Sewing My Garden (see what I did there?)

I am thoroughly enjoying growing plants from seed inside in our 'grow area', and I enjoy dreaming of the day when the frost will be gone, and the plants can finally move outside. I did not dream of having to spend $100 buying various large plastic pots to grow all my veggies in, so after feeling defeated with the high prices, I brushed myself off, and started thinking outside the pot, so to speak.

I found these cloth pots on Amazon, but considering how my germination rates have been amazing, and the fact that I am married to someone who refuses to throw out "extra" plants, I would need a lot of pots, and the cost would add up.  I decided I could pull the sewing machine out, and easily make my own version of these - one I'd like to call "Sew & Sow" :D

Here's my little trial version, and I think it turned out fabulously!!

To make the Sew & Sow, you need a roll of landscape/weed fabric.  I went the frugal way, and got a 1x10 meter roll at my local dollar store for $3.  The quality seems fine to me, but it is of course up to you how fancy you get with your fabric selection.  You also need some thread, scissors and a sewing machine.

My basic pot that I made for my peppers is 8"x8" and 11" deep.

Start by cutting a 17" section off your landscape fabric.  I used the whole yard width, so the piece of fabric should be 1 yard by 17 inches.

Then fold the entire thing over, so you have a piece that is 17" by 18".  Stitch both sides (marked as pink lines in image below).

You now have a very basic rectangular bag. We now need to add width to the pot, to give it that square look, and to give the base more stability. To do this, you need to fold the corner, matching the bottom of the bag, with the seam on the side. Then measure 4 inches, and mark the spot using some chalk.  I then drew a line with chalk across, to help me see where I had to stitch it together. Then use your sewing machine to stitch down the horizontal line, creating the side of the pot.  After this, you can cut off the corner.  Repeat on the other corner.

Now, depending on how tall you want your Sew and Sow pot to be, you decide how much you fold it down before making your final seam around the top of the pot.  I went with about 2 inches, but you can make as little as 1/4 inch fold if you'd like.

Now, turn it right side out, push out the corner, and your Sew & Sow pot is done :)

If you want different sizes, here's how you measure for it:

Height of the pot: Cut height x2, then add 1 inch seam allowance

Width/depth of the pot: Width + Depth +1 inch seam allowance.  

For example, the smaller pots in the bottom picture are 6"x6"x8", so I cut 13" (6+6+1) wide, and 17" (8+8+1).  When it was time to fold in the corners, measure in half the width, 3" in this case (desired width 6"/2).  Hope this helps.

I wasn't able to take a picture of the finished large one, since I just don't want to fill it up with soil until it's time for me to plant in it outside.  It looks similar to the small tester pot, but not as tall and thin, but more square in shape.

Container Gardening 101

As many of you probably know - when I do something, I generally do it at about 150%.  I think it is because I have very little patience, and so, instead of starting small, I go all in right away.  But hey - it usually works out!

Last spring I decided we should grow some of our own veggies.  Since we don't have a house and yard right now, I did it all in containers.  One problem was that I didn't do a lot of research, and our harvest was fairly pathetic.  We had a few cucumbers and tomatoes, and I made a bunch of pickles, so it was still a good start.

Well this year I will do better!!  Due to some health problems, I've spent a lot of time sitting around being fairly useless, so I've read up on everything to do with vegetable container gardening.  I am far from being an expert, but I've learned enough to see the MANY mistakes I made last year.  My excitement has been contagious though, and in the last month or so my dad has surprised me with my very own little portable greenhouse, my husband made a "castoff seedling shelter" on his desk, taking care of all the seedlings that I was going to get rid of.  It's become a bit of a contest, to see whose plants are happier ;)  Also, 2 of my good friends, and fellow "special moms" have accepted the seeds I have to share, and will also start their own vegetable gardens this year.  What a great start!!

What am I planting you ask?  A whole lot (remember that 150% thing?).  So far, I plan to grow a few types of tomatoes (yellow, red, large and small), peppers (hot and mild), cucumbers (regular and for pickles), lettuce, onions, herbs, carrots (round little ones and rainbow colored), cabbage, broccoli, and green beans.  I think that's it, but who knows what I'll suddenly need!

I plan to can and make my own homegrown tomato sauce in the fall (homegrown tomatoes and herbs), homegrown salsa, pickles and sour kraut.  My mother has promised me a food saver, so I also hope to freeze whatever veggies we don't use.

Aside from ordering some fun seeds, I haven't had to put a lot of money into my little indoor grow station.  We bought a 3 tier "greenhouse shelf" last year, and I've parked it inside with a couple of strong CFL lights.  In stead of buying pots, I've used styrofoam and Solo cups (with holes poked in them for drainage).  My seedlings seem perfectly happy growing in my cheap cups.

So far I've planted a bunch of peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers.  I've since realized that I've probably planted the cucumber seeds way too early, but we'll try to keep them happy until spring - but if they don't make it, I still have plenty of seeds to plant again.  Live and learn :)  I have also planted some herb seeds, spring onions and some lettuce.

Here's a couple of great things I've learned from asking people, watching videos and generally browsing the internet. 

1. Go Organic!

Since I am going through the trouble of growing my own food, it makes sense to not spray it down or water it with chemicals, so I have decided to be fully organic in growing all my veggies.  For now I have some store bought organic fertilizer to feed my plants with, but once they move outside, I will make "compost tea", and use that to feed my vegetables.  I am sure there will be a post about it once I get there.

2. Peppers often take a long time to germinate, while cucumbers and lettuce take no time at all.  If you were to pick something to plant first, I'd go with peppers and tomatoes, as they seem to grow a lot slower than my crazy cucumber plants.

3. Get some good quality lights - especially if you live in the north.  The sun up here is just not enough, though I am thinking seedlings in the south would be happy in a sunny window. I got 2 of these, and things have been growing well :)

4. Start off with good soil.  To make my potting soil, I got a basic bag of "potting mix", and added a brick of coco peat (shredded up pieces of coconut shells).  It makes the soil nice and fluffy, and it cost me $2.50.  I also made sure to go through with my hands and break up all the bigger lumps of soil, which left me with what felt like a luxurious soil.  When I plant them outside, I will mix this soil with compost (I'll have to buy mine), in order to give a good amount of nutrients.   The good thing about this is that I can also use the compost I buy to make the compost tea fertilizer, which means my plants will be happy, and I won't have to go to much trouble to keep them that way.  Last year I just used basic potting soil, and didn't fertilize or use compost, and the outcome was not impressive.

Here is my two shelves in my "grow area".  I added dollar-store oven-liners to reflect light, in order to make the lights I have as effective as they can be.

And last, but not least - getting my hands dirty, while learning about all things gardening has been a hidden blessing as I've gone from recovering from surgery to right now being in the process of getting a new diagnosis that explains why I've felt so badly for so long.  I've been having pain, causing me to be unable to do any of my crafts, so I was very lucky to have something else to keep me interested and occupied!!

Easy DIY toy play structures

I made these a while ago, but they are so easy and turned out so great, that they are worth sharing. As I've mentioned before, my son likes to play with very specific things. He has a bin full of "bad guys", which are actually little models used for those nerdy table top games that I found at a super cheap online store. Well, with all those bad guys and monsters, he "needed" dungeon like rooms and areas.  So I learned a bit about how the people who played such games, made their "scenery".  Turns out it was pretty easy and it cost me less than $15 :)  He's played with them for almost 2 years now (and still is), and it's a unique and cool toy, made especially for him.

Although the things I made are very fantasy/dungeon looking, I can imagine you'd easily be able to adjust the colors/style to fit whatever structures or scenery you want to make.  I am thinking a mansion for Barbie would be fun!

All you need:

Foam insulation board pink or blue kind (cost me $7 for a giant one)
Craft paint
1 or 2 random rocks
Something kind of pointy (I ended up using a black ball point pen, but keep in mind, that leaves black marks)
Dollar store craft paint brushes
Sand paper
Craft knife (the sharp kind - you'll have to cut a lot of small pieces).
Glue (I used hot glue)


First, cut a manageable piece off your insulation board.  For example, if you're making a brick wall, you need to cut your bricks out of the isolation board.  Once you have the desired amount or rocks or bricks for one wall, then start gluing them together. I glued them all on a popsicle stick to make it sturdier.

Let the glue dry.  Now you are ready for the fun part! The decorating!  This is where the rock comes in. You can take your rock, and push it into your wall, while making sure it doesn't come apart (or you could do this to individual bricks before gluing).  This will make some indents and textures - making the bricks look less perfect and more realistic.  I also used a steak-knife to cut some of the bricks, so they'd have a rougher texture.  Play around and try different things - I promise it will turn out great!

Now, the painting is my favorite part, and if you use my "tricks", it will turn out amazingly realistic looking.  First paint the rocks the base color.  For me, that was dark grey.  I basically just used the cheap craft paint from the dollar store.  I got a large white, black and brown, then mixed whatever color I wanted on a paper plate.

After the base coat is all painted and dried, you take a lighter color (light grey or white),  and get it on a cheap kid style paint brush.  Then paint a paper towel or something you don't care about, to dry the paintbrush, so only a little paint remains.  Then "dry brush", the rocks, especially on edges and indents.  It will give a nice rustic, 3 dimensional look.  If you are like me, then you mix another (lighter or darker, or maybe a bit of an earth tone - play around a bit to see) color, and dry brush again, adding another layer of  oomph.

I went through the extra trouble, and got "grass powder" from the craft store, and I put some glue on some of the rocks, and drizzled the grass powder on it, to make it look like moss.

Voila - you now have a tiny, old looking, fabulous stone fence!

 I also discovered an easy way to make great looking floors, for small castle-rooms.

Cut a piece of your insulation board, as big as you want the room to be.  Then use a ruler, or something straight, and your "something pointy" (I used a ball point pen), and draw your tiles into the board.  This will create indents, giving your tiles a 3 dimensional look.  Also feel free to use this time to draw in some cracks in the tiles if you want.  Now you can either do the base coat, then dry brush, OR you can add the accents and walls to your room, and paint it all in the end..  The method for painting the tiles is exactly the same as on the stone fence, and it's fun to play around with the colors a bit.

As you can see, I added half walls, some openings into and out of the room, and a little terrace, stairs and a fountain.  I used blue craft glue to make water, with a swirl of silver paint in it (WARNING: it takes forever to dry).

Here are some more rooms that I made:

As a final addition to Alexander's play set, I got a white poster-board at the dollar store (the kind that is 1/4 thick) to make a molten lava area, and a bigger open, broken castle room.  I made one on each side of the poster board, so he can flip it, depending on what he wants to play with at the time.

First I painted the base color of the castle room, which was black.  While it was drying, I made 3 platforms for the room out of the insulation foam, then base coated and dry brushed as explained above.  Once everything was dry, I glued them to the black side of the board.  I think this board is 2 by 3 feet.

Then I covered the other side of the board with insulation board.  After the glue was set, I started digging out rivers/channels with my knife, to create lava rivers and islands.  I also used my trusty rock from outside to push against the edge of the rivers to make it more ominous looking.  Feel free to also add cracks in the rock-sides of the rivers.  I then painted the whole board black, before dry brushing the edges with white and grey.  You can also use a sponge with charcoal grey paint and dab it all over, to make it look more like basalt rock.   After this was all dry, I used red and yellow craft paint to make rivers of lava.  Start with yellow, then put red on the edges.  Since you're using a thick layer of paint to make the river, it will take overnight to dry properly.

Voila! Lava board!  A perfect place for fighting dragons and bad guys made out of fire!

Tea Towel Time!

I have spent the last 6 weeks (not successfully) recovering from surgery, so last week I decided to that even if I am not able to do much, I could be productive in the sewing department.  So I went to the storage room and dusted off my sewing machine.  It turns out that I had an enormous bag full of fabric, and so my goal became to use them up (at least mostly) before I allowed myself to buy any more.

What is a great use of a variety of random fabric you ask?  Tea towels... lots and lots of tea towels!!  I also added some matching wash cloths and reversible coasters to some of the sets.

To make my tea towels, I cut a rectangle 16.5" x  21.5".

My trick is that I use an erasable fabric marker, so I use it to draw lines where I need to sew, so my towels all turn out as almost perfect rectangles, and they are all the same(ish) size.

If you like it visual like me, then add lines on the BACK of the fabric, showing you where you need to fold it. This line will be inside the hem, so as long as it's not too bright, no one will ever see it.

Sew along the fold, until you have a slightly smaller rectangle.

Now, do the exact same thing again.  This makes you create a double hem on your towel, so the ends  of the fabric is completely hidden, and it just looks best this way.  Here is a tutorial with pictures to better explain how to do a double hem.  It is exactly the same as on a towel, with only a difference in size.

Eco-friendly Snack Bags

As most parents of young children, I often carry various snacks with me when we go places, and I have wasted more money and plastic than I care to think about, when sending snacks and lunches to school with my son.  I decided I should make something more durable, nicer looking and more user friendly, so I got some fabric, velcro and lining and went to work!  I used a thin vinyl lining to be able to use the bags for fruits and veggies too.  I think they would be just fine with cotton lining as well, since they are washable.

I used this wonderful tutorial, and I think they turned out great!!

Baby and Doll Quilt

Back when I found out that one of my best friends was having a little girl, I got to work and made her a quilt for her crib. At the time, I knew a little girl here locally who loved her baby dolls, so I used the leftover fabric to make a tiny doll quilt and matching pillow. The quilt is very basic, as I'm no experienced quilter. I got cute, pre-paneled fabric, learned how to bind it properly, and quilted star shapes into the blanket with my sewing machine. I think it turned out great for my very first quilt!!

And here's the project from the scraps and leftovers.  The can of Diet Coke was used to show the size.  I made a basic tiny pillow, then made a real (just small) pillow case for it that matched the doll quilt.  That way, she could get more pillow cases and "change the bed" of her doll. :)