side out and unbutton the first few buttons at the top. Now you have a little ba...

This time of year always seems to make me want to pull out my sewing machine and make something. I have a few things floating around in my head that I'd like to make soon. A common step in sewing is gathering fabric. Thanks to a good friend of mine I learned how to do this very easily several years ago. I thought I'd post this tutorial for anyone out there who may be doing a little fall sewing. Maybe it will help! The traditional method of gathering fabric has you sew a large strait basting stitch across the fabric and then pull the bobbin side to gather in the fabric. What would always happen to me is the bobbin threads would break or the task was just painfully time consuming.  I learned this trick a few years ago from a friend of mine. You will need some cotton crochet thread: Set your sewing machine to a large size zig-zag setting with a long stitch length.   Set your presser food on the very edge of the fabric and put the croch...

If you're looking for a simple sewing project that will add some nice decoration to your home, this easy table runner may be the project for you! What I really love about it is that it can be done so quickly and the end result can add a lot to your home. It requires only 2 pieces of fabric, a ½ yard and a 1/3 yard.. that is it. If you sew regularly you may even have that already in your fabric stash. Here are a couple that I've made... What I like is that you can make several of them for the different seasons or holidays. The video below shows you how it is done.  

I posted this idea a few years ago..  but it is so easy and so quick to make..  and is darn cute!!  Just thought I'd share it again!!   Christmas is fast approaching! If you’re in need of a quick gift idea this dish towel apron may be just the project. It requires basic sewing skills and goes together very quickly. Using dish towels means no raw edges to think about!! :) You will need 2 cotton dish towels that coordinate and some ½ or 1 inch twill tape. I purchased my dish towels at Target. I got 5 in a package and the cost was $10. You will use 2 for the apron. I figured $4 an apron was pretty good (plus the cost of the twill tape, I had some on hand already). For my pack of 5 dish towels I got 2 aprons and an extra towel for my kitchen, or it could be put in a gift basket along with the apron. You can find detailed instructions for the apron on this site: http://thepickledweasel.blogspot.com/2009/11/christmas-making-tea-towel-apron.html ...

I've posted about this over the years, so it's not anything new or revolutionary.. but it is economical and I'm still doing it. Several years back (like 15+ years) I was looking at several pieces of material that I wanted to use up. I decided making cloth napkins from it would be worth a try (the fabric was 100% cotton). So I pulled out my serger and figured out measurements and whipped up a few dozen. Over the years they have worn out, gotten lost (who knows where, I suspect with all the lost socks from years past!! Ha, ha!) and a few have found their way into the pockets of my kids and taken home as many have said to me.. oh yeah, I found a couple at my house! LOL.. So every now and again I need to make more. I have saved so much money with my humble little cloth napkins. Washing them and reusing them saves on garbage as well. Not too long ago I decided it was time to make more. I had fabric needing to be used and made another 3 dozen.     ...

I've been meaning to write a blog post for a bit now on the quilts I made my granddaughters for Christmas. I wanted so much to post about them while I was making them.. but I know my daughter reads my blog and I wanted them to be a surprise. These quilts were so fun to make!! If you are not familiar with jelly roll quilts I'll share. You begin making this quilt by buying a jelly roll. This is 40 strips of fabric that are 2 ½ inches wide and about 44 inches long. The fabric in each jelly roll typically comes from one line of fabric. This is a huge plus because it means that all the colors in the quilt will coordinate. Here is a pic of the jelly roll I bought for my granddaughters quilts (I bought 2 jelly rolls.. one for each quilt)... I wanted a bright fun girlie print. This is a link to the fabric I chose: https://www.missouriquiltco.com/shop/detail/20547/riley-blake/samantha-walker/girl-crazy-rolie-polie I also bought extra fabric so I could add a border...

I posted this idea a few years ago..  but it is so easy and so quick to make..  and is darn cute!!  Just thought I'd share it again!!   Christmas is fast approaching! If you’re in need of a quick gift idea this dish towel apron may be just the project. It requires basic sewing skills and goes together very quickly. Using dish towels means no raw edges to think about!! :) You will need 2 cotton dish towels that coordinate and some ½ or 1 inch twill tape. I purchased my dish towels at Target. I got 5 in a package and the cost was $10. You will use 2 for the apron. I figured $4 an apron was pretty good (plus the cost of the twill tape, I had some on hand already). For my pack of 5 dish towels I got 2 aprons and an extra towel for my kitchen, or it could be put in a gift basket along with the apron. You can find detailed instructions for the apron on this site: http://thepickledweasel.blogspot.com/2009/11/christmas-making-tea-towel-apron.html ...

Christmas is fast approaching! If you’re in need of a quick gift idea this dish towel apron may be just the project. It requires basic sewing skills and goes together very quickly. Using dish towels means no raw edges to think about!! :) You will need 2 cotton dish towels that coordinate and some ½ or 1 inch twill tape. I purchased my dish towels at Target. I got 5 in a package and the cost was $10. You will use 2 for the apron. I figured $4 an apron was pretty good (plus the cost of the twill tape, I had some on hand already). For my pack of 5 dish towels I got 2 aprons and an extra towel for my kitchen, or it could be put in a gift basket along with the apron. You can find detailed instructions for the apron on this site: http://thepickledweasel.blogspot.com/2009/11/christmas-making-tea-towel-apron.html   Lay out your towels… Sew them together….   Use the twill tape for the neck and ties… And you are done…  

Green Beans Early this week I was weeding and watering my garden and realized that my green beans were ready for their first picking. On Wednesday my boys and I went down to the garden in the morning and did our first picking. I was really shocked at how much I got! I have one row planted (a pretty long row at that).. and here is what we had after I got them all washed up and ready to be snapped… My husbands request every year is 3 Bean Salad ( http://www.thefamilyhomestead.com/3beansalad.htm ). He loves it, and so do I. My kids are not crazy about it, but that just means more for him and me! LOL.. Before going down to the garden to pick beans I got my red beans and garbonzo beans cooked up and all my veggies prepared. Then Sierra and Isaac and I put on some zippy music and sat down to start snapping the beans. When that was done I made up the 3 bean salad. I ended up with 12 quarts of it. I still had tons of beans left so I canned up those too.. and ended up...